Typical Reasons for Employee Training and Development Training and development can be initiated for a variety of reasons for an employee or group of employees, e.g.,

• When a performance appraisal indicates performance improvement is needed
• To "benchmark" the status of improvement so far in a performance improvement effort
• As part of an overall professional development program
• As part of succession planning to help an employee be eligible for a planned change in role in the organization
• To "pilot", or test, the operation of a new performance management system
• To train about a specific topic (see below)

Typical Topics of Employee Training

Communications: The increasing diversity of today's workforce brings a wide variety of languages and customs.

• Computer skills: Computer skills are becoming a necessity for conducting administrative and office tasks.
• Customer service: Increased competition in today's global marketplace makes it critical that employees understand and meet the needs of customers.
• Diversity: Diversity training usually includes explanation about how people have different perspectives and views, and includes techniques to value diversity.
• Ethics: Today's society has increasing expectations about corporate social responsibility. Also, today's diverse workforce brings a wide variety of values and morals to the workplace.
• Human relations: The increased stresses of today's workplace can include misunderstandings and conflict. Training can people to get along in the workplace.
• Quality initiatives: Initiatives such as Total Quality Management, Quality Circles, benchmarking, etc., require basic training about quality concepts, guidelines and standards for quality, etc.
• Safety: Safety training is critical where working with heavy equipment , hazardous chemicals, repetitive activities, etc., but can also be useful with practical advice for avoiding assaults, etc.
• Sexual harassment: Sexual harassment training usually includes careful description of the organization's policies about sexual harassment, especially about what are inappropriate behaviors.

General Benefits from Employee Training and Development

There are numerous sources of online information about training and development. Several of these sites (they're listed later on in this library) suggest reasons for supervisors to conduct training among employees.

These reasons include:

• Increased job satisfaction and morale among employees
• Increased employee motivation
• Increased efficiencies in processes, resulting in financial gain
• Increased capacity to adopt new technologies and methods
• Increased innovation in strategies and products
• Reduced employee turnover
• Enhanced company image, e.g., conducting ethics training (not a good reason for ethics training!)
• Risk management, e.g., training about sexual harassment, diversity training

The 4-Step Employee Development Plan

Developing an employee involves improving his or her skills in their current job as well as developing them for future responsibilities and new positions. As manager, it is your job to develop your people. Many companies are now holding managers responsible for the development of their employees and make employee development a part of the manager's performance appraisal. (To a large degree, the skills required for employee development are the skills developed in leadership, management, and supervisory training.)

This four step employee development plan will put you, your employees and the whole department on track to achieve maximum potential.

1. Prepare the employee

To get the employee thinking about their own development and the areas where development can occur, here is a series of questions you will want to ask the employee.

• What are the skills needed to do your job? How well do you perform them?
• What aspects of your job do you like least/best?
• What major accomplishments have you achieved since your last performance appraisal?
• In what ways, can your supervisor and/or the organization help you to do a better job?
• What changes would you like to see in your current job?
• What are your job goals for this next year?
• Where do you see yourself in five years?
• What have you been doing to prepare yourself to move ahead in your career?
• What activities would help you develop yourself?

An excellent time to begin the developmental process is during the performance appraisal. Get the questions to the employee well in advance of the appraisal interview to give them time to prepare. Their answers will help guide the discussion.

2. Provide Development opportunities

There is a vast array of things you can do to help the employee develop and every employee is different. Here is a list of some developmental approaches you can consider.

• Training: Training is obviously first on the list. Often training needs are simply defined by looking at the employee's performance or by understanding their experience or lack of experience with the specific job tasks.
• Peer Coaching: Employees coach other individuals on their jobs. The benefits are two-fold. First, the employees develop skills in other areas and can fill in for their counterpart if that person is on vacation or out sick. Also, by in the process of teaching another person, the teacher themselves becomes more proficient.
• Job Design Changes: Here, the employee defines all aspects of their job and makes suggestions as to how the job might be redesigned to enhance proficiency. You may be surprise by their creativity and superior ideas. Even though you may not be able to totally revamp a job, the employee understands the job better and you begin to recognize some of their concerns.
• Representing the Department Have the employee represent you, the team, or the department at an important meeting. Have them report back the proceedings to you and/or the team. In the process, the employee has a better understanding of how the team, the department, and their job fit into the big picture of the organization.
• Delegate Special Projects Make certain the project challenges the employee. The project must be seen as meaningful. Also, make sure the employee views the project as a reward for good work in other areas of their job. In doing so, the assignment becomes a motivating experience and not just more work.
• Assist the Boss Assign an employee to assist your boss or another executive on a special assignment where the employee will be exposed to new business perspectives of the organization's business.

3. Monitor Progress

• Observe how the employee is doing. Schedule to meet at least once per quarter to discuss how things are going. Ask questions; review any quantity and quality measures that are relevant. Give ongoing feedback on what the individual is doing well and what they need to be doing differently. Feedback is critical to the success of the developmental process. If you do not follow up with them, you are essentially telling the employee the developmental process is not all that important to you. If it is not important to you, how can you expect the employee to take it seriously?

4. Create Confidence

• Let them know you are always available. Give the employee the encouragement and support needed to feel confident in his or her ability to succeed. When things do not go as well as planned, focus on what went right. You are asking the person to go beyond their current level, take it one step at a time. Sometimes we must take smaller steps to ensure a successful outcome.

The ultimate success in developing the employee depends on the employee themselves. However, the success of the developmental process depends on the manager. Follow these guidelines to ensure success in developing your people.