Is your manager neglecting you?

Dear People Managers,

I am writing to you because I’ve been thinking a lot about personal development, and the more I think about it, the more, well, cross I get.

I think we have a duty of care to the people we bring into our organisations, and right now we’re neglecting them.

We hire “hungry talent” and focus on “attitude not experience”. We look for people ready to “step-up into the next role”.

I fully support making opportunities and investing in upcoming talent, but I want us to talk straight.

We all know it’s cheaper to find someone ready for the next step, rather than someone used to working at the level above. We all know that while you want your teams to grow, if you do nothing to enable it, those people will be out the door again in six months, frustrated by the lack of opportunity to develop.

Learning on the job only goes so far. In a small business there are often only a few people to learn from - they’ll learn your good habits, but also your bad ones. In many cases there will also be limited functional experience in the business, so if you’re not a marketer and yet you want them to learn marketing, their backs are against the wall. Equally, unless you have an extra two hours a week (I’m guessing you don’t) then you aren’t giving them enough time to thrive.

From what I have seen of the industry (and now I have found 2x grey hairs I can say it’s quite a lot), we invest way too little.

Investment comes in three forms:

Cash. You need to stop thinking of every new recruit as just the cost of their salary, plus National Insurance and pension NOW. Instead, you need to bake in £1,000 a year for them to go on external courses & join communities. Make sure there is also enough money for them to buy people they think are interesting a coffee.

Their time. Carve out space for them to focus on their own learning and protect it fiercely. For our Brand Hackers team, one day a week is dedicated to making them better at their jobs, vs. doing work for our partner brands - although of course in the short-term it pinches commercially.

Your trust & your time. You’ll know so many valuable prospective mentors who could give your team a lot for the cost of some eggs on toast over breakfast. You need to prioritise setting up these relationships.

You need to start seeing personal development budget as business development budget. If you want more impactful marketing activity, get your team a Copy Club membership and sign them up to a course. Then watch how they thrive and grow (and no doubt generate the cost of the course and more back in profit over the next 12 months...)

You owe it to the absolute stars, at every level of your business, who work really hard for your results.

If you want help building your team's development plans, we'd love to help you. Book in a chat with us: https://calendly.com/hope-thecopyclub

L xx

The caveat, because I know I'm preaching:

Six months ago I wouldn’t have been in a position to write like this - it’d have been pot calling the kettle black, but now, I can. I’ve truly invested in my team (with cash, their time and my time) and it’s been phenomenally rewarding. At Copy Club we’ve got so much further to go. If you have investment in development locked down I’d love to hear from you.