Investing in Talent as a Business Growth Engine for Multinational Organizations

Has your company experienced a higher than usual turnover rate over the last quarter? Are your goals set for future growth this year, but after trying everything, you just can't seem to grow at a rate your shareholders want?

If you’re like most companies focused on growing internationally, you might be missing a key component of your business’ growth engine: your talent!

Employees are the drivers behind any business. They’re on the front lines making sales, working with customers, planning strategies, and more. While the executives sit at the top of the ladder working on the broader vision of the company, it’s the employees that will carry out the mission. Wouldn’t you want to make sure that they’re the best of the best not only when you hire them, but also that they can grow as your business grows?

When you invest in your people, you are saving tons in recruiting, hiring, training, and other costs down the line. By training your employees well, and allowing them to reach their fullest potential, your organization will see positive gains not only in the short-term but the long-run as well.

Contrary to Popular Belief, Investing in People Won’t Help Your Competitors

Many organizations are afraid of spending a significant amount of time and money in their employees because they're worried they could be training their competitor's future talent. While this is an understandable belief, it doesn't have much basis in reality.

Many organizations find that when they spend the time to invest in their employee's training, they're more likely to remain loyal to the company. In the off chance that the employee does choose to leave, more times than not they will go to work for one of your clients. Here's why that's a good thing: When they work for your clients, and they work with your competitors, they’ll see the significant difference that your company makes. This will turn them into raving fans of your organization if they weren’t already.

No Matter Your Gross Margins, It’s an Investment You Can Afford to Make

As you have probably guessed, the companies with higher gross margins can afford to invest in their employees without a problem. With that in mind, even companies with lower margins should still invest in their talent simply for the fact that it’s an investment they can’t afford not to make.

To compete with higher earning competitors, you should implement a dynamic approach towards talent development. Many organizations in this position use a combination of in-house training coupled with external resources. These resources should be available for everyone, but should also be focused towards the individual's long-term goals. You want to train each employee for their future position in the company, so your company has a robust pool of talent to promote as it expands.

Your Employees Want to Grow

Who doesn’t love a promotion? Ideally, all of your employees from the lower levels to upper management positions should have their eyes set on climbing the corporate ladder within your organization. If they don't, then there are deeper issues lurking within the company culture that you should address.

Assuming your workers want to grow, they will seek out new opportunities to expand their talents on their own. Whether they enroll in continuing education at a university or take online development courses, they're already looking for ways to grow. Want to boost their morale and show your commitment to their professional development? Give them hand picked opportunities for them to grow!

When you provide opportunities for talent development, you’ll draw your employees towards your organization instead of pushing them away. Think about it, if you worked for a company that showed a commitment to your success, wouldn’t you want to continue working with them for the long-term?

Your Growth Goals

Now that you know the primary goal, you need to have a number in mind so you can track and monitor talent development. Just as you have sales and growth goals, your development program needs a goal to strive towards as well.

Many experts point that you should set a goal of individual growth at around 3 to 5% annually. This means that each employee in your company should become 3 to 5% more productive in their role. Increased productivity not only leads to greater growth for your organization, but it means that your talent is becoming more accustomed to their role, and with that, they are becoming more skilled as well.

There is a right and a wrong way to go about sharing these goals with your employees. If you simply say “I want you to do better at your job and be more productive” they might interpret that as meaning they are failing at their job. Instead, you want to share the goal with them in a way that encourages them to become more skillful in their current position.

You should communicate to your employees in a way that shows you care about the work they have been doing; you just want to see them do it better in the next year. Allow me to explain. You should explain to employees how the company operates, its goals for the upcoming year, and how they each play an integral part in the company's success.

In many cases, you don’t need them to work harder to hit these goals. If your talent development programs improve their skills, they’ll become three to five percent more productive automatically without even noticing any extra stress or work on their end.

You want your employees to ask themselves, “What could I do better? What should I do less of? How do I make my productivity go up?” Only they know the answers to these questions, and if you were to force new policies on them like mandatory overtime, tighter deadlines, and impossible sales goals, they wouldn't be as willing to change their work habits.

Seeing a Return on Your Investment

When you consider the costs of giving an employee a raise even when they aren't any more productive than they were last year, it becomes readily apparent the need for talent development. You should have a process that drives employee growth and allows each person at every level reach their full potential, so they're ready for higher positions. With a highly skilled and fully developed workforce, growing internationally is much easier.