Top Talent Development Strategies in 2021

Talent development shouldn’t be on the backburner. Making a strategic plan to elevate your employees will put you ahead of your competition and allow you to successfully reach your business goals. Explore these top talent development strategies to create or improve your approach.

HRDQ offers a fully customizable virtual training library, so you can provide specialized training content to your team no matter where they are. Explore the Reproducible Training Library.

What is Talent Development?

Talent development is more than simply training your team in new skills. It’s about seeing the potential an employee has, identifying their strengths, and setting them up in positions where they are most likely to succeed. By providing specialized training to help improve what your employees’ are already best at, you’ll find that their job satisfaction, productivity, and retention rate will increase.

Align Development Goals with your Company Mission

The best way to create effective, meaningful talent development goals is by aligning them with your company mission. If your mission is unclear, get with management to rework or improve upon it. This will serve as a solid foundation as you design your talent development strategy. Plus, it shows employees what’s important to the company overall and why you want to help them grow.

With your mission secured, hone in on specific development goals. For instance, are you looking to enhance your customer service team because your mission is to provide quality care? Perhaps you’re hoping to groom new supervisors since the company aims to offer top-tier leadership. Whatever the case, pinpoint exactly what talent areas you’re trying to develop.

Next, divide each of these goals into required skills. Doing so will show you what you need to search for in the right employee and start developing your training. Using the above customer service example, some skills that might be necessary to perfect in this field include communication, conflict management, and emotional intelligence.

Assess Your Team & Candidates

To find out who is most proficient in the skills you’ve identified, a great strategy is to provide your team and potential hires with a soft skills assessment. A quick assessment can reveal valuable information on each team member, particularly the skills that are their top strengths and weaknesses. This can help you determine how you need to reorganize or train certain employees to help them succeed and meet your company goals.

HRDQ offers a complete library of online assessments that are professionally designed to gauge individual soft skills. Explore the HRDQ Online Assessment Center.

Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill

When it comes to placing someone in a new position, it’s a beneficial strategy to hire for attitude then train for skill. Those who have a willingness and hunger to learn will likely be your most successful employees. They’ll be eager to run with the talent development training you provide so that they can continue to grow. Plus, since you’ll already know their top skills based on the assessment you provide, you can only expect those skills to grow increasingly stronger with the right attitude and great training. 

Make Talent Development Part of Workplace Culture

Talent development shouldn’t be a short-term endeavor. If you really want your business to thrive, you need to create a talent development plan to use in the long run. Companies that emphasize employee growth as part of their workplace culture often find greater success. It shows your team that you’re invested in their careers within your business.

The best way to integrate talent development into your workplace culture is by creating an effective process for designing training programs. Depending on your needs and goals, you’ll likely need to design and implement several different types of talent development training. Plus, as your needs and goals change, the content within your programs will have to change as well. Or, you may need to scrap old training entirely in replace of something new.

That’s why it’s imperative to have a solid process for creating effective training programs. It allows you to adjust your talent development training to keep up with individuals and trends as they grow and change.

Start Virtual Training with HRDQ

We hope these talent development strategies help you improve your team. If you’re ready to equip your employees with the skills they need to succeed, get started with HRDQ today. Our virtual training options allow your employees to complete training sessions and workshops no matter where they are. If you’re ready to experience the power of online training, view our virtual classes to get started!

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