5 Reasons Why You Need to Invest in Employee Development
The results of overall digitization in recent years have only served to heighten concerns about the growing gap between people. And providing employees with a friendly environment for career growth and personal development is a major challenge that companies currently face. How can they increase employee engagement, evaluate their personalities, and boost their performance at once? Here are some answers.
What is employee development?
In the same way as the spread of selective hiring, self-service apps, and gamification, employee development is a key issue for HR departments in 2022. It is the process of supporting and investing in a person’s set of skills, as well as helping them acquire new ones to fill emergent needs within the organization. Effective employee development aligns business goals with the personal goals of the team members.
Top-tier companies aim to reach continuous employee development when personal growth and improvement never stop. It’s not a one-time process that ends when the employee gets a raise or promotion. Instead, it plays a unique role in each employee’s internal career path and represents the company’s culture.
- New experience. Employee onboarding starts with a development plan to help settle and track the progress of future work.
- Career goals. Managers and employees establish reachable goals and a well-thought plan of career development at the beginning of the training program.
- Talent share opportunities. Managers should assist employees in gaining hands-on experience across the company.
- Business training. Includes HR processes such as timekeeping, time-off, promotion, and offboarding.
- Career plans. The job family structure, career path maker and career stream comparison tool help supervisors and employees discuss and create career plans.
Top reasons for adopting employee development practices
Implementing actionable steps to improve educational practices in human recruiting management provides employee loyalty and gives retailers a competitive advantage in the labor market. The top reasons for adopting employee development in your company are listed below.
ED helps to develop an internal pipeline for leadership.
When your employees are continuously focused on skill-building and professional growth, your business is able to build a strong leadership pipeline. This means that you can make internal promotions more easily, and fill unexpected gaps or new roles without having to recruit new talent.
Foster a culture of teamwork and collaboration.
Although learning and career development are highly personal, they can also be a team sport. When you integrate learning into your company culture, it can help to foster a work environment of knowledge-sharing and collaboration across different teams and levels.
Prepares workers for industry disruptions.
From automation to artificial intelligence, many industries are on the brink of disruption with these rapid changes in technology. By focusing on continuous development, your company takes a proactive approach to skill-building and arms your team members with the knowledge they need to keep up with these changes.
Boosts loyalty and morale.
By providing real rewards and concrete steps to take towards growth, employees have something tangible to work toward and trust that their hard work will pay off. Moreover, LinkedIn’s Workforce Learning Report showed that 94% of employees say that they would stay at a company longer if it simply invested in helping them learn.
Reduces turnover.
When businesses show a commitment to their employees and compassionately support the growth of each individual, employees trust that they belong and are valued within their workspace. The more valued employees feel, the less likely they are to start looking for external opportunities.
The importance of employee training and development
Employees who receive clear communication about a job and its required processes and procedures are more likely to stay in it. Training and development programs help relay this information and ensure employees have the tools to perform their roles according to corporate guidelines.
Training programs and personal attention do not only increase employees’ self-worth but also result in significantly higher personnel engagement, higher productivity, fewer accidents in the working place, and 21% higher profitability. Engaged workers also report better health outcomes. Data analysis tools can evaluate overall employee performance and the effectiveness of the educational programs.
Conclusion
There’s a story behind each employee, and any responsible company’s task is to nurture talent and provide any necessary opportunities for growth. Businesses must timely detect untapped potential in employees, it is vital for assembling the most effective teams.
Modern HR digital tools help to choose those who are eager for new knowledge, skills, and challenges, therefore contributing more to the workflow. An employee development plan will become the basis for connection with other people and current resources. Moreover, such a plan can highlight directions toward which they need to progress.
In conclusion, we recall that HRs and training teams are not the only ones who work on retaining and developing employees. Managers are in the closest position to drive employee retention and engagement — companies should provide them with all necessary information and tools to do so.