The highest cost for any company is human resources, and you have to make sure that they are well trained and providing the best productive contribution to the company. One most exciting ways to keep them engaged with their best performance as professionals is to encourage them to join and attend events. Attending events can be very fruitful for the professional development of your employees.
Many managers of manufacturing businesses do not encourage or plan for their employees to go to industrial events. The reasons may be these events can expensive, they eat up the work time, and they spare no clear return on investment. But, attending these events can be very beneficial for skill development, connectivity, better understanding, and exposure of the brand to a broader audience. There are several ways your business can benefit from you and your staff attending events.
The networking is part of the event where you meet new experts and professionals in their field. There can be discussions and exchange of valuable information. The networking allows creating long-lasting relationships that may solve the problems the two parties face or may face in the future.
As an example, let's say that you are expanding your packaging manufacturing business, and you need packaging experts who have experience printed gift boxes. There is quite a high probability that you will find someone or someone in contact with a person who is willing to work for you. It is the power of networking that events offer. In the age of information with digital communications, we are losing the concept and understanding of how crucial in-person communication may be. A relationship that is formed on email or chatting software cannot replicate a link made in reality.
Attending industrial events is very beneficial, but there are events outside the sphere of the industry but fall into the same category as yours, such as educational events. In the academic research world, many Universities have research centers that solve problems that many industries face. For example, you manufacture packaging, and you are having a peculiar problem with your printing boxes, and it requires research expertise. You can attend a three-day event like Construct3D that starts every year on 13 February. It is held at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Here, you can meet packaging fabrication researchers that can help you to solve your problems.
The advent of the Internet gave rise to blogs and social media. Before this, the employees were limited around learning new things and making new contacts and leads. But now they engage in all sorts of activities that generate original content that can be utilized in the company's brand promotions.
The employees can now share content, created during the events, on social media that can work as catalysts for the brand promotion of the company. They can use hashtags to share this information on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.
On the other hand, there can be blog posts constructed to address and discuss the key takeaways of the events for a wide range of audiences. It is crucial that if you want to generate content for promotional purposes, you have to create a plan and act accordingly with your team.
Your employees represent the brand of your organization. Your company is being promoted even if they are the only ones present there. According to specific branding experts, the presence of employees at an event is a brand recognition practice. It conveys a message that establishes you as a player in your particular niche.
As another piece of advice, it may seem that sending sales professionals will suffice for a real impact. That might be true, but sending a team composed of different other departments will provide a more thorough presentation of your company. It will also facilitate better communication and understanding between the company members.
Many events offer an excellent opportunity to learn and develop skills. The activities in the events are geared towards presentations and workshops to teach and develop new skills, actionable methodologies, and best practices from industry leads, experts and influencers. As your employees keep motivated to learn new things, they will take away new ideas, tools, and information to effectively implement them in their work, benefiting the company.
There may be some conference events that may lack workshops, but you should be able to assess what your employees can gain from attending the event. They can come back and teach and train their coworkers to become useful assets for the company.
The events and the activities taking place within are a break from the everyday stereotype work life that can damage the morale of the workers. When employees have an occasional break from their monotonous life, they get rejuvenated and work better. It has been a practice in many large companies around the world that occasionally hold joyful activities to break free from every day 9 to 5 grind.
On the same note, employees gain inspiration for their work. As an example, suppose that you have a medium-sized business of making printed gift boxes. You have several workers that design, construct, and print them for the local market. The gift box printing and designing is an art requiring skills that needs aesthetic exposure other than skills to design them. Sending your employees to a significant event like a packaging exhibition will become a source of inspiration to learn new design patterns from your competitors and other key players in the market in return, benefiting your organization.
