What are the approaches to employee development fall into four broad categories?

You read about and practiced with several different methods of developing employees in your Reading. Now you will apply what you learned to answer the following questions:

  • What are the four broad categories of employee development methods?
  • In an organization that wants to use work experience as a method of employee development, what basic options are available?
  • What are the three roles of a coach? How is coaching different from mentoring? What are some advantages of using someone outside the organization as a coach? Some disadvantages?

Just response each posted below from #1 to 3

1 From: Erika Lewis posted Sep 1, 2018 9:08 PM

Hello Everyone,

Employee development is essential to the growth and success of any business. Happy employees are productive employees and they want to feel like their company is investing in them. The four broad categories of employee development methods consist of education, job experiences, assessments, and relationships. Using work experience is a great thing that a company can do for both itself and its employees. Employee development can let employees with required experience be crossed trained, given promotions, and transfer to other departments. Good training and continued coaching can provide the employee with the necessary support needed to be as successful as possible in their position, which in turn benefits the company and its production goals. A coach can be one of three roles for the employee. They can work one on one with the employee, they can help them learn for themselves as they go, or they can provide resources. Coaching is different from mentoring in that most mentoring relationships develop informally between a new employee and a seasoned and experienced employee who then provides mentoring along the way. It can also be developed as part of the organization’s plans to bring success in new and inexperienced employees. Coaching is a manager or a peer that works to motivate the employee and help them with their skills and provide reinforcement and feedback. Bringing in a coach from outside the organization can have positive and negative effects. It can positively affect the process by helping the employee gain the perspective of improving their innovativeness and how they should show different behaviors and also help them understand others better. It can negatively affect the process because it’s hard for a coach from outside of the organization to come in and know the ins and outs of the organization so it could take longer for this process due to them having to study and understand the employees of the organization.

Employee development is a crucial aspect of employee experience. Whether you have a brand new hire or a more tenured employee looking to advance in their career, employee development is a way to increase engagement and productivity to benefit both the employee and the company. 

Within a competitive job market, one way that employers try to stand out is with a robust offering of learning opportunities. Employees are no longer focused solely on a substantial compensation and benefits package - instead, they are seeking organizations that can provide room for them to grow and develop. 

 

Employee Engagement: The Definitive Guide

Everything you need to know about Employee Engagement

What are the approaches to employee development fall into four broad categories?

 

Why is Employee Development Important?

Employees typically report higher levels of engagement and company loyalty when provided with a variety of career advancement opportunities. They tend to work harder and be more engaged with an employer who shows an interest in their own professional and personal development and values their growth. 

Employee development opportunities also lead to increased retention and prevent turnover. Since the cost of replacing an employee can be as high as 150% of their salary, it saves a company money in the long run to retain quality employees. Engaged employees who do their job well bring both productivity and financial benefits to the company. 

Employee development programs and opportunities are essential motivators in the workplace. They inspire and enable employees to grow while developing new knowledge, skills, and mindsets.

The four general approaches that companies use for employee development include: 

Employee Training & Education:

Using additional learning resources and employee training methods to enhance an employee’s skill set. 


Additional Work Experience:

Allowing an employee to develop hands-on experience within their current work environment. 


Coaching & Mentoring Programs:

Developing new skills through interpersonal mentoring relationships. 


Performance Assessments:

Identifying strengths and areas for improvement to develop holistically. 

 

What are the approaches to employee development fall into four broad categories?


 

Let’s break these employee development areas down. 

1. Employee Training & Education:

This is typically what comes to mind when thinking about employee development programs.

From continuing education to online self-led courses to conferences, there are a plethora of resources available to explore a specific skillset further or focus on new mastery.

Company training budgets are typically dedicated to these programs, which include the following: 

General Training for Employees: This often looks like in-company training courses on feedback, leadership, or other technical courses needed for the job. They are usually heavy in theory, providing an employee with a solid foundation to then take out into the real world. Some courses offer workshop opportunities, which give employees the space to network internally and apply these new skills to hypothetical situations to understand how to handle these types of cases in the workplace. 

Conferences:  Conferences are an excellent opportunity to develop employees and help them learn and network with top talent in their industry. They can learn about innovative processes and tools to share with teammates once they’ve returned to the office. One of the main benefits of conferences is the ability to change your scenery and gain some new perspectives from industry leaders, which can be very energizing and inspirational.

Formal Education:  Formal education refers to employee development learning programs that take place through a structured instruction program, such as a college course or a certification. These opportunities can be more expensive but are a great way to continue to develop an employee’s credentials, placing them as a thought leader inside the company. 

Informal Education: Informal education can take the shape of employee-led training sessions, TedTalks, or online employee development learning programs. It’s also as simple as one person sharing tips about how to navigate a new tool or software, or searching for something online when you don’t have the answer. This is an excellent way to expose employees to new skills and ideas at no cost

2. Additional Work Experience:

Providing additional work experience as part of employee development activities is a cost-efficient way to focus on expanding your team’s skill set. These types of programs also inspire loyalty by proving to employees that you can see them taking on more responsibility and growing within the company - it prevents stagnation and builds team leaders.

Job Rotations: Job rotation programs help employees develop new interests and new skill sets by showing them how other facets of the company work. By exposing them to new roles and teams, you can potentially help them find a position that best suits their skills and allows them to make a more substantial contribution to the company. 

Stretch Assignments and Projects: Stretch projects can be either vertical or horizontal: working on projects for their level in a different swimlane, or taking on more upwards or downwards responsibilities to enhance leadership and management skills. They allow employees to develop a greater understanding of how adjacent teams work or try on new responsibilities to prove that they are ready for a promotion. 

3. Coaching & Mentoring:

Both options offer more targeted interpersonal executive support to manage employee development and help achieve specific outcomes. Employees who receive either contribute with greater confidence, thereby empowering their team to work more effectively. 

Coaching: Coaching engagements are performance-driven, and usually work on a shorter timeline to help employees improve specific skill sets.


Mentoring: On the other hand, mentoring takes a developmental approach and supports an employee while focusing on both hard and soft skills. Mentoring relationships tend to be more of a long-term relationship, while coaching engagements end after a set amount of time, therefore they motivate employees to pass on their mentoring program in the future.

4. Performance Assessments:

Performance assessments (both formal and informal) elicit a deeper understanding of both where an employee is and how to get them to where they need to be. They help organizations build a dialogue-based culture, allowing team members to have open conversations about where they can continue to improve.  

Check-ins: Often considered a more informal approach to performance management, they are still a valuable tool to assess how an employee is doing in their day-to-day tasks. These ideally occur regularly to evaluate how employees are performing with goals and to provide feedback continually, and to identify either: 

▻ when an employee is doing well and should get additional opportunities to build new skills, 
▻ or when an employee is not meeting expectations and needs other development opportunities to get up to speed. 

What are the approaches to employee development fall into four broad categories?

Year-End Reviews: Usually seen as the more formal approach, year-end reviews allow employees and managers to have a more in-depth conversation about performance to wrap up the year. These are an excellent opportunity to discuss employee development and how goals were met for the year, provide any additional feedback from team members, or take a forward look at promotions or extra responsibilities. 

360 Feedback: 360 feedback branches out from the typical downwards flow of feedback from manager to employee. By opening up feedback channels to include co-workers and other team leaders, it increases self-awareness and creates a culture of openness. Employees who engage in 360 feedback can gain additional insight into their strengths and areas of improvement that a manager might not see, and can address them accordingly via employee development plans. 

 

Employee Engagement: The Definitive Guide

Everything you need to know about Employee Engagement

What are the approaches to employee development fall into four broad categories?

As you can see, there is no shortage of ways to support employee development methods. Many companies engage in a mixture of all four employee development areas to find their ideal balance - there’s no one size fits all solution. 

Smart leaders know that investing in employee development initiatives and training methods is crucial to the long-term success of the company. It’s a joint effort between the company and employee, leading to increased returns on both ends. By giving employees room to grow their skills, companies prove that they value their contributions and efforts, leading to increased job satisfaction and engagement. 

Whether you are building an employee development program from scratch or looking to add to your current programming, take a look at the list above and give them a try. Your team will only thank you. 

What are the approach to employee development?

Mentoring and coaching provides demonstrated benefits around quality of work, problem solving and communication skills. Job Shadowing. Job shadowing can be a great way for your employees to learn critical elements of other jobs, while further developing in their own.

Which of the following approaches are mostly used for employee development in the organizations?

The best training methods are mentoring, stretch assignments, and coaching. Mentoring and coaching help in the direct transfer of knowledge and experience following the classic teacher-student format, while stretch assignments are used for developing future leaders.

What are training and development techniques?

These methods might include orientations, coaching, apprenticeships, internships, job instruction training, and job rotation. The main advantages of on-the-job techniques is that they are highly practical, and employees do not lose working time while they are learning.

Which key features are part of an effective development system?

An effective staff development system has four components: training, mentoring, supportive written material, and staff assessment, evaluation & feedback. Each must be in alignment with the organizations core principles and strategies.