North South University

School of Business and Economics

BUS 601
Human Resource Management; Sec. 5
Spring Semester 2018
Lecture 8
Developing Employees for Future Success
Employee Development
The combination of formal education, job
experiences, relationships, & assessment of
personality & abilities to help employees prepare
for the future of their career.
It is future oriented.
Is not necessarily related to the employee’s current
job.
Development is about preparing for change in the
form of new jobs, new responsibilities, or new
requirements .
 Training versus Development
Training Development
Focus Current Future

Use of work Low High

experiences
Goal Preparation for Preparation for
current job changes
Participation Required Voluntary
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 &
social change
Incorporate technological advances &
changes in work design
Approaches to Employee Development

Interpersonal Formal
Relationships Education

Job
Assessment
Experiences
Approaches to Employee Development…
1. Formal Education
Formal educational programs
Short or long-time courses
Off-site & on-site programs designed
specifically for the company’s employees
Short courses offered by consultants or
universities
Executive MBA programs
Examples of Development Programs at GE
Program Description Target Courses
Audience
Executive Emphasis on strategic Senior Manager Development
Development thinking, leadership, professionals & Global Business
Sequence cross-functional Executives Management
integration, identified as high- Executive Development
competing globally, potential
customer satisfaction
Core Development of Managers Corporate Entry Leadership
Leadership functional expertise, Professional Development
Program business excellence, New Manager
management of Development
change Experienced Manager
Professional Emphasis on New Employees Audit Staff
Development preparation for Financial Management
Program specific career path Human Resources
Technical Leadership
Approaches to Employee Development…
2. Assessment
Collecting information & providing feedback
to employees about their behaviour,
communication style, or skills.
Vary in methods & sources of information.
Use psychological tests to measure
employees’ skills, personality types, &
communication styles.
Popular Assessment Tools

Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator® Assessment Center
(MBTI)
Performance
Appraisals and
Benchmarks 360-Degree Feedback
Systems
Approaches to Employee Development…
Tools used for assessment…
a. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator:
Psychological inventory that identifies
individuals’ performances for source of
energy, means of information
gathering, way of decision making, &
lifestyle, providing information for team
building & leadership development
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator…
Source of energy
Where individuals gain interpersonal strength & vitality
Degree of introversion & extroversion
Extroverted gains energy through interpersonal
relationships
Introverted gains energy by focusing on inner thoughts &
feelings
Means of information gathering
Preparations individuals make before making decisions
Individuals with a Sensing preference tend to gather the
facts & details to prepare for a decision
Intuitive types tend to focus less on the facts & more on
possibilities & relationships among them
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator…
Way of decision making
Individuals with a Thinking preference try always to
be objective in making decisions
Individuals with a Feeling preference tend to
evaluate the impact of the alternatives on others,
as well as their own feelings; they are more
subjective
Lifestyle
An individuals tendency to be either flexible or
structured
Approaches to Employee Development…

b. Assessment Centre: An assessment

process in which multiple raters or
evaluators (assessors) evaluate
employees’ performance on a number of
exercises, usually as they work in a
group at off-site location

Leaderless Group Discussion

 Examples of Skills Measured by
Assessment Center Exercises

EXERCISES
SKILLS In-basket Scheduling Leaderless Personality Role Play
Exercise Group Test
Discussion
Leadership X X X X
Problem X X X X
solving
Interpersonal X X X
Administrative X X X
Personal X X X
 Approaches to Employee Development…
c. The Benchmark Assessment: A measurement tool that
gathers ratings of a manager’s use of skills associated with
success in managing
Skills related to success as a Manager
Resourcefulness Can think strategically, engage in flexible problem solving, &
work effectively with higher management
Being a quick study Quickly masters new technical & business knowledge

Leading subordinates Delegates to subordinates effectively, broadens their

opportunities, & acts with fairness toward them
Team orientation Accomplishes tasks through managing others

Self-awareness Has an accurate picture of strengths & weaknesses & is

willing to improve
Putting people at ease Displays warmth & a good sense of humour
Approaches to Employee Development…
d. Performance Appraisal
The process of measuring employee’s performance
Approaches for measuring performance:
–Ranking employees
–Rating work behaviours
–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 (e.g., productivity)
Approaches to Employee Development…

e. 360-degree Feedback
Performance measurement by the employee’s
supervisor, peers, employees, subordinates, &
customers
Rating the individual in terms of work-related
behaviours
This method demands a significant amount of
time for raters to complete the evaluations
 Approaches to Employee Development…
3. Job Experiences: The combination of relationships,
problems, demands, tasks, & other features of an
employee’s jobs
How job experiences are used for employee
development
Promotion
Job rotation
Enlargement of current job
Downward move
Transfer
Temporary assignment to another organization
 Approaches to Employee Development…

4. Interpersonal Relationships
Develop skills & increase their knowledge about
the organization & its customers by
interacting with a more experienced
organization member
Two types…
1. Mentoring
2. Coaching
 Approaches to Employee Development…
Mentor… an experienced, productive senior employee who
helps develop a less-experienced employee (a protégé)
May be formal or informal
Informally, mid- & senior-level managers may voluntarily help
less-experienced employees
Formally, the employer may pair protégés with potential
mentors, & provide training to help mentor & protégé
better understand their respective responsibilities. One
major advantage of formal mentoring programs is that they
ensure access to mentors for all employees, regardless of
gender or race.
 Approaches to Employee Development…
Having a mentor give career-related guidance
& act as a sounding board can significantly
enhance one’s career satisfaction & success
Mentors & protégés can both benefit from a
mentoring relationship
Protégés receive career support, including
coaching, protection, sponsorship, challenging
assignments, & visibility among the
organization’s managers
 Approaches to Employee Development…
Coaching: A peer or manager who works with an
employee to motivate the employee, help him or
her develop skills, & provide reinforcement &
feedback
Coaches may play one or more of three roles…
1. Working one-on-one with an employee, as when
giving feedback
2. Helping employees learn for themselves-for
example, helping them find experts & teaching
them to obtain feedback from others
3. Providing resources such as mentors, courses, or
job experiences
 Approaches to Employee Development…
Coaching focuses on daily tasks that you can easily
re-learn, so coaching’s downside is usually
limited
Mentoring focuses on relatively hard-to-reverse
longer-term issues, & often touches on the
person’s psychology (motives, needs, aptitudes,
& how one gets along with others, for instance).
The supervisor is usually not a psychologist or
trained career advisor, he or she must be extra
cautious in the mentoring advice he or she gives
 Development-related Challenges
The Glass Ceiling: Circumstances resembling an invisible
barrier that keep most women & minorities from attaining
the top jobs in organizations
Succession Planning: The process of identifying & tracking
high-potential employees who will be able to fill top
management positions when they become vacant
Dysfunctional Managers: A manger who is otherwise
competent may engage in some behaviours that make him or
her ineffective or even ‘toxic’-someone who stifles good
ideas & drives away employees
Insensitivity to others
Inability to be a team player
Arrogance
Poor conflict management skills
Inability to meet business objectives
Inability to adapt to change