1. 9
Chapter
Employee Development

2. Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
Discuss current trends in using formal education for development.
Relate how assessment of personality type, work behaviors, and job performance can be used for employee development.
Describe the benefits that protégés and mentors receive from a mentoring relationship.

3. Objectives (continued)
Explain the characteristics of successful mentoring programs.
Tell how job experiences can be used for skill development.
Explain how to train managers to coach employees.

4. Objectives (continued)
Explain the key features of an effective development strategy and how e-learning incorporates them.
Describe the steps in the development planning process.
Discuss the employee’s and company’s responsibilities in the development planning process.

5. Development refers to formal education, job experiences, relationships, and assessments of personalities and abilities that help employees prepare for the future.

6. Comparison Between Training and Development
Focus
Current
Future
Use of work experiences
Low
High
Goal
Preparation for current job
Preparation for changes
Participation
Required
Voluntary

7. Why is employee development important?
Employee development is a necessary component of a company’s efforts to:
Improve quality
Retain key employees
Meet the challenges of global competition and social change
Incorporate technological advances and changes in work design

8. Approaches to Employee Development
Assessment
Formal Education
Job Experiences
Interpersonal Relationships

9. Formal Education Formal education programs include:
off-site and on-site programs designed specifically for the company’s employees
short courses offered by consultants or universities
executive MBA programs
university programs in which participants actually live at the university while taking classes

10. Examples of development programs at GE
Description
Target Audience
Courses
Executive Development Sequence
Emphasis on strategic thinking, leadership, cross-functional integration, competing globally, customer satisfaction
Senior professionals and executives identified as high-potential
Management Development
Global Business
Executive Development
Core Leadership Program
Development of functional expertise, business excellence, management of change
Managers
Corporate Entry Leadership
Professional Development
New Manager Development
Experienced Manager
Professional Development Program
Emphasis on preparation for specific career path
New Employees
Audit Staff
Financial Management
Human Resources
Technical Leadership

11. Important trends in executive education:
Increasing use of distance learning by many companies and universities.
Companies and the education provider create short, custom courses, with content designed specifically to needs of the audience.
Supplementing formal courses from consultants or university faculty with other types of training and development activities.

12. Assessment
Assessment involves collecting information and providing feedback to employees about their behavior, communication style, or skills.
Used most frequently to:
identify employees with managerial potential
measure current managers’ strengths and weaknesses
identify managers with potential to move into higher-level executive positions
Work with teams to identify members’ strengths and weaknesses, and factors that inhibit productivity

13. Popular Assessment Tools
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Assessment Center
Benchmarks
Performance Appraisals & 360-Degree Feedback

14. Assessment Tools: Myers-Briggs (MBTI)
Most popular psychological test for employee development.
Used for understanding such things as:
Communication
Motivation
Teamwork
Work styles
Leadership

15. MBTI (continued) Examples of how used:
Can be used by salespeople who want to become more effective at interpersonal communication by learning things about their own personality styles and the way they are perceived by others.
Can help develop teams by matching team members with assignments that allow them to capitalize on their preferences.
Can help employees understand how the different preferences can lead to useful problem solving.

16. Assessment Tools: Assessment Center
The assessment center is a process in which multiple raters or evaluators evaluate employees’ performance on a number of exercises.
Usually held at an off-site location
Used to identify if employees have the abilities, personality, and behaviors for management jobs.
Used to identify if employees have the necessary skills to work in teams.

17. Examples of Skills Measured by Assessment Center Exercises
In-basket
Scheduling Exercise
Leaderless Group Discussion
Personality Test
Role Play
Leadership X
Problem solving
Interpersonal
Administrative
Personal

18. Assessment Tools: Benchmarks
Benchmarks© is an instrument designed to measure important factors in being a successful manager.
Items measured are based on research that examines the lessons executives learn at critical events in their careers.
This includes items that measure managers’ skills in dealing with subordinates, acquiring resources, and creating a productive work climate.

19. Skills Related to Managerial Success
Resourcefulness
Doing whatever it takes
Being a quick study
Building and mending relationships
Leading subordinates
Compassion and sensitivity
Straightforwardness and composure
Setting a developmental climate
Confronting problem subordinates
Team orientation
Balance between personal life and work
Decisiveness
Self-awareness
Hiring talented staff
Putting people at ease
Acting with flexibility

20. Approaches for measuring performance:
Assessment Tools: Performance Appraisals and 360-Degree Feedback Systems
Performance appraisal is the process of measuring employees’ performance.
Approaches for measuring performance:
Ranking employees
Rating work behaviors
Rating the extent to which employees have desirable traits believed to be necessary for job success (e.g., leadership)
Directly measuring the results of work performance.

21. Conditions under which performance measurement is useful for development:
The appraisal system must give employees specific information about their performance problems and ways they can improve their performance:
Providing a clear understanding of the differences between current performance and expected performance.
Identifying the causes of the performance discrepancy.
Developing action plans to improve performance.

22. Managers must be trained in providing performance feedback.
Conditions under which performance measurement is useful for development: (continued)
Managers must be trained in providing performance feedback.
Managers must frequently give employees performance feedback.
Managers also need to monitor employees’ progress in carrying out the action plan.

23. 360- Degree Feedback System
Peers
Manager
Rating Form
Rating Form
Self
Rating Form
Rating Form
Customers
Subordinates

24. Understand strengths and weaknesses.
Activities involved in development planning using the 360-degree feedback process:
Understand strengths and weaknesses.
Review ratings for strengths and weaknesses.
Identify skills or behaviors where self and others’ ratings agree and disagree.
Identify a development goal.
Choose a skill or behavior to develop.
Set a clear, specific goal with a specified outcome.

25. Identify a process for recognizing goal accomplishment.
Activities involved in development planning using the 360-degree feedback process: (continued)
Identify a process for recognizing goal accomplishment.
Identify strategies for reaching the development goal.
Establish strategies such as reading, job experiences, courses, and relationships.
Establish strategies for receiving feedback on progress.
Establish strategies for receiving reinforcement for new skills or behavior.

26. Factors necessary for a 360-degree feedback system to be effective:
The system must provide consistent (reliable) ratings.
Feedback must be job-related (valid).
The system must be easy to use, understandable, and relevant.
The system must lead to managerial development.

27. Job Experiences
Job experiences refer to relationships, problems, demands, tasks, or other features that employees face in their jobs.
Most employee development occurs through job experiences.
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.

28. To be successful in their jobs, employees must stretch their skills.
They must be forced to learn new skills, apply their skills and knowledge in a new way, and master new experiences.

29. Job Demands and Lessons Learned from Them
Making transitions
Unfamiliar responsibilities
Proving yourself
Creating change
Developing new directions
Inherited problems
Reduction decisions
Problems with employees
Having high level of responsibility
High stakes
Managing business adversity
Job overload
Being involved in non-authority relationships
Influencing without authority
Facing obstacles
Adverse business conditions
Lack of top management support
Lack of personal support
Difficult boss

30. How Job Experiences are Used for Employee Development
Promotion
Enlargement of Current
Job Rotation (Lateral Move)
Transfer (Lateral Move)
Job Experiences
Temporary Assignment with Another Organization
Externship
Downward Move

31. Characteristics of Effective Job Rotation Systems
Job rotation is used to develop skills as well as give employees experience needed for managerial positions.
Employees understand specific skills that will be developed by rotation.
Job rotation is used for all levels and types of employees.

32. Characteristics of Effective Job Rotation Systems (continued)
Job rotation is linked with the career management process so employees know the development needs addressed by each job assignment.
Benefits of rotation are maximized and costs are minimized through managing time of rotations to reduce workload costs and help employees understand job rotation’s role in their development plans.
All employees have equal opportunities for job rotation assignments.

33. Interpersonal Relationships
Employees can also develop skills and increase their knowledge about the company and its customers by interacting with a more experienced organizational member.
Two types of interpersonal relationships used to develop employees:
Mentoring
Coaching

34. Characteristics of Successful Formal Mentoring Programs:
Mentor and protégé participation is voluntary.
Relationship can be ended at any time without fear of punishment.
Mentor-protégé matching process does not limit the ability of informal relationships to develop.
Mentors are chosen on the basis of their past record in developing employees, willingness to serve as a mentor, and evidence of positive coaching, communication, and listening skills.

35. Characteristics of Successful Formal Mentoring Programs: (continued)
The purpose of the program is clearly understood.
The length of the program is specified.
A minimum level of contact between the mentor and protégé is specified.
Protégés are encouraged to contact one another to discuss problems and share successes.
The mentor program is evaluated.
Employee development is rewarded.

36. The Development Planning Process
The development planning process involves:
Identifying development needs
Choosing a development goal
Identifying the actions that need to be taken by the employee and the company to achieve the goal
Determining how progress toward goal attainment will be measured
Establishing a timetable for development

37. Development Planning (continued)
An emerging trend in development is that the employee must initiate the development planning process.
The development approach used is dependent on the needs and development goal.

38. Responsibilities in the Development Planning Process:
Employee Responsibility
Company Responsibility
Opportunity
How do I need to improve?
Assessment information to identify strengths, weaknesses, interests and values
Goal Identification
How do I want to develop?
Company provides development planning guide. Manager has developmental discussion with employee
Criteria
How will I know I am making progress?
Manager provides feedback on criteria
Actions
What will I do to reach my development goal?
Company provides assessment, courses, job experiences, and relationships
Time
What is my timetable?
Managers follows up on progress toward developmental goal and helps employees set a realistic timetable for goal achievement

39. Company Strategies for Providing Development:
Individualization
Learner Control
Ongoing Support