#PP 10: Conferences? Too expensive.
or, what, you want ANOTHER perk? Table football not enough?
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Do you send your staff to conferences? Do you let them do the training they need, or want, to do?
You should.
For multiple reasons, getting your employees off their asses and into seats at conferences and training centres gives you a pretty good bang for your buck. Let me explain.
The first and most obvious reason is that your staff will learn new things. Shocker. By attending conferences and training, your employees will learn new skills and gain experience by listening to other peoples experiences - especially their failures. You can’t expect your company to improve or innovate (buzzword KLAXON), if they’re trying to do it with the same set of skills and experiences as everyone else in the company.
Most companies have some kind of crappy statistic which says “60% on the job learning, 20% self-directed learning, 20% training”. This is a terrible way of attaining new knowledge. Without new experiences or skills, you’re just rehashing the same old crapola again and again - remember, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
The second reason is networking.
Your staff will meet a pile of new people, both other attendees and conference speakers or trainers. Both these groups of people will provide your employees with insight, new ideas and great stories. They will cause your employee to be uplifted, to be pumped about whatever it is they’re learning and their brain will fizz with new ideas they can bring back to the company. On that note, you should always ask staff for some kind of debrief which includes how they might implement their ideas at work - doesn’t matter how silly or unattainable they might be, there are no bad ideas.
As well as meeting people that will engage them, they’ll also make a few new contacts. These might be potential future customers or employees - both have value, so ensure you provide some kind of stipend for buying coffees (or beers, if that’s how you roll) for people to make contacts they can call on down the line for support.
Finally, and this is a doozie. Your staff are ambassadors for your company. They head out into the great unknown, intent on learning things, meeting folk and grabbing free swag, but are aware they’re doing it on your dime, so will put in that little bit of extra effort. This looks good for your company. Maybe send them in a tshirt? (Maybe not, that’s a but cheesy, still - worth thinking about!).
Going to conferences and training events should never be seen as a '“perk”, then are a necessary and important part of anyone’s career, don’t treat them as perks, or use them for punishment and reward (“Do well, and we’ll send you to the nerdfest you want to go to.”).
Send your staff, reap the rewards - just as long as you do reap them. As mentioned above, make sure you get a debrief, of have the employee train others on the training they received. This is the best way to ensure you unlock the extra value from sending people offsite for a day or two.
From the channel
Emily says: “Hi everyone! If you’re struggling to keep up with best practices in the world of people analytics (especially as automation and AI disrupt your workforce and talent processes), I’d highly recommend this e-book “The New Rules of HR Analytics.” Check it out! ”
Kristina Martic posts:
The Future of Talent Acquisition: What You Should Focus on in 2020Improving Talent Acquisition efforts is one of the main goals for employers across the world. As per a recent research by Korn Ferry Institute,
“by 2030, there will be a global human talent shortage of more than 85 million people, or roughly equivalent to the population of Germany. Left unchecked, in 2030 that talent shortage could result in about $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues.”
So what can employers do to prevent this from happening at their organizations? Join us at our upcoming webinar to hear the answers!
Harrison Kim sez: As you think about your existing or new performance review process, take a look at some of the learnings we have had to identify problems with performance management/reviews in general. Hopefully this post will be helpful in thinking about how to design/improve it! https://www.pavestep.com/post/problems-with-traditional-performance-management-part-1-of-3
End #post
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