TOPICS

Employee Development

AUTHORED BY:

RABAB HAIDER | KNOLSKAPE EDITORIAL TEAM

What is Employee Development?

Employee development is upskilling and reskilling employees to better prepare them for future career opportunities within an organization. It involves activities such as training, mentoring, and coaching, which help employees develop the skills and abilities that will help them reach their highest potential.

Employee development plays a vital role in an employee’s life cycle i.e. helping employees become proficient in their current job skills and upskilling them for future roles. 

However, Gartner’s research shows that 70% of employees lack the mastery needed for their current role, let alone future skills. This shows an apparent need for organizations to invest in a robust employee development program now.

Also, managers tasked with developing their employees spend only 9% of their time developing them. Worse is the fact that 45% feel they don’t possess the necessary skills to develop their employees. An individual development plan will provide managers with the support and material for developing their employees.

Having a robust and structured plan enables you to retain and attract talent, giving your business a competitive advantage in the market. 

For example, a good employee development plan shows you are willing to invest in your people and in building your company culture — something your employees will appreciate and respond to with increased loyalty.

“The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.”

– Henry Ford

Why is Employee Development Important?

Employers who invest in staff development help their employees hone strengths and grow skills, which better equips them for their current roles. This adds more value to the work they do and directly benefits the business.

Perhaps more impactful, though, is the value employees and job seekers place on people-development opportunities when considering offers. Making learning and development a focus of your company culture helps improve employee engagement, increase retention and attract elite candidates. Let’s take a look at these six reasons that further prove why employee development is important.

| Employees Want Career Growth

No one wants a dead-end job at a company that doesn’t value its people. Record numbers of employees have left their jobs in search of better work-life balance, pay and benefits, which has been coined the Great Resignation. Another reason why employees are quitting jobs is lack of professional development opportunities. In a  fall 2021 report  by Monster, 45 percent of surveyed employees said they would be more likely to stay at their current jobs if they were offered more training. Develop your employees’ careers, and they’ll reward you with improved performance and higher retention.

| Professional Development Benefits Retention

Employee development is a long-term investment that can help retain and grow your talent. More than  4 million U.S. workers  quit their jobs in June 2022, and 40 percent of people surveyed in six countries in 2022 indicated they plan to leave their jobs. So dedicating resources to employee retention is more important than ever.

| Employees Need Professional Development to Reach Their Full Potential

According to ClearCompany, 74 percent of employees say that a lack of professional development is preventing them from reaching their full potential. That leaves many employees set up to feel undervalued and underdeveloped, inevitably resulting in a disengaged workforce and high turnover rates. Investing in people development allows your talent to feel good about growing their skills, and learning opportunities can translate into integral promotions that allow you to retain top talent.

| Employees Stay at Companies That Invest in Staff Development

If companies invested in staff development, 94 percent of employees would stay longer, according to research. People development is an attractive employee benefit. If you don’t start investing in your team and developing your employees, they’ll find someone who will.

| Employees in Training Courses are More Productive

Learning and development opportunities improve productivity. It’s as simple as that. Allowing employees to build their skills and knowledge increases their confidence, allowing them to complete work more efficiently and effectively.

| Companies That Invest in Employee Development Are More Profitable 

Not only are employees who participate in professional development more productive, employee development also boosts profitability. Research from the MIT Sloan School of Management showed that an employer’s year-long soft skills training program led to a roughly 250 percent return on investment within eight months. Upskilling could boost global GDP as much as $6.5 trillion by 2030, according to a 2021 report from the World Economic Forum.

5 Benefits of Employee Development

A paved and well-maintained street leads to safe and smooth travel for drivers. Similarly, effective, and well-planned employee development plans will result in an engaged and productive workplace for employees and employers. Investing in employees’ development is a win-win situation. Here are 5 compelling benefits that reveal why you should reassess your employee development program.

| Improved Employee Skills and Job Performance

Lack of training and insufficient skill hinders employees from carrying out their job and duties effectively and efficiently. When employers provide them with the necessary skills to do their jobs, such as through training programs, workshops, mentoring, and coaching, employees have the opportunities to improve their knowledge and skill, which translates to being better equipped to handle their job adequately. 

This also leads to improved job performance. A study shows that 90% of employees agree or strongly agree that training improved their performance.

| Enhanced Job Satisfaction and Increased Retention

Employees with adequate training feel more confident in their abilities and fulfill more responsibilities. This enables them to meet the challenges of their jobs and contribute to an organization’s success, which leads to a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

Investing in employee development could lead to a path of self-discovery and improvement. “Your employees’ ability to take satisfying and productive steps toward career goals is directly proportionate to their self-awareness,” writes Julie Winkle Giulioni in ‘Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want’. 

Employee job satisfaction creates an atmosphere where employees feel valued, appreciated, and supported by their employers. And studies show that employees who are satisfied with their job stay longer.

| Improve Talent Management and Succession Plan

Organizations would have little concern for talent management when employees are well-equipped, satisfied with their job, and stay longer. Developing employees also ensures organizations have a talent pool prepared to step into leadership roles.

| Increase Business Profitability

Have you been struggling to meet your business goals? Businesses with a robust employee development program have a higher success rate of meeting their business goals. Well-trained employees are more efficient and make fewer mistakes and, ultimately, increase business profits.

| Increased Competitiveness in the Job Market

An engaging employee development program will attract top talent. As Peter Drucker, the renowned management expert, once said, “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” This way, the organization is positioned to create a successful future for itself and its employees.

Employee Development Industry Trends

Before thinking about how to improve employee development, it’s useful to know about current trends and innovations in employee training and personal development. Here are some of the approaches leading the field.

| Social learning for personal development

Social learning is when you acquire valuable skills or useful training materials, find that they work well and then share them with others so they can benefit from your discovery. For employers, this makes the task of providing learning easier.

A social learning environment is a space, usually, a digital one, where you can upvote, comment on or recommend training or learning opportunities within a community or peer group, like with LinkedIn or Facebook. The social element can help drive employee motivation.

Social learning also has benefits around reward and recognition. Socially broadcasting things like rewarding an employee for excellent work can motivate others to engage with development opportunities and encourage employee growth.

| Career Lattice vs Career Ladder

Staff development can take the traditional career ladder approach, where employees advance through the ranks in a hierarchical organisation, or the career lattice approach, which can support employees at a time when the employment landscape changes and people’s career journeys are less predictable.

The career ladder is the traditional, linear hierarchy we’ve seen historically, with a vertical journey through a defined career path. The career lattice is more representative of the kind of flat structures we are commonly seeing in start-ups and younger businesses or where organisations are flattening their structures intentionally.

In the lattice, employees are encouraged to consider lateral moves to round out their experiences. They may gain a deeper appreciation of other aspects of the business or find a new place to apply their skills.

How to Create an Employee Development Plan

Step 1 | Evaluate Your Company and Long-Term Goals 

Before you can put a plan into action, you must assess your current workforce and company with the future you envision. Take stock of how your employees and teams operate today. Then, consider what may need to change in order to progress and what challenges could arise along the way. 

A successful plan should achieve three main objectives. First, you should aim to provide opportunities that meet your employees’ individual aspirations. This is a strategic employee engagement play that will make your people feel valued and keep them interested in their work.

Secondly, your plan should address your company’s long-term strategy and growth goals. What are the major benchmarks you hope to reach, and which of your employees’ skills need to be developed or acquired in order to meet these objectives? 

As you grow, leadership roles will undoubtedly open, providing you with more opportunities to promote from within. The third facet of your employee development plan should address leadership training by helping employees grow as future managers and leaders of your company.

Step 2 | Create Employee-Specific Development Plans

Have managers sit down with their direct reports to discuss what employees enjoy about their work, what they find difficult, what disinterests them and how they hope to progress in their role. Employees should be held accountable for adhering to their development plan, but managers are responsible for guiding and supporting reports on their career paths. 

Encourage employees and managers to meet regularly to discuss the employee’s development plan and brainstorm opportunities for professional development. Again, tailoring opportunities to the individual is key; if they’re not receptive to the training format or subject matter, they likely won’t retain the information and the learning opportunity will have been wasted.

Step 3 | Provide Development Offerings

Use employee-specific plans to create company-wide professional development opportunities. If several employees say they’d like to take various skills training courses but don’t have the time for an event outside of work hours, consider purchasing an online learning subscription. Employees can share access to the platform and complete courses from the comfort of their own home without taking time away from work. 

Additionally, if a majority of employees show interest in learning more about a specific topic, such as public speaking, host a training seminar. To cut costs, tap into your leadership team’s networks to identify a talented orator and colleague who may be interested in sharing a few tips during a lunch-and-learn. If employees are split across subject matter and learning avenues, consider offering a professional development stipend to support employees in their individual pursuits.

Step 4 | Evaluate Your Efforts and Solicit Feedback

Depending on the material, the immediate benefits of employee development can be difficult to gauge. You probably won’t see new deals close overnight as a result of sales training, but you will see substantially higher close rates and employee retention in the long run.

The strongest indicator of success will be your employees’ responses. Because professional development opportunities are drivers of employee engagement, conducting regular employee engagement surveys is an effective way to measure your team members’ interest in and happiness with your professional development offerings. 

Ensure managers routinely check in on their direct reports’ progress. Is additional training required to master a particular skill? Did they discover a more efficient way to tackle their responsibilities? Which learning opportunities did they enjoy the most, and which did they dislike? Managers should adjust the individual employee’s development plan accordingly and communicate big picture ideas to leadership so they can modify the company-wide strategy.

3 Proven Methods of Professional Development

Now that we know about the several benefits of and the plan to achieve employee development, let’s also take a look at the three most popular or proven methods of Employee Development.

| Mentoring

A relationship between an experienced and less experienced employee in which the experienced employee serves as the mentor by sharing insight and advice with their mentees.

This method enables mentees or junior employees to learn from their mentors about their new field or unfamiliar terrain in the industry.

Mentoring has been proven effective in helping employees increase their knowledge and skill, resulting in increased job performance, satisfaction, and career growth.

For instance, an organization looking to develop its senior employees’ tech-savviness will use reverse mentoring.

| Cross-training

The process involves exposing employees to different roles and skill sets within the same organization. It broadens and expands employees’ understanding of workplace overall functions.

Cross-training enables organizations to build a resilient and flexible workforce that adapts to change quickly. This is especially useful when an employee needs to fill in for absent colleagues.

| Coaching

Coaching is another form of professional development in which a coach assesses employees’ goals, identifies their weak points or areas that need improvement, and develops their skills through actionable methods for achieving their goals. 

Coaching has many benefits for employees and the organization: it helps ambitious employees create plans for their career growth and prepares future leaders in the organization waiting to climb the corporate ladder.

Organizations should not overlook coaching when considering the growth and development of their employees.

Way Forward

The significance of employee development cannot be overstated in the contemporary professional landscape. As organizations grapple with the rapid evolution of technology, changing market dynamics, and an increasingly competitive global economy, investing in the growth and skill enhancement of their workforce is not just a strategic move but a necessity. Employee development initiatives, whether through training programs, mentorship, or continuous learning opportunities, not only enhance individual competencies but also contribute to organizational success. The symbiotic relationship between employee development and organizational growth underscores the importance of fostering a culture of learning and adaptability. In embracing a commitment to ongoing development, businesses not only empower their employees to thrive in their roles but also position themselves to remain agile, innovative, and resilient in the face of a dynamic future. As the workforce becomes more diverse, and job roles evolve, a proactive and holistic approach to employee development emerges as a cornerstone for sustained success and competitiveness in the ever-evolving landscape of the professional world.