5 Ways to Empower Your Team While Tackling Business Objectives

For both businesses and individuals, January is the month of goal setting on planning for the year ahead to set ourselves up for success throughout the year. As a leader, it’s your responsibility and privilege to empower your team to take stock of their current skillset and look for ways to promote their professional growth and development. By doing this, you are setting your team and your organization up for success in the year to come.

The term “upskill” has been tossed around in many different ways, but what it really means is learning new skills that prepare you for your next role. With a 12% increase from last year making it 72% of organizations providing formal training, it’s clear that organizations are increasingly seeing the value of upskilling their employees. Ensuring your team is staying up-to-date with trends and growing their skillsets is crucial to organizational success.

While the thought of wanting to encourage your team to continuously upskill is good, knowing where to start and ensuring it can map back to your organizational objectives isn’t always easy. The good news? In our digital world, there are countless opportunities you can take advantage of right now, and it isn’t too complicated to do so.

1. Learn something new.

Being a continuous learner is an essential part for career growth, and it is a catalyst for business development. Investing is building new skills helps your team to better perform their roles and add value to your organization. By adopting a growth mindset, they will be able to leverage their skills and diverse experiences to create innovative solutions and meet business goals.

2. Earn a new certification (or two, or three).

IT and business certifications are great tools to encourage your team to seek out to enable them to build their own credibility while enhancing their business impact. Skillsoft’s IT Skills and Salary Report shows that 56% of people with certifications said the quality of their work significantly improved, demonstrating the benefits for both the employee and the employer.

Earning a new certification can help individuals feel more empowered to apply their knowledge to discussions with colleagues and play a more engaged and active role within your organization to implement growth opportunities.

An important note: you don’t need to be in IT to gain a certification. There are countless certifications in fields like social media, marketing, human resources, compliance, leadership, and more. Gaining certifications is simply one of the most recognizable ways to help your team showcase their professional skills development.

Check out our list of the top-paying IT certifications to learn more about how investing in certifications can boost your career.

3. Work on your power skills.

Upskilling could lead to the creation of 5.3 million new jobs by 2030. To be successful in these jobs, people will need power skills such as communication, problem-solving, adaptability, and leadership.

If you are looking for ways to help your team build power skills, you can encourage them to ask for feedback from their peers, self-reflect, and take online courses that give them more formal ways to learn and grow. Challenge them to build power skills that are required for their career progression. The opportunities for growth are endless. Before you know it, you will have a team that is skilled to take on new challenges and go above and beyond.

4. Assess and hone pre-existing skills.

They say practice makes perfect, and they’re right. What better way to help your team to boost their careers than encouraging them to hone the skills they already have and apply them to their everyday lives? Skillsoft’s skills benchmark assessment tool gauges your current skillset and provides suggestions on areas for improvement. It’s a great way to check in with yourself and invest in your future success.

While guiding your team to enhance their current skills, challenge them to ladder those skills back to your organizational goals and encourage them to map out how their personal growth in an area will also help them achieve their goals. Helping your team to build on their current skills can add value to their career growth and your organization all at once. 

5. Find a mentor or seek out coaching.

Mentorships and coaching can give employees guidance, support, and help build confidence. A mentor can provide advice based on their own experiences, and help build a professional network. A coach can guide you along your career path and help you understand what you want your next step to look like. Setting goals, creating a plan, and implementing that plan with the guidance of a coach is a great way to level up your career. Check out our coaching options to help your team achieve their career goals.

Encouraging your team to invest in themselves through upskilling is a win-win. They will learn something new and boost their career all while making more significant contributions to your organization. New skills, certifications, and enhancing pre-existing skills are great steps to grow. Ready to start encouraging your team? Here’s to making 2023 your best year yet.