How to Choose Professional Development that Your Employees Will Love

It is that time of year again: Summer. And you are looking for the next planned activity to keep your employees engaged at work instead of daydreaming about their next vacation. Maybe you just need a little inspiration on how to choose professional development that your employees will love. Check out the tips below to make your next teambuilding activity a homerun!

Make Professional Development Engaging

Nobody wants to sit in a room full of their colleagues while watching someone at the front drone on about an overly crowded slide show that the presenter is reading word-for-word. Actually, some people might enjoy that because it gives them license to completely check out and think about what they are going to do as soon as the terribly boring professional development (PD) session is over. PD sessions need to get the participants involved, not in a hokey way that no one enjoys. Really get your employees immersed in what you want them to learn, involve them in the activity, and make it an activity where interaction with their colleagues is a must.

Make Professional Development Enriching

A boring PD session will not only make employees check out mentally, but they will also see it as a waste of their time. Nothing is more frustrating than being forced to be somewhere doing something that does not benefit the participant. It becomes a pointless exercise. Employees want PD that will make their lives (and maybe pockets) richer. What gets people more engaged than something that will earn them money? Enriching activities add value to people’s lives and are immediately applicable to their daily work routine. PD should develop skills that employees can carry with them throughout their careers.

Make Professional Development Empowering

Employees want professional development sessions that leave them feeling empowered to do something in a new way that they were not already able to do. Teaching things they already know in ways they have already seen only leads to boredom and frustration, demoralizing your team due to the sheer uselessness of the session. Give your employees a sense of new strength by building on a new skill or creatively reinforcing an old skill. Although the saying might be “practice makes perfect,” that does not mean the practice needs to be the same boring method every time. Do you want to work on your team’s culture? Or acceptance? Or communication? Find a new empowering way to reinforce those skills.

Ready to plan your next engaging, enriching, empowering professional development sessions? Would you like something that is ongoing and does not require you as the manager to do extra work? Contact us about our professional language training sessions. To find out more about the benefits of language training, click here. If your company works with international clients, you might also consider our Intercultural Coaching and Training sessions.