The classrooms of the future

When I think about the future of business, there’s one thing I really believe: Our workplaces must become classrooms.

More and more, young people are entering the workforce without the skills necessary to succeed: problem-solving, independent thinking, communication, relationship-building, empathy—not to mention traits like resilience and confidence.

My viewpoint comes from what I’ve seen in the high school and college students in my own company and from my experience as a consultant for all kinds of organizations across the world. Blame the missing strengths on over-involved parents, technology, the lack of soft skills taught in school, or whatever you may. The point is that younger generations lack critical skills, and if we want to see strong leaders in our future, it’s now up to our organizations to teach people what they need to know in order to thrive.

At Student Maid, leadership development is the foundation of our culture. A large portion of our already small margins goes toward teaching our people skills that have absolutely nothing to do with the service we provide—cleaning—and everything to do with their future success. 

Our focus on learning and growth began organically. If you know my story, you know that I started Student Maid when I was in college. I learned about business by trying, getting it wrong, struggling, asking for help, reading books, and finding mentors. Along the way, I gained new skills that were directly related to my success as a leader and entrepreneur: how to give and accept feedback, how to build meaningful relationships, how to hold people accountable, how to get back up after a failure. Things I never learned in my business classes. The more I developed these soft skills and saw how they contributed to my success, the more I thought, “What if I could teach my employees everything I know?” Seeing that I wasn’t much older than my people at the time, I knew that learning these things could be just as beneficial to their future trajectories as they had been to mine.

In the beginning, learning opportunities were informal. I would announce to the team that if anyone wanted to learn about the latest leadership book I had read, they could join me at our office for pizza and a discussion. To my surprise, the first couple times I did this, the room was packed. So I kept doing it. I simply asked them which topics they wanted to know more about and created learning sessions from there. In those days, I didn’t pay anyone to attend, but the room was always full. It showed me that my employees really wanted and needed this.

Today, I’m proud of how that culture has evolved. No longer is learning and development an informal or optional part of the job; it’s built into the team member experience so that we have the chance to reach every single person. 

Here are four components to our “classroom” at Student Maid:

• Introductory Workshop: Within the first month of being hired, all team members take a four-hour workshop where they learn about empathy, listening, confrontation, different communication styles, and how to build more meaningful relationships. We designed the curriculum, and now these workshops are student-taught and led.
• Development Day: Every quarter, we close Student Maid for five hours and we bring our entire team together to help them become stronger leaders. Topics vary based on what our team members need and are asking for, but previous sessions have included things like overcoming fear of failure, getting better at giving/accepting feedback, and practicing vulnerability.
• Investment Program: This is an optional program that gives team members various opportunities to invest in their own growth. Participants accrue points for doing things like reading books from our library, taking self-assessments to learn more about themselves, and going to networking events to practice introducing themselves. Points can be redeemed for prizes.
• Ambassador Program: This is another optional program that is essentially a paid internship for those looking to take their leadership skills to the next level. Every year, team members can apply to be part of the program, and should they be selected, they will actually run the business alongside their fellow Ambassadors. Our Ambassadors learn about recruitment, culture, operations, training, team dynamics—but above all else, they learn to problem-solve and become more self-reliant and confident in their abilities.

These are just a few examples of the many opportunities we give our team members to learn and grow. And it’s worth noting that we invest time and resources in them knowing that they will move on within a few years when they graduate from school. But we do it because we see the need and believe it’s our responsibility to help build a better world.

I get that not every organization feels this way. I understand that it’s frustrating to think that employers have to pick up the slack and teach these skills. One might think the solution is to restrict the hiring pool to those who already have the skills required for the job, but that solution isn’t sustainable. The pool of people who possess the traits needed to be strong leaders is getting smaller and smaller. Investing time and resources into leadership development isn’t only the right thing to do; it’s what we have to do.

The future is here. Better get your classrooms ready.

Big hugs,

Kristen

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