Enhancing Potential
Earlier this year, the Canadian Education and Research Institute for Counselling (CERIC) released its Career Development in the Workplace: National Business Survey, which describes strategies for enhancing potential in the Canadian workplace. In addition to there being a consensus amongst business leaders that the shortage of skilled-workers is their biggest challenge (31% of executives agree), two other themes jumped out as incredibly relevant for organizations that want to get the best out of their people as well as individuals who want to realize their career potential.
From an organizational perspective, 71% of leaders believe that companies have a responsibility to provide career development for employees, but only 29% actually deliver such programs or support. As a first tip in this article, I will outline some of the programs and resources for career building that I work on at Vancity Savings Credit Union, which is one of Aeon Hewitt’s Top 50 Employers in Canada.
From an individual perspective, the two most sought-after professional qualities, according to Canadian executives, are a positive attitude (36%) and great communication skills (29%). As a second tip in this article, I will outline some simple strategies for developing and showcasing oneself as a positive professional who can read, write and speak with influence.
For Organizations: Put People First
Our CEO, Tamara Vrooman, often says that Vancity “is in the people business.” One of the ways that we drive impact through our people is by being a learning organization. This means building on our co-operative principles – number five is “education, training and information” – and fostering opportunities for continual learning and growth for our employees. Here are some examples of programs and resources that help our employees achieve their full potential and make a significant contribution to the organization and the wider community:
Orientation Immersion is a five-day program for new hires (orientation) and existing employees (immersion) – by 2016 all 2,600 Vancity employees will have shared in this learning experience. Combining classroom facilitation, visits to community partners, job shadowing in our call centre, and spending the day at one of our branches, Orientation Immersion is creating a shared understanding of Vancity’s vision for redefining wealth so our employees can align their individual performance with our focus for building communities that are socially, environmentally and economically sustainable.
Classroom and community learning opportunities are available for employees to develop their knowledge and talents. Vancity offers tuition reimbursement for courses that are relevant to employees’ roles and/or long-term value to the company. We also encourage staff to develop and apply their subject matter expertise through service to the community – one of my favourite examples of this type of learning is through the Each One Teach One program:
From an organizational perspective, one of the most impactful things that can be done to support career development is through thorough and meaningful personal development planning, which, ideally, combines opportunities for career development with day-to-day work, cross-functional projects that stretch employees beyond their role, and formal learning through courses and conferences.
For Individuals: Have Contagious Enthusiasm and Write Good
Being excited about work is the easiest ability that you can develop. As I’ve written before, thriving communities typically have positive people at their helm. This doesn’t mean that you absolutely must love all aspects of your work – simply put, it is harder to develop a person’s attitude than their skills and people like to work with people who are good (even fun) to be around. So, whatever work you are doing, or are interested in doing, ask yourself this question about it: what about this job makes me excited?
Not everything about a job will inspire a positive attitude, as it takes time to develop the experience and expertise to find work that is more than 80% perfect – I love my job and, still, Excel insists on weaving its way into my work. Surely there is something about your work that you can derive genuine positivity from. Perhaps it’s the people or the values of the company or that you get to spend time outside or that you get to leave at 4pm. Whatever the case, find your spark and turn it into positive, contagious workplace energy.
Regarding communication skills, well, there is a reason that the authors of this blog chose communicating as one of our six competencies. Every day we listen, talk and write to people. Many of us will read a lot, too. Needless to say, the Environics survey provides evidence for people who want to impress the Canadian executives in search of talent; high potential employees read, write and talk effectively.
Great communicating begins with great listening, so practice eye contact, empathy, body language, and note-taking – Gretchen Rubin provides an awesome road map to develop these talents while making your audience feel really smart, too. According to Kyle Wien, companies are only as good as their writing, so it makes good sense for prospective and current employees – regardless of field or industry – to become better, more influential writers. Here are 25 insights into becoming a great writer from 99u’s Jocelyn K. Glei. Finally, meetings, presentations and phone calls drive so much impact in our communities. When it comes to talking, the tactics are pretty simple: seek to understand your audience before being understood by them and be more interested in what others have to say than insistent on folks thinking that you’re an interesting person. When you’re curious, authentic and kind, people will want to communicate with you.
In order to collaboratively overcome the skills gap in Canadian workplaces, organizations must create and sustain resources and programs that develop the technical and professional skills that are missing amongst new and existing employees. In addition to this important work by business leaders, job seekers and employees must positively adjust attitudes and expectations that match the needs of our country’s business leaders.
And The Potentiality is here to help all stakeholders involved enhance peoples’ professional potential within the Canadian workplace and beyond.
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