Employee development is a joint, on-going initiative of the employer as well as the employee to upgrade the skills, abilities, and knowledge of the employee. Employee development is the combination of the four approaches; formal education, interpersonal relationships, job experiences and assessment of abilities and personality to aid employees prepare for their careers’ future (Noe, 259).
Organizations may support their staff development by offering various formal educational programs, either at work place or off-site (Noe, 260). These formal educational programs include specifically designed workshops, short courses offered by universities and consultants, university programs to employees while under the program, and executive MBA programs. Formal education programs may include lectures, business simulations and games, experiments and customer meetings.
Assessment
Assessment involves collecting information and giving feedback about an employee’s behaviour, communication skills or style. Assessment is frequently used to identify employees with a managerial potential to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the current managers. It is also used to identify the managers with the potential of moving into high executive roles (Noe, 261). Organizations, which embrace teamwork environment, may employ assessments to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of every single team member, and the effects of member’s decision-making and communication skills on the team’s overall productivity. Information must be shared with the employee being assessed for it to support the development. The tools used to assess includes the assessment centres, Myers-Briggs Type indicator, benchmarks assessment, 360-degree feedback and performance appraisal.
Job experience
This is the combination of demands, tasks, relationships and other features of an individual’s job (Noe, 267). Application of job experiences takes the assumption that development likely occurs in the case of a mismatch in the employee skills and the required skills. In order to succeed, employees must stretch their skills. The employees must acquire new skills, apply skills and knowledge in new ways and effect new experiences. Job experiences may be achieved through job enlargement, job rotation, downward moves, transfer or promotion.
Interpersonal relationships
Employee development can be enhanced through interactions with experienced members of the organization. Through these interactions, employees can increase their knowledge about the customers and the organization as well as develop more skills. There are two types of relationships, which support development, they are mentoring and coaching (Noe, 271).
All these approaches are critical that they must all be combined in creating a formal development program. In modern day organizations, the concept of a career is fluid; a protean career that changes synchronously with changes in an individual’s interests, values and abilities, and work environment changes.
Works Cited
Noe, Raymond A. Fundamentals of Human Resource Management. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2011. Print.
