Learning and development
73% of employees say they would stay longer if their company invested more in their growth.
If you are a founder or business owner growing your team, that number should matter to you. Hiring gets you the people. Developing them is what keeps them.
Why growth keeps people
- People stay where they can see a future. When the next step is clear, they have a reason to build it with you.
- Growth builds confidence. A person who is learning brings more ideas and takes on more responsibility.
- It fills your own pipeline. The leaders you need in 2 years can come from the team you have today.
Learning and development for a growing company
You do not need a big budget or a training department to start. Development in a growing company can be simple:
- Stretch projects with support from a manager
- Mentoring between senior and junior people
- Learning budgets people can use for a course or a conference
- Short internal sessions where people teach what they know
- Leadership training for new managers
5 steps to start this quarter
- Ask each person what they want to learn next. Why: the best plan starts from what people actually want.
- Write down what growth looks like for each role. Why: people can only aim for a next step they can see.
- Add a development question to every 1 on 1. Why: it keeps growth part of the regular conversation.
- Give every manager a small budget or time allowance for development. Why: managers can act quickly when someone is ready.
- Check in every 6 months on who has grown and who has stalled. Why: someone who has stalled may already be looking elsewhere.
What I have seen work
In my corporate roles, I grew a leadership program to more than 1,000 attendees across 20+ global offices. I also designed and led an entry-level career program for women in tech. Both showed me how much people value a clear path forward.
Learning and development is how you build a company people want to stay and grow in.
If this feels like a gap in your company, reach out. This is exactly the kind of work I do with founders and leadership teams.
Samira Diallo
Bilingual (French/English) people strategy advisor, facilitator and speaker based in Toronto. 15+ years in global tech consulting at Capgemini and Oracle, on the tech project side and the people side.