Employee development is a joint, on-going effort on the part of an employee and the organization for which he or she works to upgrade the employee's knowledge, skills, and abilities. Successful employee development requires a balance between an individual's career needs and goals and the organization's need to get work done. Employee development programs make positive contributions to organizational performance. A more highly-skilled workforce can accomplish more and a supervisor's group can accomplish more as employees gain in experience and knowledge.

1. Chapter 9
Employee Development
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © 2010 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

2. Formal Education
Interpersonal Relationship
Job Experience
9-2

3. Introduction
• Employee development- the combination of
formal education, job experiences,
relationships, and assessment of personality
and abilities to help employees prepare for
the future of their careers.
9-3

4. What is development??
9-4

5. Development is about preparing for change in the
form of new jobs, new responsibilities, or new
requirements.
9-5

6. Training versus Development
9-6

7. Why is employee development important?
• To improve quality.
9-7

8. Why is employee development important?
• To meet the challenges
of global competition
and social change
9-8

9. Why is employee development important?
• To incorporate technological
advances and changes in
work design.
9-9

10. Development activities can help companies
reduce turnover by:
• showing employees
that the company is
investing in the
employees’ skill
development
9-10

11. Development activities can help companies
reduce turnover by:
• Developing managers
who can create a
positive work
environment that
makes employees want
to come to work and
contribute to the
company goals.
9-11

12. Approaches to Employee Development
• Formal education
programs include:
– off-site and on-site
programs
– short courses offered by
consultants or
universities, executive
MBA programs, and
university programs.
9-12

13. The practice of reimbursing employees’ costs
for college and university courses and
degree programs
9-13

14. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Assessment
– Collecting information and providing feedback to
employees about their behavior, communication
style, values, or skills.
9-14

15. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
– Most popular psychological test for employee
development.
– Identifies individuals’ preferences for energy,
information gathering, decision making, and
lifestyle.
– It is a valuable tool for understanding
communication styles and the ways people prefer
to interact with others.
9-15

16. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Assessment center - multiple raters or
evaluators evaluate employees’ performance
on a number of exercises.
– It is used to identify:
• if employees have the abilities, personality, and
behaviors for management jobs.
• if employees have the necessary skills to work in teams.
9-16

17. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Benchmarks - instrument designed to
measure important factors in being a
successful manager.
9-17

18. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Performance appraisal - process of measuring
employees’ performance.
– Different approaches for measuring performance:
• Ranking employees.
• Rating their work behaviors.
• Rating the extent to which employees have desirable
traits believed to be necessary for job success.
9-18

19. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Upward feedback - involves collecting
subordinates’ evaluations of managers’
behaviors or skills.
9-19

20. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Job Experiences - relationships, problems,
demands, tasks, or other features that
employees face in their jobs.
– A major assumption is that development is most
likely to occur when there is a mismatch between
the employee’s skills and past experiences and the
skills required for the job.
9-20

21. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Job enlargement - adding challenges or new
responsibilities to an employee’s current job.
• Job rotation - providing employees with a
series of job assignments in various functional
areas of the company or movement among
jobs in a single functional area or department.
9-21

22. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Transfer - an employee is given a different job
assignment in a different area of the company.
• Promotions - advancements into positions
with greater challenges, more responsibility,
and more authority than in the previous job.
• Downward move - occurs when an employee
is given a reduced level of responsibility and
authority.
9-22

23. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Externships - employees take full-time,
temporary operational roles at another
company.
9-23

24. Approaches to Employee Development
(cont.)
• Interpersonal relationships
– Coach - a peer or manager who works with
employees to motivate them, help them develop
skills, and provide reinforcement and feedback.
• The best coaches are empathetic, supportive, practical,
and self-confident but do not appear to know all the
answers or want to tell others what to do.
9-24

25. Company Strategies for Providing
Development
• The most effective development strategies
involve individualization, learner control, and
ongoing support.
9-25

26. 9-26