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15 Staff Development Ideas Examples
Published on:
September 27, 2024
Updated on:
April 29, 2025
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The business world is competitive now more than ever and investing in staff development ideas is a crucial method to remain competitive. Staff development is any organization's strongest weapon that helps attract and retain top talent, as well as foster a positive and growing workplace culture.
Whether you're looking to enhance employee skills, prepare for succession, or simply keep your team engaged and motivated to strive for more in the professional life, employee development opportunities are key. You can even get your own free development template at the end of this article!
So without further ado, let's get to exploring the 15 staff development ideas we have listed below for you!
Employee development is the ongoing effort an organization invests in an employees professional skills, knowledge and overall capabilities. So in that sense, employee development is not just basic training. Instead it's a much wider concept than that.
Whether it be mentorship or workshops, or even cross-functional projects, the main goal behind employee development is to empower the workforce and encourage them to take on new challenges and embody a growth mindset. Through this investment, companies can foster loyalty, increase productivity, and create a more agile workforce prepared to adapt to change.
In order to choose the right ideas, you'll need to identify what would make the greatest impact on your team instead of just going with the latest trends. A tailored approach is the best to ensure that your effort is meaningful and effective, as well as aligned with your business goals.
So, you should not only assess skill gaps and the overall goals of your team, but you should also consider your team's learning styles. Once you do so you can set clear objectives to ensure alignment and effectivity in order to ensure meaningful impact. Consider time and budgeting too and you can just measure and adjust your employee development efforts accordingly.
Employee development ideas are a great contributor to staff development which will ultimately gravely affect long-term organizational success. So before we get into detail for each example, here's what we have for you!
- Regular One-on-one meetings
- Cross-functional training
- Mentorship programs
- Job shadowing
- Competency assessments
- Leadership training
- Workshops and seminars
- Online courses and certifications
- Hackathons or innovation challenges
- Career Roadmap
- Team building activities
- Lunch and learn sessions
- Continuous Feedback
- Peer coaching
- Stretch assignments
Holding regular one-on-one sessions is a great strategy for staff development. In this setting, employees will have a chance to discuss performance, set goals and identify areas for development in detail.
Regular one-on-ones will allow for open communication and help build a stronger relationship where progress tracking is smoother and more efficient. Any challenges will be addressed in a trusted setting and professional growth will be encouraged with a solid action plan.
Cross-functional training is a powerful employee growth opportunity as it allows your workforce to experience a variety of departments where they can pick up on diverse skill sets. Beyond their primary duties, employees can broaden their understanding by contributing to different teams firsthand.
Cross-functional training encourages collaboration and improves problem-solving capabilities. As it also promotes innovative thinking, cross-functional training enables an agile workforce, contributing to both individual and organizational growth.
Mentorship programs similar to buddy programs offer a special type of staff development. As you pair less experienced employees with seasoned professionals, you'll be giving your workforce a unique perspective.
Mentorship programs cultivate a culture of learning and growth while boosting confidence in your workforce. Offering space for mentors to practice their leadership skills, mentorship programs are multilayered staff development examples.
Job shadowing is an effective employee development idea since it allows employees the necessary space to observe other departments closely. This way employees will gain practical insight into various roles, gaining a better understanding of their sector.
A hands-on learning experience like job shadowing enhances cross-department collaboration and encourages new career paths, also helping with succession planning within the organization.
Competency assessments are vital to have a better understanding of employees' performance. Only then will you be able to create the best career path forward for your employees. Competency assessments will help identify strengths and areas for development, painting a clearer picture of where development efforts need to be made.
Leadership training is a key part of growing the next generation of leaders in an organization. As a form of succession planning, leadership training will help fish out the potential in your workforce, allowing you to make informed and strategic decisions as an organization.
Not only does it prepare employees for higher-level positions but it also prepares the future of your organization and ensures a strong leadership pipeline.
Workshops and seminars offer opportunities to learn new skills, stay updated on trends in the industry, and deepen existing experience for employees. These types of trainings can also be tailored to certain business needs while also providing unique networking opportunities.
Online courses are a more flexible development opportunity for your workforce. Covering a wide range of topics, online certifications can enhance technical skills, leadership, and soft skills and employees can enhance knowledge in relevant areas.
As you invest in online learning, companies foster growth and boost confidence for new career prospects. They are a simple and affordable way of fostering personal and professional growth, through career pathing.
Hackhatons are a dynamic way to approach staff development. They encourage creativity, innovation, and agility. Innovation challenges can be used as an opportunity to tackle real-world problems and enhance problem-solving skills.
Providing the right space for the freedom to experiment and be innovative, hackathons create healthy competition and cultivate growth.
Career roadmaps help strategize accordingly for staff development. Creating a clear and concise action plan, and career roadmaps helps your workforce set goals and plan for the future with the help of milestones and support their professional growth.
For companies, creating career roadmaps will improve retention as they allow aligning employee goals with organizational objectives, as well as fostering a sense of purpose and engagement.
Team building activities serve as a helpful tool to enhance collaboration and camaraderie. While a variety of activities can be considered team-building events, they all help cultivate employee engagement which helps reduce turnover.
Team-building activities also help boost morale and cultivate trust and cooperation within the workforce. At the end of the day, they boost a more cohesive and productive environment within organizations.
Lunch and learn sessions can be a chill and informal way to gather your workforce and offer growth opportunities. These types of sessions can involve a variety of topics and help create a culture of continuous growth.
As employees will share their expertise in this setting it will allow for know-how to be transferred and strengthen workplace relationships in the process, cultivating a harmonious workplace.
Continuous feedback plays a vital role in any organization. Without constructive criticism and a well-structured feedback loop, your employees won't be able to build on their experience and identify what areas for improvement they have.
By providing continuous feedback you allow your workforce to adapt quicker to changing circumstances and align their efforts with organizational goals, promoting employee engagement and improved overall performance.
One of the best ways to establish such a pipeline is to utilize Teamflect, an all-in-one performance management tool designed specifically for Microsoft Teams! Download Teamflect to help streamline your feedback efforts and continue growing as a team.
Peer coaching is a similar method to mentorship only it allows for equals to collaborate in a less formal setting, helping employees partner and share know-how. This method fosters a supportive learning environment where skills can be shared in confidence.
Peer poaching cultivates stability and accountability in a trusted environment and strengthens workplace dynamics in the process.
Stretch assignments are exactly what they are called, they push your workforce out of their comfort zone. They serve as a healthy challenge that allow employees to explore new work circumstances and tackle different problems, contributing to their professional development.
Utilizing stretch assignments will not only aid personal development for your workforce but contribute to creating a diverse skilled workforce that pushes your organization forward as well.
Staff development is an essential piece in fostering growth in the workplace, as well as improving productivity and employee engagement. Employee growth will equip your workforce and empower employees with the necessary skills to perform at their best.
Invest in upskilling and reskilling your employees to ensure continuous learning and create your very own leadership pipeline. This way you will contribute to an innovative, adaptive, and agile workforce.
Staff development can also enhance organizational performance as it ensures your employees' goals are aligned with organizational objectives. At the end of the day, employee growth improves your organization's edge in the industry by nurturing a highly skilled workforce.
If you're looking to create your own professional development plan for your workforce, we have you covered. With Teamflect, you can start creating your very own professional development plan and cater each one specifically to your employees without ever leaving Microsoft Teams! So without further ado, let's take a step by step look into how you can get started!
Once you're inside Teamflect, you can go ahead and click on your profile picture on the right hand side corner and you'll be met with your personal information. If you scroll down, you'll see a feature titled "Ready To Grow?". Click on that button and we'll begin to create your individual development plan.
The first step of creating your IDP is choosing the main angle for it. So let's decide if we're new to a role, are currently developing in it or want to move to an entirely different role. As you know, only by knowing your goals can you reach your objectives. So now that we have that selected, we can move onto the next step.
Once you know what you're looking to mainly achieve with this individual development plan, you can determine the timeline at which you're looking to get there. Whether it's a short-term burst, a medium-term journey, or a long-term evaluation, this is a crucial section in your IDP.
Now it's time to define your objectives with more detail. This part of your IDP provides;
All this information will help keep your details in mind and where you are in your career journey as you define details about your future role.
In this part of your individual development plan, you'll be able to define what your future role is through the roles catalog which will have been provided by your company. Here you can browse through all role types in your organization, determine which you're interested in.
Next up is selecting competencies competencies that you believe are relevant and intriguing for your career aspirations. Based on the information you've already provided with your objectives, main goal, and future roles in previous steps, Teamflect will suggest related competencies that best match your wants. You'll still have the ability to browse through the entire catalog of and choose from other competencies as well.
As you move towards finishing creating your very own IDP, one of the very last steps is to decide upon key objectives to reach your aspirations. While you can of course add multiple goals in this section, you can again get help from our built-in AI feature and as to see AI generated goals. That way, you can easily navigate this section with smart suggestions and determining goals for your IDP will be a breeze.
Lastly, you'll determine what resources are needed for you to reach your goals and achieve career aspirations. In this section of your individual development plan, you will;
Once you click on create, you're done! The pop-up will let you know you've successfully created your IDP and it will also suggest a one-on-one with your manager to keep track of your progress. Of course you can skip this part for now but IDPs are not a one and done concept. By nature, they only work if you keep up with it regularly and consistent one-on-ones will give you the right space to develop as a professional and monitor your progress.
But we aren't done just yet! If you're not a fan of creating your own plans and wish there was a simpler way to approach employee development, we have your back.
We've gathered 8 free employee development templates for you to choose from and customize as you please, head over to our article for more!
An all-in-one performance management tool for Microsoft Teams
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