How do you develop the skills of your people?

Up-skilling your existing staff is an essential part of building your firm’s capability. This is especially true if you are introducing new products or services, new technology, processes or business models.

Building skills and knowledge is an important and valuable ongoing investment in your business that should produce better results and higher productivity.  When staff value the time, money and effort your business has invested in their development, it fosters a stronger commitment and loyalty from them.  Providing effective, ongoing training should lead to motivated staff that know and understand their responsibilities and are keen to develop their abilities further.

There are various types of training and development activities that can be adopted to build skills and capability.  These include building knowledge through reading, listening and observing, or developing skills through demonstration, practice, review and improvement.  Training and development can be conducted through on-the-job or off-the-job learning experiences, and can include peer coaching, mentoring and formal structured training sessions.

Skills development can also occur through the pairing of the right people together. Teaming right brain (imaginative, holistic framing, visualisation, etc) and left brain (rational, sequential analytic, objective, etc) people together can create an environment where their skills are enhanced. Take for example David Packard and Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard. Both trained as engineers but Packard became the executive leader and Hewlett supplied the engineering spark . This right and left brain combination allowed for creativity to be fostered within a structured environment.

You may require the assistance of a training consultant or training organisation to help you scope and select appropriate training and development activities.  Public providers such as TAFE Institutes and Universities may be able to assist or you may wish to access the services of a private provider such as the Australian Institute of Management or a member of the Australian Council for Private Education and Training.

If formal recognition of learning is required or preferred, there are several ways to obtain accreditation.  It may be necessary for formal recognition of learning to comply with industry or regulatory requirements.  In this case, you can engage an accredited training provider, obtain accreditation as a training provider yourself or adopt a process to ensure staff have access to formal recognition through recognition of prior learning (RPL).

The Department of Education and Training has established Skilling Solutions centres across Queensland to provide assistance to individuals and organisations in obtaining RPL for skills learnt in the workplace.

Links to subsections of this topic

How do you find and hire skilled people?
How do you develop the skills of your people?
How do you access skills externally?
Programs and Services