Employee training and development for improved performance

Summary

In this video, Steven Goldberg of Optimus Performance discusses the importance of proactive employee training and development for improving performance and productivity. He emphasizes the need for both hard and soft skills, especially as businesses grow more competitive and teamwork becomes essential. Goldberg encourages business leaders to plan employee development based on organizational goals and adapt to changing environments, including an aging workforce. Effective training keeps employees flexible, engaged, and open to change, helping companies maintain a competitive edge. Subscribe for more insights on fostering a motivated and productive workforce.

Takeaways

• 📈 Training and development of employees is crucial for improving performance and productivity.
• 🎥 Leaders should be proactive, not reactive, when it comes to employee development.
• 🛠 Both hard skills (technical skills) and soft skills (interpersonal skills) are essential for employee growth.
• 🤝 Soft skills are increasingly important as organizations emphasize teamwork and collaboration.
• 💡 Training and developing employees give businesses a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
• 📞 Telecommunications companies are good examples of how training enhances service and upselling opportunities.
• 👴 The aging workforce presents a challenge; organizations need to retain and develop older workers as skilled talent becomes scarce.
• 🔄 Continuous learning helps employees stay flexible, engaged, and open to change in a constantly evolving work environment.
• 🌊 Like water, employees need constant refreshment through learning to avoid stagnation and resistance to change.
• 🔮 Training and development ensure that employees remain creative, adaptable, and aligned with organizational goals.

Q & A

Why is training and development important for employee performance and productivity?

Training and development are crucial for improving both performance and productivity as they help employees acquire new skills, adapt to changes, and stay motivated. It ensures that employees remain competitive and efficient in their roles.

What does Steven Goldberg emphasize about the role of leaders in employee development?

Steven Goldberg emphasizes that leaders, business owners, and managers should take a proactive approach to employee training and development, rather than reacting to emergencies or external pressures.

What is the difference between hard skills and soft skills, and why are both important?

Hard skills are technical abilities required to perform specific tasks, such as operating software or machinery. Soft skills involve interpersonal abilities like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. Both are important as they complement each other, enabling employees to perform tasks effectively and collaborate efficiently.

What does a proactive approach to training and development involve?

A proactive approach involves planning training based on the organization’s goals and future needs, identifying the skills employees need to develop, and creating a training plan that prepares the workforce for changes and new challenges.

Why are soft skills becoming more crucial in the workplace?

Soft skills are becoming more crucial because teamwork, decision-making, and problem-solving require strong communication and interpersonal skills. As organizations increasingly rely on collaboration, these skills help employees work together and handle conflicts effectively.

How does investing in employee training provide a competitive advantage?

Investing in employee training enhances workforce capabilities, ensuring that employees are more skilled, adaptable, and motivated. This helps companies stay competitive, meet market demands, and provide better customer service.

Can you provide an example of an industry that heavily invests in training and how it benefits them?

The telecommunications industry is an example where companies invest heavily in training. Even employees in accounting departments are trained to upsell or cross-sell services, showing how training benefits both customer interaction and revenue generation.

How does training and development help address the challenges of an aging workforce?

Training and development help older workers stay flexible, engaged, and adaptable to changes in the workplace. This is important as an aging workforce becomes more common, and retaining experienced employees is crucial for organizational stability.

What is the consequence of not continuously training and developing employees?

Without continuous training, employees can become stagnant, resistant to change, and less motivated. This negatively impacts the organization’s ability to innovate, adapt, and maintain a competitive edge.

How does Steven Goldberg suggest leaders maintain employee engagement through training?

Steven Goldberg suggests that leaders should view training as a way to keep employees flexible, creative, and interested in their work. This helps employees remain engaged, grow professionally, and contribute to the organization’s success.

Outlines

00:00

📈 Importance of Proactive Employee Training

In this paragraph, Steven Goldberg introduces the critical role of employee training and development in improving performance and productivity. He emphasizes the need for a proactive approach to training rather than waiting for emergencies or external pressures, such as new systems or new hires. Goldberg suggests aligning training efforts with organizational goals and objectives, asking questions to develop a comprehensive, forward-thinking training plan. Both hard skills (job-specific abilities) and soft skills (interpersonal and communication abilities) are highlighted as key areas for employee development.

05:01

🤝 The Role of Soft Skills in Teamwork and Conflict Resolution

Goldberg explains the growing importance of soft skills, such as communication and interpersonal abilities, in promoting teamwork and collaboration within organizations. As companies delegate more decision-making to employees, conflicts and challenges naturally arise, making it vital for individuals to possess strong soft skills to resolve issues effectively. These skills are increasingly crucial in competitive markets, where companies that invest in developing their workforce stand to gain a significant competitive advantage.

📞 Example of Effective Training in the Telecommunications Industry

In this paragraph, Goldberg provides an example from the telecommunications industry, where companies invest heavily in training employees, even those outside sales roles, to engage in upselling and cross-selling. For instance, employees in accounting or customer service departments are trained to identify opportunities to sell additional services when interacting with clients, showcasing how effective training can lead to improved business outcomes and employee performance.

👵 Adapting to an Aging Workforce through Continuous Learning

Goldberg addresses the challenges posed by an aging workforce, noting that as the population ages, businesses must retain older employees and ensure they remain flexible and adaptable to change. Training and development are presented as essential tools to keep older workers engaged, creative, and open to new ideas, ultimately reducing resistance to change. He draws an analogy between stagnant water and stagnant employees, stressing the importance of continuous learning to prevent decline and maintain organizational vitality.

🎯 Final Thoughts on Proactive Training

In his closing remarks, Goldberg encourages a proactive approach to employee training, promising to provide more detailed steps in future videos. He expresses his gratitude to the audience and invites viewers to comment, subscribe to the channel, and stay tuned for upcoming content.

Keywords

💡Training and Development

Training and development refer to the processes of improving employees' skills and abilities. In the video, Steven emphasizes how crucial these are for improving performance and productivity, urging businesses to take a proactive approach to continuously help their workforce evolve. He suggests this ensures employees stay adaptable and engaged, ultimately benefiting the organization.

💡Proactive Approach

A proactive approach involves planning and acting in advance rather than responding to problems as they arise. In the video, Steven stresses that leaders should proactively plan their workforce's training, aligning it with annual goals rather than reacting to crises like a new system implementation or employee onboarding.

💡Soft Skills

Soft skills are interpersonal abilities that help employees manage themselves and interact effectively with others. In the video, Steven highlights their importance in teamwork and problem-solving, noting that as businesses encourage more decision-making and collaboration, strong communication and conflict resolution skills become essential.

💡Hard Skills

Hard skills refer to the specific technical abilities required to perform job tasks, such as operating software or machinery. Steven contrasts these with soft skills and explains that while hard skills are important for task completion, soft skills play an equally critical role in facilitating teamwork and interpersonal interactions.

💡Teamwork

Teamwork is the ability of employees to collaborate and work together effectively. Steven points out that as organizations aim to foster greater teamwork, interpersonal conflicts may arise, which highlights the need for employees to develop their soft skills to solve problems collaboratively.

💡Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantage refers to the factors that give a company an edge over its competitors. Steven mentions that investing in workforce training helps companies stay competitive in an increasingly global market by improving the skills and adaptability of employees, which in turn leads to higher productivity and better service.

💡Aging Workforce

The aging workforce refers to the growing number of older employees in the labor market. Steven discusses how the aging population impacts the workforce, emphasizing the importance of retaining and training older employees to keep them flexible and capable of adapting to changes in technology and work processes.

💡Reactive Approach

A reactive approach involves waiting for issues to arise before addressing them. Steven contrasts this with a proactive approach, explaining that many companies only train employees when problems occur, such as implementing new software or addressing performance issues, rather than planning continuous skill development.

💡Learning and Flexibility

Learning and flexibility refer to the capacity of employees to adapt to changes and continuously acquire new skills. Steven explains that keeping employees engaged in learning helps them stay creative and less resistant to change, making them more adaptable to new technologies, processes, and market conditions.

💡Resistance to Change

Resistance to change is the reluctance of employees to adapt to new processes, technologies, or organizational shifts. Steven likens this to stagnant water, explaining that without continuous learning and development, employees become resistant to change, which can harm an organization's ability to innovate and grow.

Highlights

Training and development of employees is crucial for improving performance and productivity.

Proactive training and development plans should be based on annual goals and objectives of the organization.

We need to develop both hard and soft skills in employees to meet job requirements and enhance teamwork.

Hard skills are specific to job tasks, such as operating software or machinery.

Soft skills, such as communication and teamwork, are essential for managing interpersonal relationships and collaboration.

Teamwork requires people to work together, grow together, and solve problems together, which increases the need for strong interpersonal skills.

Training employees to make decisions and delegate tasks can lead to conflicts, making soft skills even more important.

A well-trained workforce provides a competitive advantage in a global, national, and local marketplace.

Companies like telecommunications firms invest in training employees, even in non-sales roles, to upsell and add value during customer interactions.

With an aging population and a shortage of younger skilled talent, it's important to retain and continuously train older workers.

Training helps employees stay flexible, creative, engaged, and less resistant to change.

Without continual development, employees can become stagnant and resistant to change, which negatively affects the organization.

Training and development can prevent workforce stagnation, similar to how refreshing water prevents it from becoming polluted.

Leaders and business owners should take a proactive approach to training rather than waiting for emergencies.

Future videos will provide steps on how to develop a proactive training plan for employees.

Transcripts

training and development of employees is

crucial for improving performance and

productivity I'll talk about that in

today's

video hello I'm Steven Goldberg of

Optimus performance and we work with

business owners and leaders to develop

highly self-motivated and productive

employees and salespeople please

subscribe to our channel to get news of

new videos as they come out more than

ever in today's work environment it's

extremely important that we train and

develop our Workforce and that includes

yourself as a leader or manager business

owner we all have unlimited potential so

that's a great opportunity if we don't

use it it just gets wasted so let's tap

into it now as Leaders business owners

we need to take a proactive approach to

training and developing our employees

not reactive reactive means that we

train when there an emergency or we're

forced to for example if we put in a new

system or if we want somebody to learn a

new software or if they're a new

employee so thinking it through making a

plan a good place to start are based on

your annual goals and objectives for

your organization and for your

department and starting from that point

you have a good plan and vision and you

could see well if this is going to

happen what does the workforce need to

do what do they need to learn how what

do they need to adapt to so you start

asking a lot of questions and

formulating a training plan that is

proactive when looking at skills to

develop also we want to look at both

hard and soft skills now hard skills are

those that are required to perform a

tasks for example operating a software

or operating a machine things of that

nature very specific to the job tasks

where of course soft skills are

important as well but they vary in

different jobs but these are skills that

employees are required to manage

themselves and how they communicate with

others as well how they behave how they

interact and these are becoming more and

more crucial as especially as we develop

or want to develop more teamwork and

organizations because teamwork really

requires people to be able to work

together to grow together to solve

problems together and the more that they

interact the more that they you you

allow them to make decisions you

delegate decisionmaking the more that

the problems the conflicts can arise and

this is where interpersonal skills or

soft skills play a really crucial role

more and more the marketplace is

becoming competitive so we could be

competing globally nationally locally

but having a a better developed work

force a better trained Workforce gives

us that competitive Advantage One great

example of uh companies that do invest a

lot in training and it shows are the uh

telephone or the Telecommunications

Company I know that when I have an issue

with an account and I need to call the

accounting department uh and you

wouldn't think that they're in sales and

they're really not but they've been

trained uh to sell they've been trained

to offer added services to whenever

there's a contact with a client so even

though you're calling with a problem

perhaps or you need clarification

they're going to try and upsell you or

add-on sell you and this is a result of

them being trained to do this type of

activity and probably rewarded for it

too one other thing to consider is the

Aging population and as people get older

you're going to have more people in the

workforce because there's going to be a

lack of skilled younger skilled Talent

so it's important that we are able to

retain the older Workforce and that

we're able to also keep them flexible

because things keep changing and they

need to keep learning as well and so

training and development is a way to

keep people flexible creative engaged

interested in their work and also less

resistant to change it's kind of like

water you know if you leave a a pool of

water and you don't refresh it with new

water it becomes stagnant it starts

getting polluted it starts to smell well

people are kind of like the same thing

we're meant to grow we're meant to

evolve and if we're not doing that in

the workplace where we spend a good part

of our time then we do become stagnant

we do become resistance to change and

that can really hurt an organization so

I encourage you to take a proactive

approach the training I'll have more on

that in future videos on maybe steps to

do that I look forward to that thank you

for listening please comment subscribe

to our Channel and see you again

soon