10 Employee development areas for professional growth

What are areas of development for employees?

An area of development is a skill or characteristic that employees need for their jobs and careers. They can also be considered as competencies that make up an employee’s overall professional behavior. The more areas of development an employee has, the more likely they are to do their work without issue, cooperate with team members, and grow into competent persons.

With so many skills and know-how your team can learn, it can be difficult to choose which one to focus on. To jumpstart your next training plan, here’s a list of development areas for employees that will always be relevant and fundamental to their growth.

1. Leadership

Leadership skills are some of the most popular employee development areas for a good reason. They equip your team with the ability and motivation to take initiative on their assignments. These skills will help them pursue their own goals in the company and their career.

Early leadership training can train your team to work efficiently with each other as they’ll learn key attributes like accountability, responsibility, and collaboration. If you’re looking for future managers and competent persons in your team, use this powerful employee development area in your training program.

Need some courses to get started? Check out Mitti’s Course Library. It has over 1,000 courses with microlearning technology to help fit training into your team's busy schedules. Mitti (by SafetyCulture) has several leadership courses made in collaboration with organizations like National Geographic, UN Women, and the United Nations Institute for Training (UNITAR)

Recommended online lessons about leadership:

• Leadership by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Empowered Pathways: Navigating Gender and Women's Leadership by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Leading Under Pressure by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Leadership Strategy by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

2. Communication

Communication is essential for any team. Without proper communication, your employees will have more disagreements and act unprofessionally. When your team isn’t on the same page, they’ll make more mistakes. Forming a cohesive and productive team starts with building proper communication.

This can be done by putting lessons about verbal communication, written communication, and/or interpersonal communication in your employee training plan. Choose which mode of communication is most relevant to your team. For example, if some of your employees work remotely, it's best to focus on developing written communication. Recommended online lessons about communication:

• Effective Communication by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Effective E-mail Communication by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Communication in Project Management by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

3. Goal-setting

Choosing the right goal to work towards is also another important development area. This is because your employees need to set goals that are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. SMART goals are realistic and doable so your team has a stable foundation for their development plan.

Some development goals examples for employees include: mastering a certain skill, raising their output, or adding certifications. Creating the right goals can help your team stay on track with their development while they finish their daily tasks.

Recommended online lessons about goal-setting:

• Driving Team Performance by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• The Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Goal Setting: Tools and Tips to Achieve Your Goals by Alison

4. Conflict resolution

This employee development area is a must for intense work environments where the pressure is high and the deadlines are short. Conflict resolution is the skill of handling disagreements. It involves knowing how to de-escalate a conflict, identify the main issue, and make peace with the disagreeing parties.

Conflict resolution is great for developing the emotional intelligence of your employees. A team could face an issue with among one another. Having the right conflict resolution skills can increase morale, prevent issues from creating more problems, and foster positive relationships in your team. Recommended online lessons about conflict resolution:

• Handling Objections with Emotional Intelligence by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• De-escalation Training by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Conflict Resolution Training by Compliance Training Group

5. Time management

In today’s fast-paced work culture, one of the best work performance improvement examples is time management. It’s an important skill for balancing multiple tasks and projects. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed at work when there are too many things to do, but this is made easier with time management.

It isn’t about completing tasks as fast as possible, but prioritizing which one to do at a given amount of time. Learning ways to achieve this will decrease your team’s stress, difficulty with tasks, and late outputs. With time management skills training, your team will be able to make the best use of their time in and out of work. Recommended online lessons about time management:

• The Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Sales Professionals' Guide to Time Management by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Time Management Training by Learning Tree

6. Receiving feedback

Receiving feedback is a foundational skill for personal and professional growth. It’s challenging to grow without asking your coworkers and your colleagues what you could improve on. Not everyone can take criticism, but it's a valuable skill that can accelerate your team’s growth.

This skill includes how to receive, break down, and apply constructive feedback from co-workers and managers. Once your employees know what to improve on, they can take the next steps to develop. Teaching this skill to your team can also level up your company’s current feedback system. Recommended online lessons about receiving feedback:

• Giving and Receiving Feedback by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Performance Management by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Wellbeing, Trust, and Feedback at Work: Employee Track by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

7. Problem-solving

Problem-solving is a key skill in the 21st century. It’s a general cognitive skill that helps your team manage obstacles and challenges through rational analysis and efficient evaluation. It’s the main building block to creating a strong and adaptable mindset in your team.

The Future of Jobs Report for 2023 by the World Economic Forum revealed that analytic thinking, creative thinking, and other cognitive skills that enable complex problem-solving are becoming increasingly important. Instilling ways to meet problems in your team’s mindset can help them enable these skills for their daily operations. Recommended online lessons about problem-solving:

• Problem Solver by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Decision Making, Problem-Solving and Time Management by Alison

• Thinking Critically by Alison

8. Integrity

Integrity is a definitive skill for every professional. It’s a characteristic that comprises honesty, empathy, trustworthiness, patience, and good moral behavior in the workplace. This helps your employees set a standard for their work ethic and professional behavior.

Your employees can develop integrity by learning values and mindsets that help them be accountable, responsible, and honest with their actions. It’s an individual development area that promotes a healthy and synergistic workplace in your team.

Recommended online lessons about integrity:

• Ethics and Code of Conduct by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Building and Maintaining Trust by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Professionalism in the Office by Alison

9. Collaboration

If you want a dynamic and supportive work environment, you should develop collaboration skills in your team. Each employee has their own strengths, weaknesses, abilities, and personalities. Practicing collaboration can help your employees combine their skills and make up their weak points.

It’s also one of the best professional development topics for creating diversity in your team. Knowing how to collaborate with people from different backgrounds and personalities helps everyone in the workplace feel included and connected.

Recommended online lessons about collaboration:

• Connection and Collaboration by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Collaborator by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• How to be a Team Player by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

10. Adaptability

With new technologies and industry developments happening frequently, your team has to be aware of the possible changes to their work. To help them quickly adapt to these changes, they should develop adaptability. This will help them adjust to new technologies, sudden workplace changes, and urgent business demands.

The Future of Jobs Report 2023 has noted that technology will be a central catalyst for development in the next five years. With the rise of AI tools and other technological developments, your team needs the appropriate mindset and practice to include these powerful technologies in their routines.

Recommended online lessons about adaptability:

• Adaptability by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Understanding and Planning Change by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

• Living a Resilient Life by Mitti (by SafetyCulture)

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