Professional Development: How to Get Started

Where do I begin?

Before you make any changes to the way your business operates, take some time to reflect on your current practices and identify opportunities for improvements and cost-savings.

1. Know what’s required. Make sure your practices regarding hiring and managing your employees are in line with the law. Check out the U.S. Small Business Administration’s guidance, “Hire and Manage Employees,” which offers clear, easily navigable information on basic state and federal labor laws.
2. Identify any “pain points” that are causing low employee morale and productivity, high turnover, or steep costs to your business. Think through your existing practices for hiring, training, and providing professional development opportunities for workers. Below are a few initial questions to identify areas for improvement:
   • Is high turnover causing my business to lose money?Am I finding it hard to attract employees with the skills my business needs?Have I struggled to hire employees who fit the “culture” of my business?Are my employees finding it difficult to fulfill their job duties?Do I spend too much time explaining tasks and retraining current staff members?Are performance and task expectations clear?Are my employees provided with frequent feedback on job performance?What does a “career ladder” look like for employees within my company, if there is one?Do I make available and communicate with my staff ways to grow within the business or develop new skills?
3. Get employee feedback. Consider asking your staff about the effectiveness of your onboarding and training activities, as well as professional development opportunities. If you’d like guidance in gauging employee satisfaction with their job training and growth opportunities, check out these “20 simple Employee Engagement survey questions you should ask” from Culture Amp, and these questions to select from for a post-training evaluation survey from TalentLMS.
4. Assess your employees’ existing skillsets. When thinking about how to prepare new staff members for their jobs, or to keep and promote existing workers, it’s helpful to get a sense of the range of skills your workers bring to the table. This process will help you discover new ways your employees can add value to your business, while also identifying skills your workers are looking to improve or develop.

Build a strong company culture. Your company’s culture consists of the behaviors, attitudes, practices, and overall vision you’re fostering within it. Think of it as a set of core values that you hold. When your employees’ values align with those of your business, they’re more likely to feel motivated in their work and less likely to leave for other opportunities. When looking for culture fit, consider the following best practices:

• Define your culture and make it clear to your staff.
  Take some time to think through what you value, including characteristics you prioritize in your workers and yourself—such as integrity, responsibility, and reliability—and aspects of your business that distinguish you from competitors. Examples include superior customer service, high-quality products, or environmental sustainability. Engage your employees in this process too, to help collaboratively shape what culture can and should look like at your business.
• Experts stress the effectiveness of writing out a values statement or company mission to share with staff. For more advice on solidifying your values within your business, see “Build a Strategic Framework Through Strategic Planning” from The Balance, which includes guidance on and examples of values and mission statements.
• Evaluate the extent to which your hiring process makes clear your company culture. Companies with high retention rates make their values clear during interviews with prospective employees. Determine how effectively you communicate your company culture during your hiring process by including information about your values as a company in job postings, talking about your business culture during interviews, and demonstrating the culture through your interactions with prospective hires.

How can I ensure my employees develop the skills they need in an efficient, cost-effective way?

When you think of training employees, you probably think of the first few days after they’re hired. But training doesn’t just happen when employees start. Organizing ongoing training activities can be an effective way to hone skills, boost productivity, and keep employees engaged at work. Key factors to keep in mind when designing or evaluating your training programs are:

• Flexibility. Not all employees learn in the same way, so try to be flexible and take into account learning differences wherever you can. Consider pairing written training materials with hands-on learning and shadowing.
• Clarity. Successful retail trainings drive home what’s a “best practice” in the industry or at your company, versus what is an absolute requirement. Make sure your employees know where your practices and policies are flexible and when strict rules apply. Standardizing your training content and process will be key here. What do employees need to know to be successful? How can we make sure they learn each skill in the time allotted and have time to practice and improve?
• Follow up. Training should not be a one-time exercise. Studies have found that most people forget nearly 80 percent of what they’ve learned within one month if there aren’t follow-on activities to reinforce the information. If you can, revisit core skills and job dutieswith your staff often, making sure that they’re capable and knowledgeable in their work.

For more tips on effective training, see “The Small Retailer’s Guide to Successful Staff Training.”

You can also reduce costs and avoid some of the main challenges associated with training with the following practices:

• Implement on-the-job training. Before incurring costs for formal training elsewhere, think about ways to boost your initial, in-house training and onboarding activities. Consider starting a one-on-one mentorship program for workers to learn from managers or other staff members who have skills they want. Making sure trainers themselves are well-trained will be key to setting standards for high performance. Some new employees may learn best by observing current staff and management before jumping into hands-on training while others may learn best through hands-on training from the start. For more tips, see “The Best Ways to Do On-the-Job Training” from The Balance.
• Access state and federal grants, tax credits, and training programs. Federal and state government agencies offer monetary and programmatic support to small businesses to help train their employees and find talented workers. For more on how to find and apply for funding, see the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Career Onestop Business Center guide to Funding Employee Training. You can also search for a Federal Employment Training Program in your state through Career Onestop’s Service Locator. Finally, the DOL’s Employment and Training Administration connects users to an array of government workforce development services to help you find and keep talented employees, including through government-sponsored pre-employment training programs.
• Train on your organization’s values. Training and onboarding offer a great opportunity to share with employees what the company stands for, organizational values and culture, who your customers are, and how your business adds value for your customers. Infusing values into training can help illustrate how more specific or technical tasks fit into the big picture.
• Make sure your managers are involved managers. Studies have shown that entry-level employees flourish and remain with a company longer when they have a supportive manager who fosters learning and recognizes accomplishments. Effective managers also model desired behaviors, make clear to employees what their expectations are, and show employees how their roles fit within the company as a whole. For more on the importance of effective frontline management in new employee training, see FSG’s 2017 report, Investing in Entry-Level Talent.
• Use online training courses. Online training courses can help you cut down on costs, and offer convenient, flexible options for your employees. However, some employees may not have internet access at home, so be sure to also make online training course access available in your place of work if you provide this training option so that all can participate. See the box below for some examples.¹These services are referenced as examples only. PCV does not endorse any specific product or company, and advises small business owners to research and compare services to find the best option for their needs.

• Track employee progress and make sure trainings are completed. It’s easy to overlook or fail to complete certain elements of job training once an employee is no longer brand new. But letting training activities fall by the wayside can mean you’re not getting the most out of your staff. Consider using a tracking system to make sure that all aspects of job training are completed. This could take the form of a simple checklist, or a more formal performance review in which a manager meets with each staff member one-on-one to monitor progress toward full competencies and skills development.
• Evaluate your trainings regularly. Studies have shown that high-performing companies seek employee and frontline manager input on training materials and activities.

See how cross-training looks in practice at businesses that adopted the Good Jobs Strategy.

How can I invest in my business to give my employees opportunities to grow professionally?

Professional development differs from training in that it involves your employee’s long-term career, even if they someday leave your company, as opposed to a narrow view of their specific role at your business. Professional development activities can take many forms, from providing on-the-job training in a new role to offering stipends for employees to take classes at a local college. Creating opportunities for your staff to learn and advance in their careers is an effective way to increase employee longevity at your company while adding value in the form of new skills. These opportunities can also be a great way to improve loyalty among your workers if you can’t yet raise wages or offer benefits.

The steps below can assist you in implementing professional development programs:

• Consider what a “career pathway” looks like at your business. It’s no surprise that workers at small retail businesses often feel they have no room for growth within their company. Some business owners and employees embrace this reality, and are mutually transparent about the “revolving door” culture. If you want workers who remain with the company for years at a time, however, think about ways to give them a path of growth within your company. If you can’t offer growth opportunities within your business, you can still boost employee engagement by enabling workers to develop new skills that will help them move up the career ladder when they do leave. Consider the following options:
  • Look at career paths within larger businesses. Larger businesses within your industry can serve as a helpful model for what career advancement might look like for your business as it grows. See, for example, “5 Promising Career Paths for Retail Workers” from Monster.com, which details types of roles retail employees can grow into as they gain experience.
  • Identify skillsets your employees need to be promoted. Creating opportunities for career advancement within your business requires knowing which skills employees will need in a new role with greater responsibility. The article “10 Things to Know about a Retail Management Career” from WorkitDaily.com details the skillsets generally needed to work as a manager in the retail industry, and could serve as a helpful starting point for employees interested in developing management skills.
  • Find alternatives to traditional promotions. If you’re unable to offer opportunities for advancement within your business right now, consider other ways to help your employees take on more responsibility at work. While there may not be a fast track to management for your employees, there may be opportunities to build a career path through title changes and pay increases every 6-12 months based on new responsibilities, such as training new employees or taking on new projects that boost customer traffic. The detailed guidance offered by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in “Developing Employee Career Paths and Ladders” offers some alternatives to standard promotions, including job redesign, enlargement, and rotation.
  • Be transparent about upward mobility from the outset. If you can’t offer many opportunities for advancement within your business, you’re more likely to find employees who accept this reality if you communicate it during the interview process. Alternatively, if your business does offer a career ladder, advertise the opportunities to candidates upfront. Taking these steps will help you identify the right candidates for open positions and keep those employees in the long term. For more tips on fostering upward mobility at your company, see “Create a Career Path to Retain Employees” from Connecteam.
• Set up a mentorship program. Establishing a mentorship system allows new and existing employees to build relationships, ask questions, and learn from those more experienced and skilled than they are. This system also provides a career step for your more experienced employees to become a mentor. For more on how to set up a mentoring system at your company, check out the Workplace Mentoring Primer from the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP). To see how mentorship can help your business, see “The Advantages of Mentoring in the Workplace,” from the Houston Chronicle.
• “Upskill” your staff and promote from within. Once you’ve identified a path of upward mobility at your business, look for ways to “upskill” your existing staff, or to help them learn new skills that qualify them for higher positions or bring new, needed skillsets to your growing business. Promoting from within greatly reduces the risks, time, and costs associated with hiring new staff members, but can also cut down on the need to pay temporary freelancers or consultants for special projects. For example, rather than bring on a consultant to help boost your social media presence, consider asking a staff member with promising communications skills to step up and take on the task. Engaging employees in this way fosters a culture of supportive growth within your business.
  
  For more guidance, see Deloitte and The Aspen Institute’s Guide to Upskilling America’s Frontline Workers (we recommend jumping right to page 43, with “Getting Started”), which identifies work- based learning, continued education, and career navigation as the three central aspects of the upskilling process. The National Skills Coalition’s 2017 report Foundational Skills in the Service Sector also offers helpful advice for employers looking to upskill their workers (you’ll want to jump ahead to “Better Skills, Better Business: Steps Employers Can Take” on page 22).

• Evaluate employee goals through regular performance reviews. Studies have found that working toward a meaningful goal is the top motivator for employees across industries.

• Align employee goals with your business goals. Getting your employees to think about their roles not just in terms of performing basic functions, but also as driving the success of your business can make them more productive, engaged, and likely to stay with the company long-term. This process requires looking for alignment between the goals of your staff and the goals you have for your company. To ensure goal alignment, take the following steps:
  • Seek employee input. One highly effective way to get buy-in to your business goals is to ask your staff to weigh in on what they think would benefit the company in the long-term. Your frontline and customer-facing staff members, for instance, might have great ideas about ways to boost sales or new products customers want.
  • Communicate business goals to your employees regularly. When employees don’t understand what they’re working toward, they’re very unlikely to feel motivated to do their jobs well or look for opportunities to improve. Avoid this pitfall by being transparent about what you’d like your business to achieve—in terms of profits, sales numbers, new customer acquisition, or other measurable achievements—and how staff members can support these goals. These goals can even be captured on posters that are hung in the break room or through some other visual reminder.
  • Review alignment often. It’s important to evaluate goal alignment regularly, but especially when your business objectives or strategies change. Make sure your employees are kept informed and have the chance to set goals accordingly.
    
    For more on how to align the goals of your staff with your business, see “When to Change Employee Goals,” and How Employee Alignment Boosts the Bottom Line by the Harvard Business Review.
• Encourage staff to continue to learn outside of work. Offering educational assistance programs that help employees master new skills or receive certifications are a highly effective retention strategy for businesses, especially in retail.

• Best practices for encouraging professional development activities outside of work include:
  • Offer training or stipends to your employees. Consider developing ways of encouraging your employees to seek out educational opportunities, including by reimbursing them for tuition costs. While tuition reimbursement is not the right option for all business owners, many find that the added value of a highly skilled staff more than makes up for the upfront costs of classes and workshops. Other learning opportunities include industry-specific trainings, customer service workshops, or skill-specific programs.
  • Locate resources near you. In addition to the online resources listed above, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Career OneStop connects users to valuable information and resources to access professional development services, including:
    • Local Training Finder: This searchable database helps workers find training opportunities in their area.
    • Job Center Database: Here, users can search for an American Job Center near them, where they can receive in-person advice on ways to advance their careers.
    • Professional Development General Guidance: This page offers tips on how to network, receive certifications, and navigate an industry, among other topics.

See the box below for examples of professional development programs and services.²These services are referenced as examples only. PCV does not endorse any specific product or company, and advises small business owners to research and compare services to find the best option for their needs.

What if I need to fire an employee?

While it’s not something most employers want to think about, firing employees is an unfortunate part of managing a business. It’s important to prepare yourself in the event that you might have to let a staff member go. The following best practices can help protect you as an employer, while respecting the rights of your staff:

• Have clear policies, including for performance. Have a clear attendance policy, cash register over/short policy, a clear process for performance improvement plans, an employee grievance policy, etc. so that employees know what is required of them and have clear, fair rules with opportunities to improve before termination.
• Discuss performance issues with employees when they occur. Don’t wait until the problems get out of control. Address bad behaviors among staff members when they happen so employees have a fair chance to improve. For guidance on confronting an underperforming staff member, check out “The thriving workplace: how to deal with difficult employees” from The Balance.
• Document instances of employee misbehavior, underperformance, absenteeism, or other issues. Gathering evidence of consistent problems with an employee supports your case for firing him or her in the event that your decision is challenged.
• Familiarize yourself with discrimination laws regarding the firing of an employee. Firing a staff member because of his or her race or religion, pregnancy, whistleblower status, or certain other characteristics violates the law. It’s important to know these laws even if you don’t plan to fire an employee, and regardless of the reason you want to let someone go. For more information, see “What are the laws on firing an employee?” from Gusto.
• Prepare for the termination meeting with your employee, and be direct. Gather your paperwork— including documents supporting your case for firing someone—and think through what you’re going to say before you break the news. For more advice on how to approach a termination meeting, see “How to Fire an Employee the Right Way” from Fit Small Business.