After my recent webinar, “Effectively Growing Your Key Talent: Are You Sunlight and Water — or Just Manure?” I received some interesting questions. I thought I’d share some of them and my responses.
Q: My organization faces tight budgets in the foreseeable future. The first thing cut was professional development. How can I convince my leadership that this is short-sighted because I might end up losing my most motivated staff?
A: You are right in worrying that your good staff might be circulating their resumes. A common issue among top performers is they want continual learning and development. They aren’t satisfied to not grow professionally.
You need to have a frank conversation with your leadership to discuss how you’re concerned that many of your best people are going to pursue other opportunities with organizations that offer them growth. The whole company could be set back with the time to recruit, train and get a new person up to speed, let alone slowing down projects their predecessor was working on.
In the webinar, we discussed 10 low-cost ways to develop your staff. Even if there is minimal budget, you could start doing some of the items listed on the chart I provided. It will show your staff you care about their development, even if you don’t have a large budget right now.