A highly-skilled workforce can only be good for your business. So, how can you encourage your staff to take the next step in their development and improve their skills?

With these seven tips, you can help create a culture of self-improvement and learning within your business.

1. Create the right environment

We are all a product of our environments. If you give your employees an environment that nurtures their learning, then you’re going to have more people with the high-level skills you need.

Building a company culture isn’t easy, but it is something you can work on. If you have a toxic company culture it doesn’t leave space for people to grow, and even when they do, they won’t want to stick around and allow you to benefit from their newly updated skills.

Instead, you need to provide an environment where people want to come to work every day and get better at what they do. When you succeed in this, you’re going to find your business works much more efficiently.

2. Encourage goal setting

People can improve without particularly focusing on improving, but it’s going to be a much slower process. When you’re actively taking part in the process of learning, it spurs you on to greater achievements and this is where goal setting comes in.

If you can encourage your employees to set SMART goals, goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound, then you’re going to give them targets to work towards.

3. Monitor progress

If people set goals, then they need to be able to monitor their progress against those goals. With many jobs though, it’s not always easy to measure performance, unless your company gives you the tools to do so.

If you’re going to enable people to make incremental improvements, then they’ve got to be able to see where they’re doing well and where they need to make strides. In a lot of cases, this is going to require monitoring and detailed feedback. If you can put the systems in place to give your employees this then they’ve got a lot more information to help them improve their skills.

4. Encourage senior leaders to be approachable

You have so much ability and experience within your company. You want this knowledge to be transferred all-around your business, and this means encouraging communication.

As your senior leaders are generally the people with the most developed skill sets, this means you need to convince them to be open and approachable. When you get all the people in your business sharing their knowledge and helping others develop, you’re going to find you end up with a more skilled workforce.

5. Accommodate further education

The more people develop their skills the better it works out for you. If your employees want to go back to education and further their skills, then it can be a great idea to accommodate this.

For example, in nursing, it’s common for people to further their education during their careers with courses such as nurse practitioner programs. The best managers will be able to work out a schedule that allows these people to continue their work while allowing them to learn the new skills that are going to benefit their career.

A more educated workforce can only be a good thing for your business, so find ways to accommodate people who want to further their studies.

6. Invest in training

Too often, businesses don’t see training as an investment, they see it as a cost. However, with the right training, it really is an investment that comes back to you further down the line.

No matter how talented your employees are, they need guidance, and they need to learn the skills that are going to make them successful. You have the ability to help them improve these skills, but you’ve got to invest in it.

If you can make training and self-improvement a big part of your company culture, then you’re going to find it makes a big difference to the skill level of your employees.

7. Reward high-achievers

If you want to see your employees improving their skills, then show them your appreciation when they do.

The fact that improving their skills will improve their career opportunities is motivation enough for many people, but it never hurts to give people an extra reason. When people see that making the extra effort has its reward, then they’re going to be much more inclined to put in the extra work.