In a tight labor market, promoting from within is
crucial to growing an organization. A new survey can help you pinpoint
staff weaknesses and chart a course for correction. Sunny Lurie
was working at a bank when she learned what would become the core
understanding of her own business.
Lurie
was a senior performance consultant at Ameritrust when it became
Society, then KeyBank. She saw first-hand the power of change.
“I
saw how people struggled with the unknown,” she says.
Lurie
also saw co-workers who relied on their managers for job security
instead of on confidence in their own abilities to learn and grow
in the face of change. Consequently, she dedicated her doctoral
research to the study of what she had experienced, titling her dissertation,
“Employee Learning in Dynamic Work Settings: Exploration of
Adult Learning in Business Organizations.”
As a
direct result of her research, Lurie devised a survey that became
the basis of her company, Advanced Performance Inc. In a nutshell,
the survey tests how individuals handle change and the task of learning
new skills.
Lurie,
who has a Ph.D. in organizational systems, says those are key challenges
in today’s fast-paced workplace.
“There
are two major factors that help people become resilient learners,”
says Lurie. “The first is growth seeking. The second is approach
to the work world, that being either traditional or nontraditional.”
In Lurie’s
survey, employees are categorized into types of learners. Resilient
learners, those who use a non-traditional approach to the work world
and are active in growth seeking are best prepared to face change.
Other categories include conventional learners (active growth seeking
and traditional approach to the work world); reserved learners (traditional
and passive in growth seeking); and as needed (nontraditional and
passive in growth seeking.)
One purpose
of the survey, titled “Rating My Competitive Edge,”
is to help employers measure the ways their employees gain, share
and use information. Survey-takers, explains Lurie, “can expect
to answer questions about how they learn, such as, ‘Are you
sharing knowledge and building relationships with co-workers in
order to learn? ‘Are you reading different types of publications
to keep updated?’ ‘Do you stay within your comfort zone
at work, or try out new and different ways to solve projects?’”
Benefiting
most from the survey are businesses which have experienced any of
the following: customer satisfaction below par; technology changing
the way business is conducted; a loss of employees to competitors
in the last year; or a lack of a formal employee appraisal and development
plan.
“The
survey is most helpful to a business that has experienced a growth
rate that is lower than expected,” she says.
“Organizations
have benefited from this survey by maximizing employee performance
and making the business more competitive while instilling a sense
of responsibility for personal growth in employees. Individuals
can benefit by improving their performance and becoming more competitive
while aiding personal growth and development.”
The most
crucial questions focus on the idea of change. As technology expands
and forces businesses to update methods quickly, employees must
be able to adapt and learn at the same time.
“You
have to ask yourself,” says Lurie, “are you doing what
it takes to remain competitive or are you falling behind others
who are leaping ahead in their knowledge and their skill levels
and their know-how?”
By boosting
employee learning, you toe the competitive edge. And isn’t
that the goal of any business owner?
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