Last Updated on August 18, 2021 – 11:09 am

How does your organization support the professional development of its employees? There’s a good chance that you’ve placed minimal focus on developing your talent and people. Great organizations realize they need to invest in development activities to support the growth and development of their people. They do so knowing their employees are their one true asset, and sustainable growth and success are only possible when the right employee is available, equipped, and motivated. But, what is employee development, and what does it entail?

Employee Development 101

Our experience is that most people expect employee development to be a novel concept. But, if your business or organization has done or is doing any type of employee training, then you’ve already embraced employee development. You’ll find the terms used interchangeably across many industries and sectors, yet the core idea is the same: to capture employee learning initiatives.

It’s a fact that learning and development (L&D) is becoming a top workplace priority. Smart companies know that job mastery results from teamwork. In employee development, managers and employees collaborate to create a mutually beneficial and actionable development roadmap. The roadmap identifies key areas to improve or develop while determining specific actions or activities to take to embed that learning.

Employee development plans should blend seamlessly with business goals and be a template for what skills employees require for specific goals and learn those skills.

Ongoing employee development is a need in modern enterprises. It enables employees to be in step with the latest developments in the industry while acquiring the necessary skills to remain relevant in the face of evolving competition.

Therefore, employee development is nurturing employees by furnishing them with an education that enhances their value for the organization. Developing employees makes

them more reliable for your company. These activities are also likely to boost their attachment to the company.

Benefits of Employee Development

An effective strategy for employee development offers crucial benefits to all stakeholders. These benefits include:

  • Improving employee performance

Staying competitive means an organization has to keep performing better than the competition. It is possible with employee development.

A 2017 CSO Insights report details how sales manager development greatly improves performance metrics, including win rates, quota attainment, and revenue. Improvements of around 50 percent are possible with investments as low as $500.

  • Preparing employees to handle unexpected situations

The modern business climate evolves quite rapidly. It creates new challenges and great opportunities. However, to mitigate the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities, your team needs to evolve as quickly as the prevailing circumstances.

  • Your organization will attract relevant employees

ATD Research published a whitepaper showing that a culture of enhancing knowledge helps companies be more competitive and agile. Contributing to such success keeps employees invested in the company, as long as they’re growing, learning, and earning.

Deliberate employee development helps foster a mature learning culture, build loyalty, and attract new talent who are eager to experience your work environment.

  • Prepare your employees for leadership

Strong leadership can boost revenue by up to 37 percent per employee. Gross profit margin can also grow by 9 percent under these circumstances, according to this Deloitte report.

Your company has a better chance to thrive if you have a strategy to develop employees with a leadership mindset. College education or multi-day leadership seminars are barely enough to develop relevant leadership skills relevant to your industry.

  • Improve employee engagement

Employee engagement is vital for success in any organization. Employee training is a great way to foster engagement, besides an inviting work environment and employee appreciation.

Creating Effective Employee Development Methods

There are many ways to implement employee development. The more effective methods of employee development programs involve more than creating a vanilla employee training program.

The development of employees is a comprehensive culture of exposing employees to new ideas and information in various ways, such as engaging them in complementary roles and establishing a mentoring program. As organizations redefine their operations to use digital processes, technology is increasingly important in developing employees.

The design of effective development programs is such that they cater to varying learning personalities and involve employees in planning them. That said, success ultimately depends on the employee under training.

Recommended employee development methods include coaching, conferences, mentoring, task alternation, and training. Others are on-the-job training, self-study, simulations, and workshops.

Conclusion

The benefits of employee development make it obvious that Human Resources cannot possibly choose to ignore it. Emerging tools such as online education make the investment into employee education more accessible. We’re known for IT departments in many companies offering long-term learning subscriptions to their software developers and engineers.

All your organization needs are the tools to build an employee development plan. It’ll create a mutually beneficial atmosphere where your employees enjoy working for you and your company gets the best out of them.