Skills we give a lot of attention to tend to transform more than areas we give less emphasis. As an employer, focusing on your employees’ weaknesses could lead to developing more weak areas instead of generating new strengths. Knowing how to create high quality employees and having a system to do so will be vital to your success.
Concentrating on your employees’ strengths, no matter how small they, is more beneficial to your company in the long run. It gives your employees more room to come up with awesome ideas. With time, their strengths will grow and outshine their overall weaknesses.
Discovering Your Employees’ Strengths
The first thing you need to do as an employer is find out what the strengths are of each of your employees. This could actually be a fun activity. Ask them what they think their strengths are and have them write them down. Make sure the strengths they list are laid out clearly and in simple, short words.
Praise Your Employees: Shout It from the Rooftop
Once you know the different skills your employees have, make them known to everyone. This will help your team members understand who they should consult when they need to know something specific.
If an employee needs help completing a certain task requiring a particular skill, they know who to ask. Employees feel appreciated when their strengths are made known to everyone in the company.
Set Goals for Your Employees
Knowing your employee strengths helps you as an employer with goal setting. You can tailor employee projects to be in line with each individual’s strengths. This avoids issuing projects to employees who do not have the required skills, which definitely slows up progress.
Nurture Your Employees’ Strengths
An employer who identifies the employee’s strengths but does nothing to nurture them is not doing justice towards the development of the company. As an employer, once you discover the skills employees possess, you should hold discussions about them. Strategize with your team on how you can use these skills to grow the company brand.
Fresh ideas can be generated. Employees become motivated when they see their skills are being put to use. It’s exciting knowing your skills can help take the company to a whole different dimension. This gives them an opportunity to perfect their skills and learn new ones from their colleagues.
Once the strengths have been identified, it is easier for the employers to know which skills require more training. They can organize training to help strengthen the weaker skills and perfect them.
Teamwork Is Key to Creating High-Quality Employees
Knowing the skills each employee helps you when it comes to allocating teams. You risk assigning people with the same skills to the same group if you do not know the strengths of each employee. Having groups with members who possess different skills makes a group well-rounded and professionally diverse.
A well-rounded team ensures the projects assigned to them are completed with the utmost quality and standards. This is because there is someone in the group that is outstanding at each given skill. Your team leaders will guide the rest of the team on how to go about a particular part of the assignment.
Polishing the ‘Soft Skills’ of Your Employees
What are soft skills? They include:
- Problem-solving skills
- Communication skills
- Self-esteem skills
- Team player skills
Not all employees (or people) possess these skills. Employers don’t always win when they hire newemployees with these skills. Oftentimes, it’s more beneficial to train and equip your current employees to help them develop these skills.
Research during the past 25 years shows it is possible to train people on emotional intelligence and equip them with this skill, as opposed to trying to raise their IQ level. This is good news for all employers. Such skills raise the performance of employees overall.
How to Teach Your Employees Soft Skills
Soft skills can be taught practically if you want your employees to grasp them. Here are six tips you can adopt to help teach your employees soft skills:
1. Desire for Change
Change is an important step your employees should be willing to take. It should come from within the employees themselves. As an employer, invest and dedicate more resources to help your employees develop self-change skills.
2. Education Is Key
Reading books about how to acquire soft skills is a good idea. Books like Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey are ideal for this skill. But book reading only will not develop them. It is just a starting point of the process to acquire the skills. If you want a career in graphic design or a career as a web developer, you’re going to need a higher education from a school like F.I.R.S.T.
3. Test Your Employees
After reading and being trained on soft skills, it is important to test your employees. They should take two types of tests:
- Self-assessment tests
- Tests taken as a group
This helps gauge where they are at with the skills and to what needs improvement.
4. Self-Examination
Your employees should take the time to examine themselves and reflect on their lives after they have learned soft skills. A moment of self-reflection helps them understand themselves better. Only they know what makes them angry or happy or how they deal with different situations.
From there, they can ask themselves, are they willing to accept that they are not perfect? Are they willing to learn from their mistakes? Will they change how they handle different situations?
5. Goal Setting
Setting goals is important for every employee because it gives them direction and focus. They know what they want to achieve and where they are going. The goals should be set based on the new skills learned.
It is beneficial to share the goals with others. Sharing with others helps encourage the entire team. Goals get them back on track if they ever lose focus.
6. Applying Soft Skills
Gaining soft skills is one thing. But putting them into practice is another. It is important to know how to use the skills learned. Making mistakes is okay because you learn from them. Employees should review their goals with their colleagues every couple of months. They need to share their progress with the entire team.
Start by Hiring High-Quality Employees
Equipping employees with soft skills is a process that takes time and patience. Hiring skilled employees who are trained to get the job done is the first step to success. Ever thought about hiring new employees from your local technical college?
F.I.R.S.T. Institute is a technical college located in Orlando, Florida. Their students are educated using hands-on techniques and cutting-edge equipment and software programs. They help you start a career in video editing or a music producer career, and many other opportunities. Thinking about hiring new employees, but not sure if it will work out for you?
Why not hire local Orlando interns to train them out? F.I.R.S.T. Institute’s internship programs allow you to find new team members that you can groom with awesome soft skills and transform into a high-quality employee. Their reputation speaks for itself.
Contact F.I.R.S.T. Institute About Orlando Interns Today
