This Is How to Invest in Your Staff!

This Is How To Invest In Your Staff!

Each and every organization strives to successfully maintain its core essence and to develop at the highest level in terms of its mission. And to achieve this goal, it must invest in its first stakeholder, that is the employees.

After the company/organization is recognized as a full entity, there is a day off for celebration.

Once the celebrations are over, the reaction of most organizations after this is how to invest in the staff. And it has to do one of two things: relax and assume that the process and systems will continue to deliver the outcomes required, or recognize that maintaining and retaining recognition is not necessarily any easier than gaining it in the first place. There is an understandable level of excitement and enthusiasm generated while undertaking the 'journey' and achieving recognition. Typically this soon passes and things begin to 'stretch.'

In some organizations, systems may well be securely surrounded and will continue to operate. For many they won't, at least not without continued effort. From an experience, a significant number of organizations have had to introduce a range of new processes and systems in order to attain and maintain their staff status. Even when systems appear embedded they may reduce in function. Therefore, care must be taken to review and modify them to keep them 'fresh' and motivated, especially line managers, who must continue to recognize the value of continuing to use them to deliver the required outcomes. Reviewing and continuously striving for improvement can lead to processes being kept fresh and therefore continuing to deliver what is required.

Many organizations note that rarely, if ever, are all managers 'fully on board.' They may have been willing to operate the systems in order to deliver the outcomes and thus help the organization satisfy its goal of recognition, but once it has been achieved, some may revert to their old ways. It's what we call 'public consensus and private disruption.' Some may intend to keep operating the systems to deliver the outcomes but don't do so. The systems may be too complex or bureaucratic and therefore a busy manager may find other, more 'important' things to do. The organizations may have forced skeptical or task-focused managers to use the systems.

For the staff will be viewed, inevitably, as an additional chore, something 'bolted on' to an already overcrowded schedule.

In some organizations, real and meaningful benefits from the staff, especially the mangers, may take some time to come forth. If an organization fails to encourage their more skeptical and/or less committed managers to keep using the systems, the outcomes and thus the benefits may also never emerge.

There are a number of common issues that involve embedding the processes, which in turn will deliver more beneficial outcomes and develop the staff. They can be grouped as follows:

1. Adding clarity through existing processes, e.g. through communications structures.
2. Planning and evaluating issues that pop up in all departments of the organization.
3. Consolidating processes to ensure cohesion and telepathy amongst the staff.
4. Furthering development of managers for organizational growth.
5. Tackling issues that have been already recognized by organizations and including them in future plans.

Based on the above beneficial outcomes, analysing the below headings will also be very needful.

1. Further developing the understanding of issues and plans.
2. Ensuring that 'all' employees continue to be included, ie. support staff, non-directs (staff not directly employed by the organization who help deliver the business objectives), etc.
3. Increasing the involvement of every staff.
4. Giving a higher profile to development as opposed to training. Although the current standard may not necessarily refer to training, many organizations and their staff continue to focus on training, especially when working towards achieving staff status for the first time.
5. Further definition of roles and responsibilities once in a while, e.g. managing development.
6. Defining management 'effectiveness' to keep them on their toes.
7. Expanding the 'buzz' from the shop floor to include the support areas.

Besides all these, for your organization to be ahead in terms of investment in the staff, it has to further develop its managers by refreshing and updating management skills, examining the appropriateness of competences, and to ensure managers are clear of what is expected of them. Organizations should empower their staff by making sure that managers do not renounce their responsibilities altogether. They should also encourage managers to be more proactive by inviting the staff to identify and take up development opportunities.

However, many organizations may already have these aforementioned developments but should always update and brace themselves up for new introductions. As already indicated, planning the actions following recognition is very important to the growth of every organization.