How can we develop leaders fast enough to support our business? Are we getting enough ROI from our talent management efforts? How can we extend our talent management strategy across our organization? Talent management leaders ask themselves these questions every day, and even the most accomplished among them may struggle to achieve these goals in the ever-evolving business environment. Learning from experience is one of the best ways to advance careers and develop leaders. So how can HR practitioners and business leaders leverage experience to prepare their employees for promotions while furthering their revenue goals? According to thought leaders at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), organizations that do experience-driven talent management effectively engage in the following practices: Identify “stretch assignments” Staff for development, not just performance Create new experiences Enhance learning from experience Promote an experience-driven development culture Now, here is a deeper dive into these best practices. Challenging Your Employees Giving your employees more challenging assignments or “stretch assignments” is one of the primary ways to develop ability through experience. Some experiences are bound to be more developmentally enriching than others, so be sure to develop a common language for talking about stretch assignments and tracking progress. These assignments should be not just performance-focused but should be more geared toward career development, which is discussed a little further in the next point. Going Beyond Performance and Into Development The ability to hone new skills means having the freedom to experiment and even make mistakes along the way. When staffing for development, do not just consider past performance and competencies but try to imagine what skills and perspectives you can hone in a promising individual that will take him or her above and beyond past successes. Identifying New Experiences With experience-driven talent development, hands-on learning is prioritized over formal training. With this in mind, it is the job of leadership to identify experiences that are cross-functional or take talent out of their comfort zone to build new competencies. This may involve travel to gain exposure to new markets, job rotations, or an employee being able to dip his or her toes into a leadership role. Support Experiential Learning Simply having an experience does not guarantee that someone will learn from it. For experiential learning to be most effective, there must be appropriate support and reinforcement. This can include follow-up coaching, ongoing support, and access to peer networks and professional communities. Promote an Experience-Driven Culture Experience-based learning should be embedded into the DNA of your organization. This serves to narrow the gap between learning and doing rather than having career development just be another add-on to everyday work. Find ways to reward employees for their own development and for helping to develop others. Make learning and development not just another ancillary goal, but a core competency. In addition to making experience-driven talent management part of your company’s strategy, how would you like to bolster all your talent management strategies with a state-of-the-art solution? Contact Thrive today to schedule a demo and find out about our fully personalized suite of services.