It’s that time of year again where hopefuls from all over the UK seek fame and success on our televisions. With the rise in the popularity of talent contests such as Britain’s Got Talent and The Voice it has led us to the question – what is our hidden talent? The skill that we once acquired along the way but currently neglect to make use of or perhaps something that we don’t personally recognise as a valuable skill to have.
As an employer you need to ensure that you are bringing the best out of your staff. Not only will utilising and developing the talent that they already possess benefit them, but it could improve your business. The key is to know your workforce, what they might not consider as useful skills or knowledge could be just what you’re looking for.
Now, we aren’t quite talking about the ability to street dance or knowing how to belt out a show tune (as entertaining as that may be in an office environment). It’s those secret talents, forgotten qualifications, personal interests and know how that might come naturally to some people that you can make use of. You could be surprised and impressed at what you actually find out about colleagues and hopefully uncover some transferable skills that can be applied in certain areas of business.
For example, you could be interested in using social media to generate good PR for the company and be just about to start an expensive recruitment campaign for a social media officer. A member of your workforce might be a self taught expert in using Twitter in their private lives or even in charge of social media for a local charity in their spare time. By knowing that these skills already exist in your workforce and being able to invest in them, then you can fine tune them to meet your business needs and even save time and money.
One way to find out what exactly your colleagues know is by conducting a skills audit. Not only will you be more aware of what extra talents are hiding amongst your staff, but you will be able to identify any skill gaps in your organisation and devise a training plan to resolve them. Also, if someone has knowledge in a different area to their current team this would also become clear during a skills audit and could result in potential savings.
Invest in the skills of your workforce and develop what you already have. By concentrating on what knowledge you currently hold as a company then you can focus your efforts more effectively. If you supply further training to perfect the skills of the staff that you already have then you also won’t waste resources unnecessarily hiring new talent in. For details on training courses available to help develop your business contact us.
Written by Meegan – www.bluewoodtraining.com – May 2012
