Develop employees for your business
Overview
This standard is for entrepreneurs who need to develop employees for their business. Helping people to improve their skills will allow your business to increase productivity, improve the quality of the service or products you offer and support the continuing development of your business. Developing your employees involves deciding on their development needs, planning and setting targets for development, and completing their training in-company or externally.
You might do this if you need to:
make your business or social enterprise more productive;
improve the quality of the product or service of your business or social enterprise;
make changes to staff roles to develop and expand your business or social enterprise;
monitor employees' progress.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
- carry out a regular review of employees' development needs in accordance with business priorities and objectives
- collate information about staff development needs and use it to make relevant decisions
- identify and agree development needs for employees through appraisal or discussion
- analyse the skills required and the order in which they need to be learned
- agree learning goals and complete an action plan for each employee
- identify appropriate training opportunities to suit individual needs
- choose a method of training, mentoring, coaching or development which meets each employee's individual learning needs
- identify the resources required for knowledge, skills and behaviours development
- develop, train, coach or mentor employees, altering the approach based on feedback or their progress
- arrange external training or development where employees cannot be trained in your business
- allow employees practice their skills, apply their knowledge and get experience in a structured way
- encourage employees to reflect on their development
- recognise and reward individual success
- identify obstacles to learning and review the development needs
- check your employees' progress towards learning goals and provide feedback
- seek guidance from specialists, when necessary
- keep accurate, confidential and up to date records of development needs and plans
- check that the outcomes of training and development are benefiting your business
- follow the relevant laws, regulations and best practice related to employee development
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
Developing employees
1. the knowledge, skills and experience required for the products and services your business sells
2. the information you need about development needs of individual employees
3. the appraisals, performance review reports, business plans, feedback from colleagues, stakeholders and customers
4. how to identify the skills employees need to develop
5. how to set and agree targets for individual development
6. how to write an action plan and agree learning goals
7. the training you provide in your business through on the job training, short courses, mentoring or coaching
8. the training that may need to be provided externally by attending a course, contracting an external coach or trainer
9. the resources for employees' development, such as learning time, training programmes, fees and substitute staff
10. the range of development opportunities, such as learning on the job, in-company training, online courses, classroom-based courses, bespoke programmes tailored to business needs, mentoring and coaching
11. the sources of information about training courses and events
12. what government support might be available for small businesses, such as training grants, free course provision or fee remission
13. how to check individual staff understanding and progress
14. how to evaluate the staff development against your business priorities and objectives
Training, mentoring and coaching
15. how to identify learning opportunities and match them to individual needs and objectives
16. the types of learning through training, mentoring or coaching
17. the different learning preferences and methods depending on individual needs
18. the resources and materials and methods of structuring learning activities
19. how to encourage employees to reflect on their own achievements
20. how to identify the obstacles to learning from and how to overcome them
21. how to analyse and use developments in learning, including new ways of delivery such as technology-based learning, online learning etc.
22. how to motivate employees by recognising and rewarding their success
Laws and regulations
23. the relevant laws, regulations and best practice