3 Great Ways to Build Capacity in Your Business

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3 Great Ways to Build Capacity in Your Business Today
I discuss 3 Great Ways to Build Capacity in your business today. The aim of any business is to grow, one way of achieving this is through capacity building. Capacity building focuses on furthering an organization’s ability to do new things and improve what they currently do. So how can your business build capacity and ensure that your business improves its performance and enhances its ability to function and continue to stay relevant within a rapidly changing environment?

Whose Today’s Guest?

Chipangano Malowa is a seasoned Human Resource practitioner for more than 12 years specifically focusing on consultancy in relation to HR and Management. He is the Director/Consultant Synergia Human Resource Consult LTD.

Defining Capacity Building

In order to understand what capacity building is about, we need to understand what the term capacity means. Capacity simply put refers to ability, it come from the word capability which entails having the ability to. Capacity building in employees means increasing the ability of your employees to produce.

Take for instance in a factory setup, your employees are producing 50 bags of beans on a daily but you intend to increase their capacity in order for them to begin producing a hundred bags on a daily. Capacity building only has to do with increasing the ability of an employee or member of stuff from one measurement to another measurement.

Improving Supervisory/ Managerial Skills

In order to be able to build on the capacity of your employees, training is very important for a supervisor. One has to get books and learn on supervising as well as on human behavior and how to run a business. In most cases people go into business without looking at the various components of the business. People just look at the end product rather than what goes in attaining that product.

It is important to learn about the processes involved in your business, we are not born with this knowledge and we definitely don’t get it through osmosis. Invest time in going for seminars and training. This will help you as a supervisor to increase your own capacity in terms of supervision.

Having Your Business Well Documented

As you seek to build capacity, you need to have a business goal and it should be documented. Do you have a proper business plan, the mission and the strategies in place the strategies? If all these things are in place, they will accord you the chance to see what is needed to get to the point that you have documented in your business plan.

Training of Employees/Staff

Training is essential to building capacity of your employees, but with the covid-19 disrupting operations and how employers and employees interact, small business owners will find it hard to train employee especially those in the production industry.

For someone vested in the production unit the use of virtual trainings will not work as there is need for one to be physically present, this can be caused by certain factors e.g. If your business is set up in a rural setup it is obvious that your employees will not have infrastructure to carry this training from home despite having the materials to train them.

For this type of business, the only appropriate kind of training is on the job training especially for a business in production.

Limited Finances and Budgeting

Budgeting is important for any business, but there is need for a business owner to reach a point where they can begin to budget for training for their employees. This is something that most businesses in Zambia struggle with, they don’t want to set aside funds for capacity building. The fact is though whether your labor is semi-skilled or fully skilled there is still need for training and capacity building.

Setting aside funds for training is essential as it is not possible that a business owner will always be able to train his or her workforce hence the need to budget for a skilled trainer.

Reason Why Employers Shy Away from Training

Some employers shun away from training their staff because they fear that those employees will leave them, the reality though is whether you train your employees or no, they will eventually leave.

Your aim as an employer should be to train them and ensure that they don’t leave by offering good conditions of service, a conducive environment to work in and a sense of them actually being part of the business. Employers need to go beyond looking at employees as tools to produce.

Determining Areas to Build Capacity In

  • Process Mapping

This is done from the very first step involved in getting your product produce, be it planting or acquiring raw materials. Process mapping looks at what is it that is supposed to be done stage by stage in your production process and who is supposed to be working at that stage. Look at the challenges being faced by the employees at each stage.

Sometimes the low production may be as a result of the equipment and not the employees, building capacity in them may not change the situation as it is the equipment that needs to be upgraded.

Key Insights:


  • Separate capacity in employees from systems and processes.
  • Have your goal and vision well documented, it’s much easier to build capacity when you know where your business needs to be.
  • Budget for training of your staff.

“Supervisors  ought to learn in order  to increase their own ability to supervise”

We would love to hear from you. You can participate in this conversation on social media and in our comments section below. Your input is valuable to others.

Insight Partners Africa— aims to bring you actionable insights from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.

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