What do employees want? What does your organization need? Why do people stay in a job? These are all questions that leaders ask themselves all the time.

Research will tell you that people want autonomy in their roles and opportunities for growth and development in their organization. Your organizational leaders will tell you that the organization needs a well-trained, productive and engaged workforce. People will say that they stay in jobs where they feel valued, heard and their needs are met.

There is one universal answer to all these questions: time. People want time — with leadership, for self development, for building a connection with their manager and for job mastery. But time is also what no one has enough of. So how do we best meet the needs of the organization and its greatest asset, its talent?

Start With the Need, Not the Program

Skills gaps, both technical and soft skills, happen at all levels. Learning and development (L&D) and various levels of management must collaborate to discover imperative organizational training needs. Manager and L&D partnerships bridge gaps and realign goals.

An effective way to keep communication open and quickly address skills gaps is to have a reoccurring monthly or quarterly meeting scheduled to bring L&D and department managers together.

We had an instance in our organization where we identified a gap in the development of our non-management staff through exit interviews and feedback from managers who held consistent one-on-one conversations with their teams. To meet the employee need and the organizational need, we constructed a multi-year approach to leadership development, and while it was a huge investment, it changed our culture. That was not necessarily the original intent of the program, but the results from the time and effort far exceeded our expectations.

Set Expectations Before the Program Begins

Several lessons emerged when we were setting up a leadership development program for non-managers:

• Define how employees enter the program. Consider early what the application or nomination and selection process will look like for participants. We chose to have our applicants complete an application, participate in a formal interview and do a 3-minute presentation for the program administrators.
• Clarify what participation means for career advancement. Establish and post clear program details during the application process. You should determine ahead of time if employees must complete the program prior to being promoted to management. We chose to move our participants into an “alumni” status once they were promoted to a manager.
• Set expectations for participants and managers. Meet with the managers of the program participants. The more robust your leadership program, the more opportunities there are for misinformation.
• Plan for changes in employee status. Determine early how disciplinary issues, promotions and other employment changes will affect program participation.

Make Managers Part of the Program

Clear communications with managers are key. After years of program growth, we discovered that managers felt uninformed about certain commitments of the program participants and even their own role in supporting the program.

Now we hold meetings with program participants and their managers shortly after we select the participants. These are quick meetings — no more than 30 minutes — that help support both the participant and the manager’s experience with the program. We have found that copying the manager on calendar invites for the participants as well as providing all dates at the beginning of the program to both the manager and participant prepared everyone best and eased manager concerns.

There are a multitude of other ways to incorporate managers into these types of programs. One way is to have managers join meetings and present to the group on a topic. This provides variety for the meetings while bringing in unique perspectives. Another option could be to have a manager join strictly for a Q&A session in the meeting. We routinely have the group submit their questions ahead of time so we can share them with the manager as they prepare for the meeting. This is a tactic that other leaders have shared as a best practice for gaining manager participation and buy-in. Providing the framework upfront allows everyone to experience a level of comfort.

Match the Group Size to the Experience

Group size should reflect the type of interaction the program requires. A participant group of 5-7 has yielded the best results for us over the years. Small group participation allows everyone an opportunity to speak and for program facilitators to quickly notice when a participant’s shyness prohibits them from being heard within the group. Calling on each participant to contribute to group discussions or pairing the participants to role-play scenarios supports the experience, reinforces the knowledge the participants have gained and allows for skills practice opportunities.

Small groups facilitation is easier during practice scenarios, but we have had a group of 10 in our leadership-focused program in the past. The participants engaged fully and met the overall goals of the program; however, the burden was higher on the program administrators in scheduling, follow-ups, manager communications, mentor alignment and ensuring participant engagement.

Create Development Opportunities Beyond Leadership Programs

Not every employee development opportunity needs to be a multiyear leadership program. The first program we created focused on welcoming new employees to the organization and assisting with onboarding. This is an excellent tool for improving onboarding and escalating employee integration.

An “ambassador” program with this focus can easily accommodate a group of 12 depending on the organizational needs and structure. We found through trial and error that it is best to provide employees performing this type of employee retention effort with training in company culture, self-awareness, social media responsibility and communication skills practice before having them serve in this capacity.

Build Connection Into the Program Design

Employees who join these types of program can provide the organization with a straightforward way to increase employee inclusion and sense of belonging for both new and existing employees while also providing an upskilling opportunity. This program has yielded success year after year and our new employee onboarding surveys record how much new employees value the interactions they have in their first few weeks with us.

We utilize a combination of in-person and virtual channels to onboard new employees. Even in the virtual space, we find we can still connect new with existing employees for a memorable experience. Connecting new employees to those outside of their workgroup provides them with someone who can serve as a general source of information and a potential advocate or sounding board.

Programs where employees have opportunities to network outside of their own workgroups encourage the personal and professional growth that employees seek. A bonus to overall employee engagement is the increase in employee retention and reduction in turnover. We survey our participants in our leadership programs after each monthly meeting and again at the end of the program because their feedback has helped us tweak aspects of the program over the years. Feedback from both new and existing employees is invaluable.

Give the Program a Clear Foundation

We focused our programs on the pillars of service, commitment, community, character and leadership to guarantee we had a solid direction for everything we did. Each training or event connects to one of those pillars and keeps the programs on track. Organizations can just as easily tie programs to their own organizational core values, mission, vision or service standards. The goal is to establish a foundation and a clear why for the program. With community being at the core of what we want to promote, we focus on bringing diverse groups together, including new employees, existing employees, managers and community members.

Continually reviewing these programs, making updates, adding different managers and making other adjustments keep the programs fresh and employees interested in participating. For all involved, from the coordinators to the guests and participants, you will get out of it what you put into it.