What Are the Best Tips for Professional Development?

Learning skills (or learning strategies) are a method and approach applied to learning. Study skills often allow students to achieve superior grades in school and benefit for life.

Study skills

Learning knowledge must be good at thinking, thinking, and thinking again.

The lasting impact of learning and development runs through organizational leadership, and the focus on assessment and tracking can make learning continuous.

Many organizations find that although they have invested a lot of money in learning and development, they have not received corresponding returns, which makes them feel regretful. Who is to blame in this case? The leader is ultimately responsible for both the quality of the learning course and the success or failure of the trainee. If leaders want more responsibility for learning and development, they must regard the learning and development department as a comprehensive strategic partner of the company's business, and at the same time promote the smooth progress of the learning and development process, so as to ensure employees who are responsible for the future development of the company Get effective training.

Companies with zero investment in employee development are hard to survive without exception. In an uncertain economic environment and increasingly fierce global competition, the skill level of employees is crucial-not only what the company urgently needs today, but also for the future development. However, too many companies are only talking about development tactically rather than strategically. In other words, whether now or in the future, these companies are doing things out of habit, not to meet the specific needs of the organization. As a result, this investment has become a digital game: quantity is far more important than qualitya professional development plan is only an exercise in testing reality, not a far-reaching measure with a high return on investment.

Factors affecting learning

The most effective learning programs include the following:

Content relevant to the target learner

The steps to accomplish this are to evaluate employees' expectations for their own development before analyzing their past.

Multiple learning methods, such as classroom learning, online learning, and practical exercises

This ensures that the learning process and learners do not fall into a learning mode.

Follow-up actions to improve learning

After a few weeks of training, provide employees with half-day seminars based on a topic; or send relevant articles and emails to employees to keep their learning continuous.

Opportunities to apply learning outcomes

If the learning content is related to the needs of the organization, then the practice of real situations will strengthen the learning effect.

There are many examples of programs designed to create future leaders. However, these programs often ignore the evolution of the organization's employees, such as the organization's actual needs, intergenerational differences, and unique learning styles. If the final purpose of the plan is not synchronized with the implementation process, it will not only waste time, but also consume money, with little effect in the end. In addition, employees who have been trained in such programs will be frustrated when they have no or little opportunity to implement learning outcomes. It can be seen that what we really need is a high-quality, targeted development plan that can run through the entire organization. This plan must be carefully thought out, and it must be purposeful and strategic in its implementation. Sex.

Professional development programs tend to focus on the general skills of employees rather than providing the knowledge needed by emerging leaders. Most of these courses teach general philosophical knowledge and business cases, rather than true management and leadership skills. Therefore, participants will never know how to be an effective manager before becoming a leader. In many cases, trainees will not have the opportunity to practice their new skills in front of them or for a short period of time, which causes them to quickly forget the skills they have learned.

One solution that can solve the above problems is to combine effective professional development programs with practical cross-training and field experience, and place learning into real scenarios-classroom learning for the purpose of solving practical business challenges. This program not only makes it easy for current managers to observe whether different leadership candidates are suitable for classroom learning, but also allows them to evaluate the relevance of the training program.

Evaluation Strategy

Which learning solution is best for their employees, now and in the future? How do leaders make decisions about this? Accurate assessment of the organization's current and future needs requires leaders and human resources to identify employees' development needs and opportunities and to design the most effective types of learning programs.

The evaluation team, although expensive, was very effective. The assessment team interviews and observes the members of the organization, and then constructs a model that will set up a scene for employees to enable them to play roles in real-life situations. During the role-playing process, the assessment team can understand how employees respond to special events. Typical scenarios include: crisis management, conflicting relationships, teamwork, productivity, and resource issues. The assessment team has a wide range of roles, and the observers of the team can observe every potential future manager to see how they deal with different situations. Through the evaluation, we can draw out the advantages of employees and the areas where employees need to develop in the future. These will be provided as information to senior managers and human resources experts. This solution will also help managers develop high-potential employees who will respond quickly if they are caught in a scenario that has not been encountered before.

At the same time, external consultants participating in the assessment can conduct in-depth investigations of the organization through anonymous surveys and face-to-face interviews. The use of third parties is to ensure the objectivity of the assessment and thus help the organization to obtain new assessment and learning tools. A consultant can develop an executable assessment plan that outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the company and its employees, both within the company being evaluated and compared with other companies in the market. This will help business leaders and human resources directors to develop the most practical solutions and lay the foundation for the establishment of learning programs that maximize return on capital.

Continuous learning

For learning and development professionals, the basic way to ensure a workplace full of learning atmosphere is to turn learning into a full-time job for employees. Japanese companies in an unstable economic situation have been adopting this strategy. When the three Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors companies achieved large-scale layoffs by reducing the number of dealers and closing factories, Toyota demanded that its workers working on the assembly lines of American automakers slow down production. Toyota has maintained these employees' salary levels without sending them to receive unemployment benefits. These employees are engaged in learning, which replaces their daily work. Instead of working on the production line, they learn new skills every day in the classroom.

The theory followed here is that during the off-season of product production, the company provides employees with opportunities to learn and grow, and when the output increases, the company can clearly see the benefits of training. By that time, the factory will become a place with more advanced skills that is different from the past, and employees will also acquire new skills and can show their skills in other places where the company has new needs. Secondly, this will promote learning and development training at the right time. During employee training, the company's production capacity has not diminished. When employees stand on the production line again, their production capacity will be greatly improved. In this way, the organization has expressed its sincerity to employees and fulfilled its commitment to employees, which will become a potential force to promote the future development of the organization.

This method is not only suitable for employees on production lines that are forced to close due to economic reasons. Regardless of individual job and position, all employees should continue to learn. No matter what level employees have reached, they always need to learn more and improve their skills.

Don't stop training

Without management feedback and encouragement, even well-trained employees will fail when facing new challenges. Therefore, no matter what kind of learning model, if you want to ensure that its follow-up actions can be carried out smoothly, you need continuous training and support from supervisors. Unfortunately, many managers and leaders are hesitant or unaware of how to give employees direct, instructive, and actionable feedback. Both parties try to avoid feedback and exchange of information, because they always associate feedback and communication with embarrassment or imperfect shame. Supervisors never make it difficult for their direct reports, and the requirement for direct reports does not include the item of timely feedback, because they are afraid to see the real situation. In fact, when feedback is delivered in a timely manner, it has the following benefits:

Increasing motivation and success.

Effective support and efficient behavior.

Fill knowledge gaps.

The relationship between expectations and priorities needs to be balanced.

Recognize progress.

Provide encouragement.

Support for success.

Therefore, managers should not be afraid of feedback from employees.

The most honest way to get a direct report is to use anonymous feedback. In addition, each management should accept feedback from at least three or more direct reports, and finally bring these results together. Direct reports provided real feedback. The above approach will make them feel more comfortable, and the anonymous method guarantees that no one will be blamed for submitting opinions.