Is used to retain and motivate employees by identifying and meeting their developmental needs?

Chapter 9 Employee Development

LO 9-01 The relationship among development, training, and careers

Development: The acquisition of knowledge, skills, and behaviours that improve an employee’s

ability to meet changes in job requirements and in client and customer demands

●Training focuses on helping employees’ performance in their current jobs

●Development prepares them for other positions in the company and increases their

ability to move into jobs that may not exist yet

●Development also helps employees prepare for changes in their current jobs

●As training becomes more strategic, the distinction between training and development

blurs

Protean Career: A career that is based on self-direction with the goal of psychological success

in one’s work

Training —> Current focus, low use of work experiences, goal is preparation for current job and

participation is required

Development —> Future focus, high use of work experiences, goal is preparation for changes,

and participation is voluntary

●Career patterns involving movements across specializations or disciplines will become

more prevalent instead of traditional career paths consisting of linear hierarchal steps in

the same organization

●“Boundaryless” means that careers may involve identifying more with a job or profession

than with the present employer

●Development Planning/Career Management System: A system to retain and motivate

employees by identifying and meeting their development needs

LO 9-02 Discuss the steps in the development planning process

1.Self-Assessment

●The use of information by employees to determine their career interests, values,

aptitudes, and behavioural tendencies

●Involves psychological tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Strong-Campbell

Interest Inventory, and the Self-Directed Search

●Through the assessments, a development need can be identified. This needs can result

from gaps between current skills and/or interests and the type of work or position the

employee wants

How do you approach employee training and development? Although an organisation's capacity to grow is defined by how it approaches staff development, some SMEs find themselves on the back foot when it comes to creating a meaningful learning and development strategy.

An article published by Forbes states that employee retention, productivity, creativity and motivation will all improve for organisations who provide the right employee training opportunities.

Employee training and development is also an essential part of growing a positive company culture (which naturally encourages employees to stick around).

It's all very well understanding the importance of training and development, but actually identifying your employees' needs is the crucial bit. Get it wrong and you could be wasting valuable time and money on training that may not be necessary.

So how do you find out what training and development your employees need? Here's a useful step-by-step guide:

7 steps for identifying the training needs of your employees

1. Set clear expectations for each role

To identify employee training and development needs, you must first set clear expectations for each role within your business. This creates a benchmark to monitor performance against.

Review job descriptions when new positions are created, or when making substantial changes to existing roles. Remember to periodically account for smaller changes as well.

Doing this makes it easier to understand what skills an employee needs if they are to be successful in each role. And in turn this helps you identify skills gaps and potential training and development needs.

2. Monitor employee performance

Measuring and monitoring performance should be embraced as a means of supporting employees (not penalising them) and can be a valuable tool in identifying development opportunities.

Set clear goals for employees and respond to performance blips on an individual basis. Understanding why performance is off kilter puts you in a better position to respond positively and offer appropriate training.

Conversely, if an employee continuously over delivers, you could work with them to set more challenging goals to stretch their abilities.

Boost your teams efforts and recognise their achievements with Breathe's powerful performance feature. Try it for free today.

3. Ask away

Now this may seem obvious, but employee feedback can be a valuable addition to your SMEs training and development plan.

Instead of traditional employee surveys, use focused employee evaluation to encourage honest and open feedback. This will create helpful dialogue about career development and help you identify specific employee training requirements.

You don’t need to set up special meetings – use regular one-to-ones or performance reviews for open conversations and honest feedback.

A simple way to do this is to ask employees to rate their job satisfaction and performance and then ask them what would make it better. Also ask them to comment on your current training and development programme and to understand whether it's supporting their career goals.

Don’t restrict your business to individual level feedback, ask managers for feedback on employees and compare that with employee self-evaluation to identify differences. It is equally useful to ask for employee feedback on managers.

4. Analysis (and lots of it)

You’ll already have your SME's strategies and goals set up. Complement this with an analysis of the work that delivers those goals. This should help you identify employee training and development needs that are specific to each team and job.

Tapping into what's going on under the surface will help you spot gaps in your training and development schedule.

It’s likely that training and development needs will fall into one of three categories:

• Improving staff knowledge about your industry
• Job-related needs
• Personal development

5. Make the most of personal development plans

Giving employees the opportunity to lead their personal development can have a profound effect on their motivation and their engagement in your business.

Well-managed personal development plans improve communication and will also help you identify any relevant training and development needs.

Use cloud-based HR software such as Breathe – this way both the employee and their manager can easily stay on top of objectives and performance.

6. Use focus group to understand employee training and development needs

Focus groups are a useful tool to help you identify training and development needs within your business. A focus group looks at a cross-section of employees within your business under the guidance of an expert facilitator.

They are a useful way of gathering employees’ views and opinions about current training and how to improve what is on offer. Focus groups also help demonstrate that you are genuinely interested in your employees' opinions.

7. Set up a system of mentoring and coaching

Closely aligning staff with a mentor will help develop skills while identifying additional employee training and development needs. Mentoring programmes are a great way of helping employees succeed in their careers and can be as powerful for the mentors as they are for the mentees.

And don’t think that it needs to be senior managers mentoring younger employees. Reverse mentoring can be just as powerful.

Looking for more information about creating learning and development plans?

Breathe’s Learn module can help you upskill your people and drive success. Discover training courses for employees in our elearning platform.

Which step is used by employees to determine their career interests and areas to improve?

What is a characteristic of a successful formal mentoring program quizlet?

When an employee takes a self

What is frequently used to identify employees with managerial potential?