Employee Development And Training

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Eachtraining class or course supports the progression of the employee through their development plan. One way I visualize the difference is by thinking about what an architect does, versus what a contractor does.

An architect will design a building and, with input from the client, decide what the overall building will look like when it is done: How many stories will it be? Will it have a foyer? Where will the stairs be? Will there be columns facing the street?

A contractor, on the other hand, is much more interested in the concrete details: What supports are needed under the flooring? What bolts are needed to secure the stairs? When do we mix the concrete for the columns? How do we guarantee that the building is built to code?

Training, then, is a core aspect of employee development. But development is not simply a set of training courses strung together over time. There must be an overall plan for development to happen. Your job is to create a template for those plans, one that will ultimately justify the resources your organization is putting into training.

When developing a training and development program, the temptation is to start looking at tools, training courses, and timelines. Resist this temptation and step back a moment. What are the overall business goals you and your leadership are trying to achieve? What are the intermediate steps or milestones leading to those goals?

Competencies are groups of abilities, behaviors, knowledge, and skills that impact the success of employees and organizations. Some examples of competencies are Customer Service, Business Acumen, and Building Effective Teams. Once you have identified the competencies your organization wants to foster, it will be easier to define learning tracks for employees that instill those competencies.

Why competencies, rather than, say, individual skills or job requirements? Competency-based learning is now a mainstay in the most successful businesses. In one study by Development Dimensions International (DDI), 89% of best-in-class organizations had core competencies defined for all their roles (compared to a mere 48% of all other companies). A separate report by Fortune and Aon Hewitt found that a full 100% of companies making the global top companies list use a well-defined competency model.

It is likely that you already have plenty of data and information with which to start a gap analysis. Your official HR records might already hold things like standard job descriptions, performance evaluations, and even accident and safety reports. Start with these. You might also have other formal tools, such as employee assessment or 360-degree reviews. If not, it might well be worth investing in some so you can get a clear, objective picture of your workforce.

Ouch! Needless to say, if your employee development program is going to work at all, you need to talk to your employees and listen to them. The most important thing to do is to find out what their own goals are within your company. You might have an employee in IT, for example, that does great work and has a good rapport with the rest of the team. He looks, from the outside, like a prime candidate to be promoted to a management position.

But does he want to be a manager? What if he is perfectly happy in his current role and has no interest in leading others? No matter how much training you have in your back pocket, forcing that new role on the person may create resentment, set them up to fail or leave the company.

What form should these formal training sessions take? For many skills, short online video courses will fit the bill. These can be off-the-shelf videos on common topics (compliance, safety, communications skills, etc.) or custom-made videos.

A mentoring program creates relationships among employees that allow for the development and transfer of knowledge in order to help the less experienced employees grow professionally. Matching mentors and mentees is a critical component for creating a successful program; you will have to match employees based on:

Once you have determined potential matches, go ahead and draft some guidelines and a mentoring agreement. This helps formalize the relationship and can prevent some issues that might develop down the road.

Your high-potential employees will be motivated to learn and advance on their own. Take advantage of that! Open up your learning library to employees so they can find the courses they want (and take them at a time that works for them).

In fact, there are several benefits to allowing for such self-directed learning: It better accommodates different learning styles, increases the speed of professional development, and gives you a better ROI for your training dollars.

Still, you might hit some roadblocks, or just feel like you need a little help from an industry veteran. (For example, do you need a quick checklist for buying eLearning content? Or a tactical guide for setting up a learning management system? Or just need to talk to a learning consultant who has been there and done that?)

Employee training and development is important for ensuring that staff are prepared for their role; that they feel supported, valued, and capable; and that they have upward movement. Training and development can have a direct impact on employee engagement and retention and should be an integral part of your talent management strategy.

Employee training and development is both present- and future-focused. Employee learning programs support your people in meeting the challenges of the business, today. And employee learning programs create a pipeline of leaders to meet the societal and technological challenges of tomorrow.

Julian says employee training also ensures people feel valued, and feel that their employer sees them playing a role in the long term. This feeds into the overall company culture. In fact, in our survey of employees at the 2023 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, 87% said they often or always feel like they are offered training and resources to develop professionally.

Both employers demonstrate how employee development is a two-way conversation, not a one-way, top-down instruction. This kind of approach to employee development can have a huge impact on employee engagement, especially among younger demographics.

At Panda Restaurant Group, for example, retention among millennial employees is particularly high, thanks in part to its mentorship approach and its University of Panda program, which helps employees to earn certifications and continue their career growth outside of the workplace.

Some organizations are helping employee advance with an internal talent marketplace. An internal talent marketplace is a platform or system within an organization that facilitates identifying, developing, and retaining top talent by providing employees with opportunities for growth and career advancement.

This marketplace enables employees to explore different roles, projects, or positions within the company, promoting internal mobility, skill development, and cross-functional collaboration. By creating an internal talent marketplace, organizations can better retain talent, improve employee satisfaction, and enhance their overall agility while reducing the need for external hiring.

For example, the benefits team at Panda offers a monthly series of educational webinars covering topics such as healthy habits, nutrition, sleep, finance, and self-care. They also work directly with regional and department leaders to curate programs specific to their teams and provide free wellness coaches to teams in need.

Similarly, industrial services distributor Grainger has a mandatory e-learning course on unconscious bias. The one-hour course outlines what unconscious bias is, explores how it may emerge in day-to-day work, and offers effective behaviors for managing it.

Julian recommends that participants be given the chance to talk through the training, to understand what fits and wrestle with problems, rather than running passive sessions where the trainer talks and participants sit and listen.

Providing employee training and development opportunities can enhance job satisfaction, boost productivity, and improve employee retention. Equipping employees with new skills and knowledge increases their potential for advancement within the company. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Employee development refers to training and related opportunities for employees to gain new skills and competencies. While many employers view development as a shared responsibility with employees, it is almost universally recognized as a strategic tool for an organization's continuing growth, productivity and ability to attract and retain valuable employees.

This toolkit does not cover the topic of employee development for organizational leaders and managers. For information specifically related to that topic, see Developing Organizational Leaders and Developing Management.

Successful employers integrate development and succession planning programs into the organization's overall strategy, ensuring all programs drive toward the same set of objectives. These guidelines can help management plan employee development programs:

Some methods of employee development occur on the job, with the manager or an experienced co-worker leading the development activity in the context of the actual work environment. Other development occurs at training facilities or other locations. And increasingly organizations use online methods to develop employees.

Coaching involves a more experienced or skilled individual providing an employee with advice and guidance intended to help him or her gain new skills, improve performance and enhance the quality of his or her career. The hallmarks of coaching are that it is personalized and customized, that it has a specific business objective, and that it is usually accomplished one-on-one over a period of time.

Coaching should be approached like any other strategic goal. Successful execution requires commitment from the organization and the person being coached, a plan to obtain results, qualified coaches, and a follow-up evaluation.

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