In this guest post, Nature’s Emma Tommasini (lead image), promotes the idea of internal training for staff when cookie cutter education’s not for all…
Learning and development should be one of the most important factors to consider in business today. It needs to be area of focus for the executive team – a passion point even – because ultimately better people mean better business.
As an industry, we still aren’t talking about training enough. There is a lot of noise around flexibility and new policies to attract talent, which is all well and good, but there is significantly less noise about nurturing that talent and fostering their development.
The learning function of a business has a very strategic role to play, one that’s more important than ever considering the dramatic changes brought about in the last two years. Learning and development will simultaneously help businesses attract and retain talent, motivate teams, build a strong brand and values-based culture and bolster the capabilities of your people on ground.
However, businesses cannot expect to run a one size fits all development policy that will meet the need of the whole company. Business leaders need to understand that people are the business’ biggest asset, and people are all inherently different in the way they approach working, learning, training and the rest.
When looking to revamp our own learning and development strategy, we consulted our people every step of the way and they answered. Not surprisingly, they all answered differently. People find themselves on different stages of their learning and development journey, and they learn in different ways, from audio to visual or tactile.
Once you understand that, it becomes clear just how necessary a program tailored to an individual level is. That’s why we built a new platform with every person and level in mind – from our consultants to our directors and beyond. It’s ambitious sure, but it’s necessary.
Cue Nurture, a bespoke market-leading platform that focuses on each and every person who is a part of Nature’s growth journey. How? It provides our team with a number of learning and development modules they can pick and choose from based on where they are in their individual development journey. Each person’s training modules can be tailored to them; ranging from softer skills through to more technical workshops and from self-paced learning to interactive workshops – it’s truly something that has a topic of interest and style to suit everyone.
The platform will also be part of our onboarding experience to ensure that new people have a great intro to the company. It helps them understand what we do, and perhaps more importantly, why we exist.
Businesses and business leaders need to realise that there’s a strength in knowing that everything you do comes down to understanding people – especially our own – and that shouldn’t be unique to us. By helping your people grow, you will help your business grow. The best people after all, are the ones who have been nurtured.
