If you think about it, each of your employees could benefit from some type of learning and development. The employee who wants to be selected for more high profile projects might need to learn more about your organization’s strategic plan. The employee who is bored with answering the telephone might want to acquire greater knowledge about managing office activities. The employee who enjoys designing PowerPoint slides might like to learn more about developing training programs.

When it comes to your employees, you can probably think of several more examples. Your employees have interests. They share this information with you during formal performance discussions as well as casual conversations. And even if your employees do not verbally state what they need or want to learn, you could probably make some logical inferences based on their career goals, their personalities, their dislikes, their likes, their strengths, and their weaknesses.

So how do you use this information to improve employee performance? Just link the behaviors and activities you want or need to the learning and development employees want or need. Consider these six examples:

1. Rhonda, if you participate in this project, you would have an opportunity to learn more about…

2. Rhonda, if you attended the monthly meetings, you would gain additional information about…

3. Rhonda, you would be able to process requests faster if you learned how to…

4. Rhonda, you would have fewer errors if you started using the new…

5. Rhonda, this new project management training will give you the skills you need to…

6. Rhonda, working with the new employees will help you become more comfortable with…

The possibilities for making these kind of links to learning and development are probably endless. Your goal is to clearly make the connection between what you want and what employees gain. When you use this approach, employees know that you listen to them. You will also have a greater chance of convincing employees that their performance has personal benefits. Those personal benefits could include learning something new, enhancing current knowledge, or gaining additional capabilities. Employees want to know Why should I give my best performance? This approach gives you one way to positively answer that question.