Methods/Ways of Employee Development

Employee development activities help employees to enhance their skills and upgrade their existing knowledge for them to contribute more effectively towards the success of an organization. Trainings and employee development activities make individuals reliable resources for the organization and motivate them to deliver their level best. Regular trainings prepare employees for unpredictable changes in the system or unforeseen adverse situations.

Let us go through various methods of employee development:

Form various committees of staff members from different genres and skill sets. Invite employees to be a part of the committee where they can exchange their ideas, knowledge and new learnings.Such committees help employees break the ice among themselves and come closer. Information sharing is one of the best ways to acquire new skills and knowledge. Let employees learn from each other. Appreciate if someone comes up with a brilliant new idea or concept and so on.

Encourage employees to participate in conferences and seminars in line with their position and skill sets. Don’t let them attend trainings which are not related to their job specifications and organization. Ask them to give a brief download of the conference they had already attended to their fellow workers as well. There is absolutely no harm if others also benefit from your knowledge. The employees can also give a brief presentation of what all they have learnt in the conference or seminar.

Employees learn a lot of new things while on job itself. Write critical incident notes and share with all other related employees. Pick up any incident where an employee showed tremendous intelligence, used his innovative ideas and utilized his skills to find a solution to any problem. For example a complaint by any client was handled well by an employee. Prepare a critical incident note and share with fellow workers. If a problem was not handled well, highlight the same as well. Write a detailed note on what all skills and new learnings would help an employee perform better.

Field trips also help in employee development. Take employees out for client visits, plant visits, site visits and so on. A team manager once in a while can take his team members for client meetings for them to get the desired exposure. Site visits or plant visits help an employee to gain better understanding of their job responsibilities and day to day work.

Human resource professionals must provide manuals, guidelines, checklists, organization policies for the employee to know what he is supposed to do in the organization. Design key responsibility areas of employees in line with their education qualification, interest areas, specialization and background.

Employees can also be provided additional responsibilities by their team managers. Make them accountable for their teams. Every employee looks for additional challenges in the organization. Once an employee has proved his abilities in a particular genre, assign him/her some additional duties.

Job rotation also helps an employee to develop and enhance his skills. Employees can be asked to contribute in different genres and departments as well on a temporary basis.

If your employee wants to learn additional skills, ask him to follow his fellow workers and gain from his talent and mentoring. Such a process is also called job shadowing where an employee does not contribute much to a job but learns significantly from his colleagues.

Ask employees to work in teams. Every individual has his/her own area of expertise. Let employees gain from each other’s knowledge and experience. Motivate employees to help each other learn new skills.

Human resource professionals or team managers can circulate important study materials, reports, articles, journals as learning alerts.

Give adequate learning opportunities to employees. Ask them to perform tasks which they have never performed before. They would definitely go back and do some homework before finally accepting the challenge.

Supervisors should act as mentors to their team members. Be there for them and help them grow professionally.

Motivate employees to register for various online courses, distance learning programs which would help them in their professional career.

Performance appraisals also help in employee development. According to 360 Degree appraisal, managers, supervisors evaluate the performance of their team members and give them necessary feedbacks. The results of an appraisal help an employee know his shortcomings and how he can work on the same.