The key areas of development for frontline employees you shouldn’t ignore (with examples)
Employee development is crucial for sales success and should constantly be worked on to ensure your employees are hitting their maximum potential in the workplace. But what are the key areas of development for employees that you should be focusing on?
There are particular areas of development which will vary between business to business, however, there is a general set of universal skills and traits which all employees should develop no matter which company they work for or which industry they work within.
In this article, we are going to outline what these areas of development are, with relevant examples so you get an understanding of which areas of development you should be focusing on for your customer facing sales team.
Developing these more general skills will work as a fantastic base to build strong, competent and talented individuals. When you have a highly competent workforce you will notice that the pace of work and your quality of performance will improve and as a result of this, you will see increased revenue. Not only will your workplace benefit but your employees will feel more empowered and confident too. In fact, 74% of employees don’t believe that they are reaching their full potential at work so building up these key areas, will do wonders for boosting their morale at work.
Key area of development - leadership skills
We all want a workforce that is made up of confident and empowered people that use their own initiative and constantly strive to do the best work possible. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case and it isn’t always through the fault of the employees. Perhaps you foster a nanny culture at work where you handhold all of your employees through what they need to get done. Or maybe you micromanage your employees all the time which leaves no room for employees to think on their own. When you continue these ways of working, you will eventually end up with a team of employees who struggle to get on with work or challenges when you are not around. This is disastrous for performance and it really slows your operations down.
Give ownership and make them accountable
To develop leadership skills in your employees you need to give them ownership of certain areas in their work. You can do this by putting them in charge of certain tasks. For example, rather than just having lots of sales assistants on the shop floor all in charge of the same duties such as cleaning the shelves, talking to customers, putting stock away and organising the stockroom. Make each employee the leader of one specific area and give them the freedom to make the final decisions with regards to that area. If anyone has questions or queries or needs help they should go to the appointed leader of that particular area.
By doing this and making that person accountable for any failures or mistakes you push your employees to perform better and to think for themselves rather than constantly relying on someone else. This will make them feel more confident and more respected as a valued member of the team rather than just another cog in the wheel.
Allow your employees to struggle
As we mentioned previously, hand holding your employees will never give them the leadership qualities which they need to succeed. When we say ‘allow your employees to struggle’ we don’t mean this in a negative way, we mean it in a supportive way. By allowing your employees to struggle, you give them time to think for themselves and come up with a solution to issues on their own which is incredibly important for strong leadership skills. It will also make your employees more engaged with their work and with 71% of executives stating that employee engagement is critical to their success, it’s an actionable tip which you shouldn’t ignore.
So how do you do this, here are a few examples:
When an employee asks you a question such as “this lady wants to return a dress but it is out of the returns period what should I do?” Rather than giving them the answer, ask them what they think they should do. The majority of the time your employee will know the answer, it is usually just a confidence issue and this is why they ask you for the answer because reconfirms their thoughts.
If you see an employee struggling to work something out, don’t rush over to correct them or tell them what to do. Leave it a while and see if they figure out the solution on their own.
If an employee asks you to do something which they have the capability to do, simply say “I’m too busy at the moment can you do it for me and if you don’t know how to do it try to figure it out.” This will make them learn at the point of need which is one of the best ways to retain new information and improve knowledge. It’s called ‘just in time learning’ if you haven’t heard of it, learn about it in this guide.
Key area of development - organisation skills
This may not sound like an important one, but trust us, it’s a skill which will enhance the performance of any employee. Organisational skills are crucial for workplace success because they help you work faster, stay on top of tasks and manage your stress levels. We’ve all been in a situation where we have to get hundreds of things done in a week, then our boss piles on ten more tasks to complete and before we know it we’re having a panic attack in the bathroom wondering how on earth we are going to get through it all. No manager wants this for their employees which is why organisational skills are a good key area of development to focus on.
The key to helping your staff stay calm, focused and productive is to ensure that they are always well organised.
So here are our tips for developing these skills.
Encourage your staff to make lists. These should be created at least once per week to ensure that they always stay on top of their tasks. Lists are an amazing, yet simple way to get organised. They get everything out of your employee’s head and onto paper which makes your employees feel less overwhelmed by all the things which they have to get done. The process of checking off their list will make them feel like a huge weight is being lifted off their shoulders. If you want to keep track of their lists it may be worth using digital checklists. You can set deadlines for when they need to be completed and you will be able to see what has and hasn’t been done. Take a look at our digital checklists which are used by Virgin Media, Next and Tesco Mobile.
Teach staff about prioritisation to improve their development in this area. Discuss the importance and urgency of tasks so that they can make informed decisions about which tasks need completing more quickly than others. This will help them manage their time better and stay fully organised.
Encourage staff to schedule out their days. Mindlessly working through tasks with no concept of time or urgency will lead to huge amounts of wasted hours. Your employees may end up spending ages on a task which isn't that important if they don’t properly schedule their days. Train them to allocate certain times of their day to specific tasks to help them stay organised.
Key area of development - ability to adapt to changes
Here, we are talking about your employee’s ability to handle change and work in a more adaptable way. This is an area of development which will be great for them and their managers. In fact, 71% of employers said that the ability to adapt is one of the most important skills which they look for in employees.
The world we work in is constantly changing so it’s crucial that employees don’t struggle to keep up with the ever-changing demands. In order to develop your employee’s ability to adapt, you should make small changes in your workplace which will break their normal routine from time to time.
Below are a few examples of how you can do this:
If they are used to working with the same employees on their shift, switch it up and ensure that they are working with different team members from time to time.
Change the length of time which they have to complete tasks. For example, if they have always been given an hour to tidy the staff room, reduce the time by 10 minutes to challenge them.
Ask them to change the way that they do day to day tasks. For example, if they always handle customer complaints at the end of their day, ask the employee to handle them in the morning.
Just do little things to shake up their routine and strengthen their ability to adapt to change.
Key area of development - handling criticism
Criticism is a crucial part of employee development which helps them to improve and grow. Without it, your staff will never know where they need to do better. Unfortunately, many of us have grown up to believe that criticism is bad which in turns leads us to think badly of the person that is giving it to us rather than thinking badly of our own performance.
To train your employees to handle criticism better you need to teach them to think of it in a positive and constructive way rather than something which should be taken offence at.
To do this, you should build a culture which encourages constructive criticism.
Tell your staff that it’s good to receive and give criticism, this will make them feel less embarrassed when they receive it.
Include criticisms in your performance reviews and constructively explain how they can improve on those weaknesses.
Always reiterate the benefits of receiving criticism and post these on your company intranet or on posters to put up around your workplace, these benefits could be:
It can help you learn and grow
It can increase your skill set
It will make you a stronger person
It forces you to work in a better way
It will give you an advantage over your peers
Another good idea is to put up inspiring quotes which demonstrate that criticism is a good thing for employee development. See a few examples below:
“Accept both compliments and criticism, it takes sun and rain to grow a flower.”
“To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”
“If you are never criticized you may not be doing much that makes a difference.”
We hope that these key areas of development for employees have helped you to gain a better understanding of how you can improve your workforce performance. If you need help with boosting employee knowledge levels or employee training and development. Get in touch and let one of our knowledgeable experts guide you through the best knowledge management techniques which are used on our employee training platform.
