Developing your skills and competencies

1. If you were to ask your boss/team/future self what you need to learn now to be a more effective leader/marketer/colleague, how would they answer?

2. Revisit your last performance review and projects completed. What areas of development were highlighted?  What do you feel it would have been useful to know more about?

3. Review your current job description and look at ones for your ideal next role. What are the key skills needed? What do you need to develop to be ready for when an opportunity arises?

4. As well as catching up on Influencer Marketing, Automation and your Copywriting skills, consider your leadership competencies. In hotel marketing you will often see stakeholder management, being customer centric and strategic thinking featured heavily but what about resilience, managing complexity and optimising work processes? Our current situation has shown marketing leaders need all these too.

5. Consider your strengths and natural talents. Which ones can you take from good to great?

6. Be specific and focus on 1-2 areas that you can research and absorb a breadth of learning materials during lockdown. How can you put it into practice now and when you go back to work?  Consider projects you have coming up.  Do you need to create an initiative to practice your new Google Analytics or collaborative working skills?  Who do you need to speak with to make this happen?  If it can’t be applied immediately at work what can you do outside of work that would enable you to practice the skill further?

7. Consider where can you get this learning: books, webinars, online courses. Speak with colleagues and associates who can point you to useful resources.

8. If you need structure or are missing being set deadlines, write yourself a study plan and consider having an accountability buddy that will keep you on track. Just knowing your buddy will be asking you how you are getting on will stop you from procrastinating too much. Do this plan and buddying only for the period you have been furloughed.  You want it to be achievable in the time you have available now and get that sense of achievement.  We all need a win right now.

9. Give yourself time and space to learn. The HMA blog ‘Top Tips for Working from Home’ is very relevant for studying too. Andrea McKay is the owner of Coaching Confidential and is a CIM Chartered Marketer with over 25 years’ hotel marketing experience. Photo by bongkarn thanyakij from Pexels