Employee Development

Employee Development

Michael Morgan

MAN4350 - Training and Development / Ref. #426185

Prof. Chris Goodell

December 1, 2015

Abstract

Employee development is a highly important part of the shaping of a company and the future direction of your employees’ careers. The purpose of this paper is to point out and discuss just a few of the benefits of employee development for employers to consider. With the costs associated with turnover, it is important to have a succession plan in place to fill gaps that may be left behind by someone leaving the company or as addition help in a company that is growing. Keep in mind that development positively effects and influences employees. It can lead to workers taking more pride in their work, increase tenure thus decreasing turnover, and attract a more qualified pool of candidates.

Employee development involves a continuous, combined effort from employees and their employers. They must ensure that their knowledge, skills, and abilities are constantly being upgraded. This will ensure that along with the employee’s growth and progression within their career is in line with the needs of the company itself. It comes out to a win-win situation for both. But even though both sides win through employee development, it is often a neglected aspect of management. The cost to the company not engaging in the development of their employees is a loss of top talent.

So, why is employee development frequently ignored? We can make up all the excuses in the world and Forbes gives us three big reasons why:

1. We tend to focus on the here and now. These days, companies are trying to do more with less. In this type of environment, managers are tending to be focused on day-to-day operations and less interested in the long-term activities that they feel have a return that is less certain.
2. Some bureaucratic exercises are done but not acted upon. While the thought is there to work towards developing employees, they spend so much time trying to decide who and where to fit employees based on their abilities and how they fit in to their matrices, management is just happy to complete the exercises and seldom do anything constructive with the data they comprised.
3. There’s just no time for it. In the business world, we hear this way too often and yet it is the lamest of all excuses. If you feel that development planning is valuable to your company, you must make it a priority and make time for it. (Lipman, 2013)

Developing your staff gives them the opportunity to work to achieve their highest level of potential. The key is to recognize the skills the employee possesses and is interested in developing further. If these are skill that can be applied in the workplace, then it is very important to help them maximize their potential. Developing the skills of employees will, in turn, help you get the most out of them. (Aventa Business Institute)