It’s the 21st century and no longer do we have staff members that we take fresh from college, train and develop through the business and then wave off for a ‘happy retirement’ 40 years later. Times are a changing and the education system is no longer geared towards developing the non-educational side of our children to ensure that they leave school or college ready to enter the workplace.
So, you have taken on some staff that have not long left education. They interviewed well and showed huge potential. You thought “yes, they will be eager to learn and will be a great asset to our team, we will be able to mould them”. But, they have strange habits that you haven’t seen for a while, they are quiet and non-contributory to the team, they don’t really ‘fit in’, and you don’t seem to be able to get that potential that you saw at the interview out of them. You have tried to share the vision with them but they don’t seem to have grasped it and haven’t asked any questions in order to give you confidence that they ‘get it’.
But is it their lack of confidence that is leading to your lack of confidence in them? It may be time to consider investing in these people, offering them something different to the standard training programmes and look to strengthen their soft-skills which will very quickly help them to develop effective communication skills, personal effectiveness, confidence in challenging situations, and build and maintain effective relationships. Keen to find out more? Click here for more information on our ‘Realising your Potential’ programme.