Imagine this: You’re working in a great position that you love. You’ve got every task you do down to a science, so you can perform it with the utmost efficiency. You feel like you are at your best.
But are you? You may feel on top of the world, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room to grow. Growth is embedded in our company. We are physically growing every day as we expand both our online and our brick and mortar presence, and we are constantly learning as we transform from a small to a large company. At any stage and any level of the company, we feel that there is always room to grow, which is why we encourage professional development for every employee.
With regular opportunities for training and development, employees can:
Improve performance and consistency
All employees go through extensive training when they join our team to learn the ins and outs of the company and to get settled in their new roles. It gives them the basic knowledge they need to succeed at Advance Financial and will ensure that they have the information – and the confidence – to perform their jobs well. In addition, this kind of training on the fundamentals can help set a company standard, which involves all employees starting with the same basic knowledge no matter their role or level within the company.
But our training doesn’t stop there. We encourage employees to continue their training to stay sharp and consistent and to learn new skills that can help them progress through the company. That’s why we offer our Manager Certification Program, for example, which gives employees the practical skills to perform in a managerial role – especially when they haven’t had that experience before – and it gives every person who aspires to be a manager the same foundation.
Build on strengths and improve weaknesses
Training and development classes are important for helping employees expand their
capabilities, whether they want to improve upon a skill they already have or learn a new one. Not only can these programs help them figure out what those strengths and weaknesses are, but they can provide them with the tools needed to focus on the skills that need attention while building on the ones they’ve already mastered. This kind of training results in employees who work faster and more independently with greater confidence. That is, it helps them achieve the three things that studies have shown are the basis for job satisfaction – mastery, purpose and autonomy.
Learn from each other
When you gather a bunch of people into one room and teach them together, they’re naturally going to start sharing and bouncing ideas off of one another. Training and development classes can help spark new conversations by joining people in the company who may not normally work together.
In this way, employees can learn best practices from each others’ perspectives. For example, lower-level employees may not know how to best approach their higher-ups with questions or concerns, and higher-level employees may need some practice listening to those concerns or giving constructive feedback. When people get the chance to be in a room together, they can work through these kinds of gaps. And, hopefully, those conversations will continue beyond the training room. For instance, when a member of a team comes to the table with something new that they learned in a development class, they then have the opportunity to pass that on to their team members and provoke new ideas and strategies.
Learning from one another is important to us because we, as a company, value open communication at all levels. We are committed to transparency, and we know that when everyone in the company is on the same page, an organization runs like a well-oiled machine.
Grow professionally AND personally
Growth and development at work don’t have to be purely professional. Many employees who have the opportunity to learn something from their professional roles also tend to learn something about themselves in the process. For example, when learning how to speak publicly and present information to a group, you might find that you don’t work well under pressure or you don’t love being the center of attention – but that you are really good at being persuasive. Or, when you work with a team for the first time, you might learn how you fit into a group dynamic. You need to know how you fare in different situations so that you can use your strengths in order to balance out your weaknesses – and hopefully improve upon them in the process.
At Advance Financial, we believe the wellness and happiness of our employees is crucial to the company’s success, so we want to give each employee the chance to feel a sense of accomplishment and confidence. By providing employees with room for growth, companies can help their employees advance their personal careers and develop long-term goals both inside
and outside of the organization.
