What is one tip for professionals looking to continue their talent development during the busy holiday season?
To help you with talent development ideas during the busy holiday season, we asked business leaders and HR professionals this question for their best advice. From combining talent development with team building to utilizing the ABT storytelling method, there are several tips that may help you and your team navigate talent development during the holidays.
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Here are 6 tips for continuing talent development during the holiday season:
- Combine Talent Development With Team Building
- Focus On The “How”
- Upscale Your Skills
- Take Online Courses
- Focus On Personal Development
- Ignite Your Inner Storyteller Using ABT
Combine Talent Development With Team Building
One approach to continue talent development during the busy holiday season is to pair the practice alongside employee engagement and team building. Employees may be tempted to skip on talent development during busy months to focus more on end-of-year metrics or holiday responsibilities. By packaging development alongside activities like team meals, parties, or happy hours, you can incentivize participation, and make training seem more like a fun experience than an obligation.
Michael Alexis, TeamBuilding
Focus On The “How”
The last thing you need during the holidays is another item on your “to-do” list. If you want to continue your development during the busy season, focus on “how” you do the things you’re already focused on. For example, if you made a commitment to enhance your team communication, think beyond volume and consider “how” you come across when speaking. To paraphrase Maya Angelou, words and deeds are fleeting, but how you make people feel is unforgettable.
Tim Toterhi, Plotline Leadership
Upscale Your Skills
The holiday season is a great time to upscale your skills and gain new knowledge in your field. For many of us, the time around Christmas is a bit more relaxed and filled with less work. People are focused more on buying chocolate Santas and gifts rather than setting up new goals. How about using that time for your talent development?
One of the ideas is to gain new skills through online courses or YouTube videos. These tools can help you acquire the latest industry knowledge and bring new perspectives to your career path. You can also start engaging in specific online communities to learn more about career development possibilities and gain firsthand experience from experts in your field.
Dorota Lysienia, LiveCareer
Take Online Courses
Take a look at the most in-demand jobs & skills in your field and take online courses to upgrade your knowledge and gain those desired skills you’ll need to develop in your career. Online courses are a great way to continue your talent development as a lot of them put your knowledge to the test, with practical tasks or quizzes at the end of each module. Most courses provide a certificate upon completing the course, be sure to add this certificate to your LinkedIn profile and mention it in your resume.
Jessica Ulloa, MyPerfectResume
Focus On Personal Development
While most talent development is achieved during the work year through projects and adjacent learning, the holidays provide an opportunity to focus on personal development. Take this time away from the office, or within a different mindset to focus on developing healthy habits for yourself. Whether this be a personal time of learning and ideating, forming new physical or dietary habits, or even something as simple as getting a good night’s sleep, personal development will bleed into other areas of your life and help with talent growth in the long run.
Kashish Gupta, Hightouch
Ignite Your Inner Storyteller Using ABT
Brands from The Home Depot to Banner Health to mid-sized firms are teaching their teams how to become more confident, compelling and persuasive communicators with the ABT (And, But, Therefore). The ABT uses the three forces of story – agreement, contradiction, and consequence – to hack through the noise and quickly hook the hearts of your audience. Plus, your talent learns a common storytelling language they can practice with each other. It’s fun, quick, easy, and powerful, but the ABT takes practice. This is the perfect time to train your team on the ABT and then turn them loose over the Holidays to explore and witness storytelling in action using their newfound skill. Just imagine how their new storytelling skills will kickoff 2022.
Park Howell, Business of Story
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