3 Ways To Invest In Your Team
I talk a lot about how investing in yourself is the best investment you can make. Anytime you introduce yourself to new skills … invest time and money in training (and really any form of learning), it’s an investment in yourself that will help you level up.
This is also true of investing in your team.
As the leader of the digital team at Ballantine, I think part of my role is to be a coach to them. It’s a two-fold investment when you invest in your team:
- First, you help them to individually become a stronger, more fulfilled person …
- And second, they are better equipped to do their job.
Essentially, providing your team with personal and professional development opportunities is good for them as individuals, and for the company.
Now, as a leader it’s not my job to force my team to spend time on personal development. But in my opinion, it is my job to raise employee engagement. One way to do this is to raise their awareness of different strategies and to give them resources to help connect the dots between employee development and good job performance.
There are many ways you can invest in employee training and development opportunities. Here are the things I’m personally doing in my company that have been helpful:
1. Professional Training
Once a month, I pay for an expert to come in and talk to my team. These meetings are mandatory and hosted during the workday. I keep the training to about 45 minutes so that everyone stays engaged (including me, lol).
I’ve invited experts to talk about many different topics, including communication, writing skills, meditation, habits, leadership skills, marketing strategies, etc. Usually, I try to vary the topics in order to address many aspects of development.
Since most of the team works remotely, we do our training on video (and their camera needs to be on). I record it so they can watch it later if they’d like. It’s been really effective … and my team sees that I’m investing in helping them grow as a person. I believe that if they see this, then employees feel valued, and overall employee morale improves.
2. Book Club
I introduced my team to doing a book club and have had some great feedback, so I keep bringing it back. Unlike the training above, the book club isn’t mandatory. But, if they are going to sign up and do it, they have to be willing to read the book.
We found what works best is to have the meetings on Wednesdays at 8:30 am, right before work starts. I pick a short book (usually 200 pages or less) on employee development. Sure, we could do a fictional book, but because I’m so passionate about employee development that leads to business success, I feel that’s the best use of our time. And again, the idea here is to invest in your team … so my thought process here is that we should use the time to read content we can learn from.
It’s a great option for us because it’s helped to build community within the group. Everyone gets a chance to hang out, share their ideas about team building or company culture, and talk about what stood out to them the most.
I know this has been an effective investment in my team because if it’s too long between books, I start getting questions about when we’ll do a new book. If you’re leading a book club with your team, you might want to pick something that you are passionate about and raise awareness around that topic.
3. Weekly Digest Email
For quite some time, I’ve been sending out a short email every Sunday to my team. I usually put together 5 points that are easy to digest (and easy for me to write). I have a similar format with the Morning Upgrade newsletter, where I share 3 points.
The weekly digest that I put together for my team includes company news, work anniversaries, industry news, movie recommendations, personal growth strategies/resources, etc. I try to pick things that will help them grow, teach them something new or entertain them. The key is to just make it easy and digestible. Your talented employees will thank you.
Key Takeaways
- Think of yourself as the coach of your team.
- Find ways you can consistently invest in your team personally and professionally.
- Make some things optional and other things mandatory (your call on which is what).
- Try to keep your training short to maintain an engaged workforce.