Measuring employee growth is important for his or her development. In the long run, the company would eventually benefit if the employees are taken care of and their progress or growth is measured and monitored regularly. With accurate and constructive feedback, such employees can become a real asset to the company and wouldn’t think of leaving it for better opportunities. And the company would do well in retaining its talent and saving money on training or onboarding new talent.
So, what are the measures to track employee growth and aid in his or her development?
Training
Training of an employee is the first step towards employee development and subsequently to keep a track of his or her progress. Only when the fundamentals are strong that an employee can perform to the best of his or her capability. Hence, the employer should make sure the employees are provided ample training before they move on to the floor and start working independently.
But training alone would not be sufficient. There should be a mock test to understand how well the employees have grasped the knowledge about the process and how prepared they are for the challenges ahead. If they do not clear the mock test, another round of training could help them.
It would be wrong to rush the employees here as they would be undercooked or underprepared to manage the workload independently.
Hence, they should be given the time to get full knowledge about the process before they start work. This will aid in their development and the employer can keep track of their progress and growth.
Mentoring
It’s important to have a buddy system or mentorship to measure employee growth and aid in his or her development. A mentor would be like a big brother who would help the junior cross the first hurdle in the organisation. A mentor could also share the tricks of the trade and be a major source of inspiration. This system helps the new employee pass the initial nervousness before they start work on their own.
Metrics
It’s important to share the metrics with the employees before they start work. These metrics would help in his development and also help the employer to measure the employee growth in the organisation. The metrics could range from providing resolutions, aiding in sales, retaining customers, maintaining the brand name, ensuring customer satisfaction, among others.
These metrics should be communicated clearly to the employees. And periodically, they should be shared feedback based on the metrics. Only constructive feedback can help in employee development.
Over a period of time, employee may show a change and improvement in metrics, helping the company to track their employee growth.
Strengths and weaknesses
Not all employees are same. Some would be good at fixing the issues, while some would be good in marketing, coordinating or planning. Not all employees would be good at everything. Hence, it is important for the immediate managers to chalk down the strengths and weaknesses of their employees depending on the numbers on the metrics and take the next step of organising training for the staff in areas where they are weak at.
Programmes for improvement
Once the weak points of each employee is identified, they should be grouped depending on their weaknesses and accordingly, performance-improvement programmes should be organised for them to aid in their development.
It would always help the company if their employees could work on their weak areas and enhance their skills for better growth and development. In this situation as well, the employees should go through mock test to assess their improvement.
With constant monitoring, the employees could improve their skills, resulting in improved productivity and gains to the company.
Keep challenging your employees
It makes sense to keep challenging employees with newer and tighter metrics. No one likes changes, but change is inevitable. Only when someone is challenged that they would get out of their comfort zones to perform better and productively.
Hence, keep putting the stakes or metric higher every time you see potential in your employees or if they have achieved their old targets with ease.
However, make sure not to set unrealistic targets that would demoralise them. It could act as a double-edged sword if you set extremely high, and unrealistic target
Back it up with suitable rewards
No one likes slogging their ass off for nothing. If you are increasing the target, metrics or parameters, make sure to back them up with rewards, goodies, gifts or offers that are enticing enough for employees to work hard to achieve their goals.
And when they meet their targets, back it up with praise, awards and recognition. Nothing is more motivating than being praised in public. It would motivate them to work harder to achieve even higher targets.
Periodical Assessment
It is important to have periodical assessment to measure employee growth. A quarterly assessment should work fine. In these assessments, the manager should share clearly the goals, targets, new expectations, and any new targets with the employees.
The staff should also be given the opportunity to share the challenges they are facing and how if it is overcome, they can improve productivity and scale new heights in their jobs. These assessments should work both ways and should not be just one-way traffic
Yearly get-together
This should be seen as an opportunity for employees, employer and other stakeholders to come together and have a clear-cut conversation on the project, its growth, challenges, and new targets, if any. It is important to get the employees engaged in these meetings so as to make them feel a part of it. This would help to not only measure the employee growth but the whole project or organisation as well.
It is important to realise that employees are not someone who could be pushed arbitrarily. They are human beings who need constant motivation and development. But there also should be a mechanism in place to track their growth so as to realise their full potential and achieve the goals of the company.
