Personal development as a self-employed consultant

Your personal development is important, and that doesn’t stop being the case if you move from employment to self-employment in your own business. You might have good subject knowledge and feel confident in the advice you can give your clients, but we can all improve, all the time.

For me, personal development as someone running her own business is about two things. Firstly it’s about keeping on top of my own subject knowledge. Employment law is changing and developing all the time, which certainly keeps life interesting, and is one of the main reasons clients instruct an HR consultant in the first place, but it does mean keeping right on top of developments and understanding how they impact on small business clients.

Secondly, personal development for me is about running a successful business, understanding marketing developments, trends and techniques, learning more about how technology can support my business and understanding more about the marketplace I operate in.

But personal development is one of those things that takes a back seat when running your own business, as I know too well, which is why I prioritise it for our consultants. Personal development for partners with face2faceHR isn’t about the initial personalised training programme they all get before they launch, it’s about taking it further. This means incorporating it into content for annual get togethers, new items for our PlayBook, briefings on employment law developments and listening to partners at review meetings to ensure that if there is an area they feel they want to know more about, we take that into account.

If you’re a self-employed consultant working alone rather than with a company like face2faceHR, it is very easy to let your personal development slip, but seeking out opportunities to maintain and increase your knowledge not only in your area of expertise but also in new areas that might help your business will increase your job satisfaction and probably your business success as well.

If you’re interested in talking to us about becoming a partner with face2faceHR, with bags of support, do get in touch.