As a small business, we unfortunately don’t have an unlimited pot of money that we could throw at this initiative (yet) but we knew its importance. So, we came up with a quick version 1, poa that seems to be working for us so far:
1) Annual personal £500 L&D budget
We give each and every team member up to £500 of learning and development budget to be used annually. We tend to operate this on a use it or lose it basis but if there’s something with a higher price tag, all we ask is that a business case be presented to us for sign off beforehand. As an SME, cashflow is always an issue as we could do without everyone using their entire budget in month 1 but with careful planning, it seems to be working.
Of course, with this, there are contractual HR policies and accounting matters to consider – we work with our wonderful suppliers Halborns & WoW to chronicle this.
2) Daily time for L&D
We allow 30 minutes within everyone’s schedule daily for L&D. We figured it’s all well and good giving budgets, but people need time to nurture their skills and learning. We didn’t want people having to do this on their own time so factor this into our planning and schedule management. Lots of people like to take theirs at the start of the day with a cuppa, reading or plugged into a new course. It’s still hard to embed this one as it’s a new habit and client works always comes first but we’re trying our best.
3) Weekly knowledge shares
We host weekly, Friday, optional lunch and learns where team members take it in turns to present their ideas, learnings and development. Our most recent one was from Harpreet after he’d finished reading “Team Topologies” by Manuel Pais and Matthew Skelton which was all about team communication styles and needs – it sounded a heavy going read, so we were very grateful for the bitesize chunks!
4) Available resources
We fill our shelves with books and encourage the team to read as much as they possibly can. We have all sorts of reads, from design inspo to the psychology of consumers to people management and colour theory. If reading isn’t your jam, listen to an audio book or get looking at the latest trends and tech. We also subscribe to Udemy which gives us all access to heaps of courses.
5) Events and learnings calendar
Our Jimi has created and built our very own Intranet, aka “The Jimtranet”. It has many many features which he may talk about in another blog (eyes) but one of the key features is that we have a shared events and learnings calendar. The team are able to populate this calendar, tag the type of event, input the price, score it and leave reviews on whether courses, networks events, fireside chats and industry talks were worthwhile.
For us, investing in L&D is a no brainer, it’s imperative that our industry stays ahead for our client’s sake. As a small business and an employer, we want our people to grow and develop for as long as they stay with us, we want to invest in their career journey, and we want everyone to feel fulfilled in their role.
