One of the most important aspects of employee development is instilling confidence in your employees. Many of them have a great deal of untapped potential, but they may not have the opportunity to show that potential, or—as is perhaps more frequently the case—the opportunities are available, but employees aren’t being assertive enough to go out and seize those opportunities.
Focus on Strengths
The Gallup organization has long argued that managers would get more value and productivity from employees if they focused on building their strengths rather than overcoming weaknesses. The book Now, Discover Your Strengths launched a revolution and appropriately encouraged many managers to shift their focus.
The shift, though, requires the ability to accurately assess and understand exactly what employees’ strengths are.
Helping Employees Find What They Do Best
In a blog post, Gallup argues that “To succeed in their role and help their team and organization perform better, employees need to know what they naturally do best. They need to know how to use their talents to accomplish whatever it is their role demands of them.”
The blog goes on to recommend five basic questions employers can ask to help employees discover these “hidden” talents and interests.
- What do you know you can do well but haven’t done yet?
- What sorts of activities do you finish and think, “I can’t wait to do that again”? Or, what are you doing—inside or outside work—when you’re truly enjoying yourself?
- What have you done well that you didn’t need someone to explain how to do?
- What have other people told you you’re great at doing?
- What activities are you doing when you are unaware of time passing?
As you can probably gauge from these questions, the point is to help employees figure out for themselves not just what they are good at but also what they like to do.
By getting a sense of these two factors, employers and managers have an opportunity to empower employees to do something they can be truly engaged in.
Confidence Boosts Engagement
One of the best ways to get the most out of employees is to build up their confidence. If employees are both engaged and confident, they will seek out opportunities to boost their careers and, thereby, help the department and the company.
One way to help them get there is by asking a few simple questions. The questions above can be a good starting point to identify the aspects of their work that will most energize—and engage—employees.