4 Strategies for Building a Top-Notch Team The mark of a great manager is to be conscious of staff fatigue and move resources across domains candidly

Building a top-notch creative team is not an easy task. One needs to devote ample time and energy to create such a group who will act as an inherent motivating force delivering the best and most inspiring work.

Employees often say that they quit their jobs because the employer didn't care about them, or because there was no opportunity for skill development. Additionally, managers usually are often too caught up with the fire-hose of production. As a result, they fail to see the need for identifying growth paths for the best and brightest.

Experts from all over the business world implement stratagem to help improve employee retention by focusing on career growth and development. Here are four tried-and-tested approaches for developing and coaching creative team members:

1. Commit to the Cause of Team Developing

People development takes continuous and concerted efforts. It is absolutely imperative to adopt a company-wide pledge to work for people development. Otherwise, one can develop individual programs for the cause. This must also include the contract or freelance workers.

"Leaders must try and understand what their team is interested in, both jointly and independently. They should reinforce the skill set of the team members by sponsoring online skill development course of their interest. Investing in the areas of their interest and passion will help their career while making you a better leader," suggested Kiran Bhat, Founder, Xebec India.

2. Be There when Needed

Time is of utmost importance as drafting a talent development program needs deliberation and contemplation. Worldwide industry leaders have a detailed, up to date perception of the entire production process and the exact development work that awaits, including the employees who are doing that work regularly. Creative management software solution is the answer to comprehend a team's workload and efforts.

"Be prepared to get your hands dirty. Jump in and lend a hand as and when the team requires design or production support. Ensure that you are sprightly enough to move around workloads or assemble all hands if and when there occurs a glitch. Truth is your goals are dependent on the success of the team," notified Kuldip Maity, Founder and MD, Village Finance.

3. Create Opportunities to Flex Creative Muscles

All production work and no development work make Raj a dejected designer. The mark of a great manager is to be conscious of staff fatigue and move resources across domains candidly. This ensures exposure the right blend of development and production work.

"Let the team members get knowledge of every facet of the creative domain. This will not only enable them to develop their skill set but also endow you with a well-rounded, talented team," opined Asoke K Laha, President and CEO Interra Information Technologies.

4. Use Work Clusters to Build Career Paths

Categorizing big groups of work-domains leads one to distinguish the best players in the team. For instance, if the bulk of the team's effort includes event marketing, sales support, and web development, one can just classify three chief clusters. Once identified, the leader can create opportunities to raise the best performers to the positions of team/cluster leads.

By allotting leadership roles and showing faith on the team players to come-up and excel, the leaders can address the demand for career growth. This also gives them time to concentrate on the strategic aspects of building an outstanding team.

"These strategies will only work if implemented with a clear inspection into the work coming through the pipeline. Management software solutions help in providing a distinct view with the click of a mouse while ensuring lesser time spent on weekly reports, email updates, and management check-ins. Besides, it also provides the leaders with the gears to correctly gauge the development of each team member," shared Sudip Bose, MD and CEO Assured Digital.

With investing time and energy in accurately appreciating the work, its process and pattern, leaders can construct the structure for an appropriate talent development plan, and the job satisfaction team members.