Mastering HR Development: Strategies for Nurturing Employees, Managers, and Student Workers

When opportunities for growth and development are missing in a work position, employees may seek new job opportunities. HR professionals should step in well before an employee is in such a situation. Does your HR department have the right strategies for nurturing employees, managers, and student workers? Keep on reading to get inspiration on how to support your employees.

Throughout our professional carrier, we go through different job positions and responsibilities. Developing our competencies and trying something new to grow professionally and personally isn’t unanticipated in organizational settings. While each employee is on their own journey of professional growth, HR professionals can be a supporting and cheering unit standing by at the sideline and ready to help and support whenever needed.  

Employees who experience zero development or challenges at work will seek new job opportunities. You’ll end up saying goodbye to excellent employees if you don’t nurture and motivate them. Therefore, focusing and providing time for continuous growth will increase employees’ motivation to do their best and stay in the organization. 

When we talk about HR development and strategies, we don’t think of appraisal interviews. It’s part of the development process, but an appraisal interview alone isn’t enough. Keeping a continuous dialogue and providing courses or mentorships are some strategies you can implement. As an employee’s professional journey is dynamic, offering HR help should be something you offer more than once a year.

Read along and gets tips to motivate your full-time employee, manager, and student worker.

A simple Google search or a look in HR books suggest good strategies. We recommend selecting and developing strategies where 1) the outcome benefits the employees and 2) they align with your organization’s overall strategy.

You can consider the following suggestions: 

• Education in the form of courses and workshops
• Network/boards/working groups
• Job rotation
• Self-study
• Coaching
• Mentoring

Regardless of which strategy fits your organization best, you mustn’t skip continuously keeping up with the employee throughout the entire process and afterward. Talk with the employee regularly to find out if the specific development process is a waste of time or if the employee sees value and growth in it. Perhaps an employee needs your help setting up some course goals. 

Remember that professional competencies aren’t the only focal point. Some employees may also benefit from setting personal development goals relevant to their job. For example, it could be a goal to dare to stand in front of a crowd and give a presentation or speech.

Besides developing strategies HR can use to help employees, identifying employees’ development goals is just as important. Most employees have professional goals they’d like to achieve, but not everyone has clear goals. As an HR professional, you can help set goals with employees who have difficulty defining them themselves.

To identify the employee’s development goals, you can invite them to a conversation where you ask questions such as:

• What motivates you?
• Which tasks don’t motivate you?
• What are your strengths? 
• What are your weaknesses?
• Where do you see opportunities for professional and personal development?

The conversation between you and the employee aims to manifest concrete and achievable goals for the employee and discuss how you can facilitate the time and needs so the employee has support throughout the entire process.

When it comes to supporting the manager’s growth, it’ll typically concern their personal development. The manager can strengthen and develop their leadership by working on personal competencies. 

Try helping your manager with the following:

• Coaching
• A sparring partner
• Networking groups for managers
• Education
• Follow-up training

The personal competencies you select to develop in collaboration with the manager don’t only concern the manager. While it’s the manager you nurture and motivate, the competencies will ultimately affect the employees and the company’s bottom line. Talk with the manager about how they are doing, and remember to offer your support.

When it comes to helping a student worker sound guidance and mentoring from HR is a must as the students may have a more limited period of employment than other employees. 

Considering the time factor, it may be challenging for the student worker to reach or develop their professional and personal competencies. Nevertheless, try to set up smaller but reachable goals that the student worker can achieve throughout their time in the organization.  

Don’t stop here. Besides setting goals, remember to ask the student worker what responsibilities and tasks they’re occupied with. Perhaps they are doing more than what you expect. 

Ask the following questions to the student worker:

• Are there any specific skills you would like to develop during your time with us?
• How can we ensure that you feel engaged and motivated in your work?
• How can we help you translate your theoretical knowledge into practice?
• What kind of feedback and guidance do you need?

As an HR-ON customer with HR-ON Staff, you can set up engagements with our Engagement Builder to provide the framework for development conversations. Setting up an engagement ensures you and the employee can review all relevant discussion areas. 

You also have the opportunity to note down relevant points from the conversation and share them with the employee. They’ll have easy access through their Data Card in HR-ON Staff. 

What happens with engagements once they are done? In HR-ON Staff you’ll find all previous engagements you’ve sent out. For the development conversations, it means you can see which agreements you and the employee have made and always stay on track. 

Want to know more about Engagement Builder and HR-ON Staff? Book a free demo today, and let our platform assist your HR work.