employee training Archives

Identifying Your Company’s Vulnerabilities to Cyberattack

Today’s technological advances and unique customer needs are continuing to drive businesses towards a much-needed and exciting digital transformation. But along with that transformation come vulnerabilities to a company’s cybersecurity.

Building Your Career With the Right Tests, Certificates, and Licenses

In today’s competitive workplace, it’s not enough to believe you can succeed in a role or even to have experience with transferrable skills.

An Executive’s Guide to Career Advancement

You’ve set a high bar for your career goals, and now it’s time to jump. The question is — how? Career development doesn’t end once you have a seat at the boardroom table. Whether you’ve found your home in lower to middle management or have your eye on the C-suite, there are always more steps to take that will cultivate your skills and advance your career.

Top 5 Strategies for Career Development in the Modern Workforce

Employers seeking to thrive in the modern business landscape are increasingly recognizing that one of the keys to meeting corporate goals and boosting profitability is creating career development strategies that improve their employees’ progress and career advancement. Of course, ongoing training is essential to career development, but there are many resources and strategies for growing a more knowledgeable workforce that is ready for the digital world. Individuals and businesses that embrace these concepts will reap the benefits at both the enterprise and employee level.

This approach applies to all industries, including manufacturing, education, telecommunications and retail sales. Today, every job requires digital skills and nimble employees. According to Sanquinetta Dover, founder of Dover Solutions, that means everyone benefits when employees pursue higher goals. “When you give individuals the tools necessary to improve their performance, it grows your company along with their individual careers.”

In this article, we’ll explore how that philosophy applies to the following career development strategies.

Become Excellent at Your Current Position

Although businesses strive to hire qualified candidates, no one has mastery of a job when they begin it. Management should provide ongoing training for your position so that you can stay abreast of recent developments, but you are responsible for upping your skills. The best path forward is to set short-term goals for improvement. Perhaps you want to process your insurance claims with 98% accuracy instead of 95%. Maybe you want to raise your customer service ranking to a five instead of a four. Your goal might be to produce more product in less time. Research how to improve and then establish action steps to achieve your ultimate goal one milestone at a time.

Develop New Skills

If you want to move up in your company, you need to learn new skills. Study for the job you want as well as the job you have. Almost every employee can benefit from computer hardware or software training. Your employer may already offer classes in these subjects or pay for outside training. Many upper-level positions in corporations have global ties, which provide excellent opportunities to expand your skills. You can improve your value by fine-tuning your ability to communicate cross-culturally, or by learning a second language. Similarly, if your industry is one that particularly values higher education, consider taking courses that will benefit your career progress.

Be Open to Lateral Moves

If you cannot move up the ladder right away, think about moving laterally. Your willingness to learn a new position will impress your management team and also make you a more valuable employee at your current company — or at another business. You will learn new skills and prove that you are flexible. Employers prize workers who will take on new challenges and prove their worth as team players.

Be a Volunteer

You can make connections and learn new skills when you volunteer for special projects. Although volunteering often means more work without a pay increase, it does deliver rewards. For one, management will notice that you are eager to help and to grow. You may get management experience yourself by leading a team to complete a project. And your efforts will impress other employers if you decide to look elsewhere for a position in the future. So offer to plan the company’s charity baseball game! You will help your community and yourself.

Self-Evaluation

You need to be brutally honest with yourself in order to develop your career prospects. Part of your plan should be to identify your weaknesses and then take corrective measures. Are you bad with deadlines? Are you hesitant to speak up in meetings? Do your customer service skills need work? You must be clear-eyed about your skills and not defensive, otherwise, you will never improve. And yes, you should also catalog your strengths; know your worth!

Final Thoughts

Both individuals and companies benefit when there is a strategic focus on career development. As an employee, you need to take advantage of any opportunity to improve your skills and move up the job ladder. Employers need to offer these opportunities to create a stronger workforce and to encourage employee loyalty. Skill growth is key. Employees who stagnate limit their job opportunities and are less valuable to their employers.

How Dover Solutions Can Help

Dover Solutions believes in maximizing opportunities for individuals through workforce development. We take a holistic approach to employee training so that employees can meet the demands of their employers while learning skills that will propel them upward in a healthy career trajectory. Successful job placement is a partnership between employer and employee, and at Dover, we specialize in facilitating these matches. We also work to garner public, private, and non-profit resources to knock down barriers to employment, such as disabilities or lack of training.

For help in strengthening your career path or building an employee team, contact Dover Staffing Solutions and take advantage of our Dover Training Institute. The institute offers many services, including licensure and certification, entrance examinations, and training assessments. As a full-service staffing firm, we understand the needs of today’s employers and employees. Get more information by filling out our brief online form or calling 770-434-3040. Remember, success comes when you “Dare to dream. Dare to do.”

Image credits: Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

January 6, 2022/by DoverSolutions

Blog

A Guide to Employee Training for Career Development

In the ever-changing workplace, skill development persists as a tried-and-true advancement strategy for employees at all levels. Whether you’re just starting your career or are part of the way through the journey, adopting a lifelong learning mindset and pursuing skill upgrades better equip you to navigate twists and turns on the road to career success.

If you’re an employer or human resources professional, one of your goals is to provide your staff with the tools they need to succeed and effectively contribute to your organization. Skills training for career development is a way to accomplish this aim and help your staff work smarter and not harder, which benefits everyone involved.

In this article, the second in our employee development series, we’ll explore several skill areas employees can develop or improve to bolster their careers and add value to their organizations.

“Everyone has something meaningful to contribute. A bedrock strategy of true success is to discover and foster individual strengths and use them to benefit others.” ~ Sanquinetta Marie Dover, Dover Solutions founder

1. Soft Skills

Teamwork, problem-solving, and flexibility are examples of what recruiters call soft skills. Ubiquitously transferable, soft skills enable employees to communicate, manage conflict, and collaborate.

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is a type of executive function soft skill that involves understanding and regulating behavior. If you have a difficult day or unsatisfactory interaction with a coworker or business associate, it’s your EQ that helps you put everything in perspective while you remain calm and effective. Team members who struggle with EQ concepts can benefit tremendously from training in this area.

Staff with interpersonal skills and a work ethic — and who demonstrate leadership through self-motivation — become valued contributors to their organizations while furthering career objectives because of their ability to adapt, learn, and grow.

2. Remote Upskilling

As remote work becomes more common, the ability to expand on existing skills both proactively and independently becomes a skill in and of itself. Career candidates need initiative and confidence to assess their own skill set, source upgrade solutions, and act on those opportunities.

Reading industry publications, listening to podcasts, and attending virtual events such as webinars are all ways to engage remotely in career development. Whether you are entry-level clerical staff improving your keyboarding skills or have a role in IT and are working towards a CCNA certificate, remote upskilling is accessible and advantageous.

In addition to job-specific career development, remote upskilling presents the opportunity to develop other valuable and transferrable skills, such as time management and personal organization. Taking on training while working at home may seem overwhelming until you flex your scheduling muscles and devise a plan to keep yourself on track and accountable.

3. Software and Technology

Mastery of widely-used software positions job candidates competitively in the quest for advancement. One example of this software is Microsoft Office, which covers an array of application choices; spreadsheets, presentations, and word processing are all of value in any industry. The hug percentage of companies in the U.S. using Office 365 make this suite of programs a prime focus for employee training.

Technology is not just a tool to facilitate workflow; in some organizations, it’s the core of the business. If you work for a software company, for example, there are likely multiple training opportunities to advance your position and increase your job prospects.

4. Job-Specific Training

A Customer Service Specialist (CSS) is the vital link between the customer and company and is an example of a role that requires job-specific training. When performed skillfully, the role of CSS results in new business, successful client retention, and dispute de-escalation. An employee responsible for customer service brings to the role soft skills such as leadership and emotional intelligence but also requires job-specific training regarding company products and policies.

Look for opportunities at your company for job-specific training outside of your current role. Your employer might need vacation or sick days backup for a coworker’s position. Taking on this training increases your value to the employer while broadening your skill set for future opportunities.

5. Core Skills Training

Core skills are highly transferrable between roles and even industries, and they should be a priority in employee training for career development. These are the skills that enable you to work on a team and share ideas and information.

Communication is one such example. Whether it’s public speaking or the written word, the ability to effectively convey information is a highly valuable core skill. The purpose of communication affects the way you use it; for example, your word choices and delivery methods might differ between language intended to persuade and that which is meant to instruct. Fluency in oral and written communication can be a make-or-break core skill, the development of which can benefit any staff member.

Employee training benefits organizations and staff. If you’re an employer or HR manager, adding staff skill assessments and upgrades to your management plan is a worthwhile undertaking. If you’re an employee who wants to uplevel your skills, you don’t need to wait for your employer to lead the way. Be proactive and look for professional self-improvement opportunities.

The next article in our employee development series will examine career growth essentials such as testing, certification, and licensures aimed at promoting career development. Contact Dover Training Institute for more information and complete this form to get information about our next training courses.

Image credits: Photo by Katemangostar on Freepik.

December 16, 2021/by DoverSolutions

Blog

6 Reasons the Best Staffing Companies Provide In-House Training Capabilities

When sourcing training, companies generally have three options: e-Learning, public scheduled courses, and in-house training. The latter has gained a lot of momentum in recent years as organizations turn to internal training methods to enhance their employees’ skills.

At the same time, this benefit can be supercharged when it is available from a leading staffing and talent partner. Here are some of the benefits of working with a staffing firm that maintains its own in-house training department or division, and why companies who partner with hybrid staffing-training firms are better positioned for success.

Reason #1: Serving customers more effectively

Well-trained employees will have the skills they need to serve your clients better. In addition, these skills are developed through both candidate selection and employee training. Wouldn’t it be amazing if your talent was both screened for key skills and trained to maximize the effectiveness of those skills? A staffing firm with in-house training can provide this double-benefit to your organization.

Because the training is close to your operations and optimized for your talent selection process, you won’t have to struggle to teach your new employees basic skills since your staffing partner’s training division is always on hand to spot those needs and supply the necessary instruction. As a result, new employees become more useful and valuable more quickly (and in some cases, they arrive with far stronger skills to boot).

Staffing firms with in-house training divisions also help both new and existing employees keep abreast of the workplace’s current health and safety skills. According to OSHA requirements, the responsibility for health and safety training lies in employers’ and organizations’ hands. Since in many cases personnel come through and are partially managed by your staffing partner, knowing that your staffing partner can also train in these areas can significantly boost your peace-of-mind.

Reason #2: Less expenditure on traveling

A staffing partner who offers in-house training to your organization reduces the cost of traveling considerably because your employees don’t have to leave the workplace to learn and, in fact, they can even learn prior to starting with you if they participate in a pre-employment training program designed specifically around your requirements. The rising cost of fuel only adds to the expense of traveling for training. And if your employees use company vehicles to commute to the training center, costs could mount still higher when you account for fuel, parking, tolls, and maintenance.

Reason #3: Customize training to your company

A staffing partner who offers in-house training is also more efficient when it comes to the actual instruction. This is because the courses are tailored to meet the specific needs of your company. Real-life examples involving your firm’s situation come in handy for helping employees grasp the content more easily, and the staffing company’s leaders are already fully conversant with your talent requirements since they’re searching every day for new individuals who meet those qualifications.

Public scheduled courses and traditional outsourced training may not be as effective because they use generic examples to drive the point home. They don’t have the advantage of being more specific because they serve trainees from many different organizations, or even if they include just your team, they rely on a generic curriculum and instructors who have no direct experience with your company. A staffing and talent partner, on the other hand, is ideally positioned to provide the best fit.

Reason #4: More focused training

Running a tailored training program for a single trainee cohort or group of new hires allows for focus on the specific skills and subjects relevant to your firm. Since the staffing partner is building your talent profile in partnership with you, they can not only deliver ideal training suited to your requirements –they are also perfectly prepared to actually recommend, create and configure that training so you don’t have to.

Reason #5: Promotes team building

Staffing partners offering their own in-house training also provide a good opportunity for team building activities built around your business. This is because the training brings together employees from different departments and levels for training. They can then interact, get to know each other better, share ideas, and learn how to collaborate better with each other.

The training also creates a friendly atmosphere necessary for team building. In this environment, employees may also get the opportunity to understand each other’s roles in the organization and boost staff morale. A friendly working environment sets the stage for better productivity.

Reason #6: More convenient while also being more flexible

Companies who work with a hybrid staffing/training partner benefit from all of the convenience of precise, in-house training without the demands, costs and challenges of building an in-house training infrastructure. In addition, it’s often best in business to let the subject-matter experts drive new initiatives in each area of the enterprise. With that in mind, who better to build and manage your training operation than the people who you already trust to find and grow your future talent? Your staffing partner is a human capital expert –this is their subject-matter expertise. Take advantage of that and you gain a true win-win.

Why partnering with a staffing company that offers its own in-house training operation puts you ahead

Building a talent pipeline that can continue to grow and scale with your business requires many essential components. These include a powerful human capital strategy, highly effective talent searching and acquisition, and integrated and ongoing training and development. By partnering with a staffing firm that can offer two or even three of these components in one organization, you gain the expertise of the human capital experts, plus the firsthand experience and knowledge of the team that is already finding your future workforce. And that’s a true win-win!

If you need more information or help concerning building the right staffing and training program for your enterprise, contact us today.

February 8, 2021/0 Comments/by DoverSolutions

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