If there’s one constant in the market, it’s change.
No matter which sector of the market your business calls home, nothing stays the same for long. The emergence of cutting-edge technologies, employees’ shifting preferences and needs, and decreasing returns on formerly optimal operational structures all point toward one truth: Businesses must continuously evolve in time with the market or they will fall behind, losing their competitive edge until finally, the doors shutter.
As such, the principle of never outgrowing learning is crucial to any business’s survival. Yet, some put ongoing development on the back burner, believing their operational status quo is solid enough to weather the wicked wiles of the market. After all, there’s work to be done. Spending time re-evaluating how things are done detracts from that work.
However, continued learning positions companies to stay ahead in the market. It can provide much-needed boons in the form of improved talent acquisition, employee retention and innovation, and industry trend awareness. It provides leaders with a strategic advantage, the visibility to know that their solid ground is truly solid; or, should it begin to crumble, the foresight to pivot their efforts elsewhere.
This article will briefly address how ongoing learning can benefit various aspects of your organization, from marketing innovation to maintaining employee well-being.
Workforce Development
The first major benefit of ongoing learning is the development of your employees. Even the most creative among your employees, the knowledge workers you rely on to advance your business’s goals, cannot innovate without being provided analytical insight into the market. They need to be able to understand market trends. They must sort what is working from what isn’t, pick up on new tactics, and rapidly discard ineffective processes. Untraditional marketing methods won’t come naturally – you have to invest in education to make them aware of these tactics and deploy them successfully.
Take one untraditional marketing tactic that has soared in popularity recently: guerilla marketing. Guerilla marketing is low-cost, highly effective marketing that is made for the digital age, concentrating on meeting your audience where they are with viral, subtle marketing. This method encourages employees to get creative, tapping into the voice of the audience to create compelling content. While it does incur a degree of risk, notably in potential backlash, misalignment with brand identity and wasted capital if it doesn’t take off, it’s a tactic that has become increasingly common.
Of course, this is only one example; other tactics that may become vital like using AI to drive performance will also require awareness and education. Equipping your employees to use emerging tools will position your organization to stand strong, even amid heavy competition.
Marketing Innovation
Coming up with creative marketing ideas depends on an understanding of how the market works. And for that, you need the hard numbers. You need systems that can aggregate, clean and extract insights from data. You need employees who understand how to leverage those systems to turn insights into action.
Teaching your employees how to track competitor data is an absolute must. You must always have an eye on what your competition is doing, what’s working and what isn’t, to avoid falling behind.
More so, teaching your employees how to understand what, at first, may seem another language entirely opens the door to unparalleled innovation in marketing. When your employees have a 360-degree view of the market to work with, they can identify areas of opportunity that they may not have otherwise, and come up with creative content that fills those gaps. You aren’t just understanding what’s been done; you’re paving the way for your employees to do what hasn’t been done before.
Maintaining Employee Well-Being
Mental health has a profound impact on our ability to be creative. All-too-common workplace issues like burnout and feeling disconnected from the workplace actively prevent employees from leveraging their creativity.
Work stress impacts every aspect of health, including sleep schedules and dreams. You want your employees to feel well-rested and ready to spin straw into gold, not suffering because they had stressful dreams about their teeth falling out. It’s not a recipe for a high-performing team; yet, you may feel as though there’s little you can do.
Fortunately, in our increasingly stressed-out culture, there’s a wide variety of information available about how to improve employees’ mental health. You can’t be every employee’s therapist; but you can equip them with the tools needed to improve their own health, and make themselves into happier, more productive members of your community.
Take our previous example of stress dreaming. If you have an employee who you know hasn’t been getting enough sleep, try offering a brochure on relaxation techniques, encouraging them to see a counselor, or encouraging them to use a calming app. Emphasize that you care about their health, not just as a member of the team, but as a person.
Ongoing education is so important to the overall health of your organization, and it’s a true win-win for all involved; employees, leaders, and stakeholders alike. Invest time and effort into organization-wide education, and you’ll find that you’re in a better position to stay competitive as a whole.
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