Tapping into talent: Investing in your team’s individual growth potential

If it isn’t already, employee development should be your top priority as a leader. However, between ongoing market shifts, customer and stakeholder pressures, growing a successful and lasting business and checking off our own to-do lists, investing in our team’s individual growth may fall to the wayside.

Though the fact is, if we’re not investing in our people, we’re not investing in our business.

One of the most important things we can do as leaders is intentionally invest in the leaders of tomorrow. While building future leaders from your team can seem like an overwhelming task, implementing a strong strategy is key to leading an engaged, successful and more resilient team.

How do we get there? I’ve identified three key ways to invest in your team in a meaningful way:

Start with hiring

Your investment in your team should start at the hiring stage. Whether you’re hiring for entry-level career roles or at the senior level, finding the right fit both from a team and skill perspective takes time, patience and an investment from you. Some ways to elevate your hiring practices include:

● Writing a strong job description: A job description is likely the first interaction that a potential applicant will have with your organization. Not only does your job description need to stand out, but it is crucial that it accurately reflects your organization and the role you are hiring for.

● Asking the right questions: You can learn more about your potential hire by asking them about their passions than you can from asking them where they will be in 5 years. Ask questions about who they are as people, rather than who they are as an employee.

● Looking beyond the resume: The ideal candidate might be missing specific experience, but could have transferable skills and an eagerness to get the job done well. Look beyond the resume into their passions and expertise to find the right candidate.

Make time for your team

When a leader invests time into their team, whether through structured mentorship or casual conversation, it demonstrates their commitment to the team’s growth, their willingness to empower their people, and their enthusiasm to lead meaningfully. Scheduling one-on-one meetings, skip levels, or finding time to mentor or chat with your team members demonstrates the importance of development to the entire team, especially to future leaders who are following your lead.

I thoroughly believe that it is my job to get my team to the next step in their careers, and offering mentorship, whether on a casual or structured basis, is one way to dig deeper into my team’s professional priorities. Mentoring can also enable you to better understand the unique ways that your team works, helping them get to their next step more quickly.

Encourage (and invest in) training and development

“What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us?”

“What happens if we don’t and they stay?”

That quote has been floating around LinkedIn for some time now, but it continues to resonate with me every time I see it. It demonstrates that while your investment in training and development may be easy to measure financially, it can be much costlier to not invest in your team’s growth.

The cost of having an employee in the same role for a number of years, without updating their knowledge or upgrading their skills, means that your business may have missed years of insights, profits, and benefits from an engaged employee. Investing in upskilling your team through training and development can lead to positive long-term results, empowered teams and a shrinking knowledge gap within your business.

A couple of upskilling tools that I personally use include:

● Link-up International, which focuses on upskilling leaders to have effective people interactions through technology, insights and strategies. Their I.D. SYSTEM reveals leaders’ core drivers, identifying how they can operate as their best and most productive selves.

● BetterUp, a coaching tool that transforms performance and growth for people, teams and organizations through career and leadership development, proactive mental health, and inclusion and belonging.

To me, the overall goal of employee development is to ensure that my team feels supported, empowered and excited to work at the company they are at. Building a strong, charismatic and successful team that not only meets their goals, but exceeds them, starts with investing in your team’s individual growth potential.

What are some of the ways that you invest in your team? Let me know in the comments.