Employee development is one of those major things that make a business successful. As employees are the pillars of a company’s success, it is important to make continuous efforts to make sure that the employees are improving their skills, knowledge, and engagement. This enhances their productivity and quality of performance, improving the business operations as well.
So, in a modern-day workplace, it has become an integral part of the human resource management and Learning and Development (L&D) departments. Naturally, employee development has also become a fundamental part of the strategies these departments make. As employee development is closely related to employee productivity, engagement, retention, and performance, it should be the top priority for the HR and L&D departments. Let’s figure out why.
Constructing an Employee Development Culture -
The first step to understanding the clear impacts of employee development, the workplace needs to enforce a culture where employee development takes the most importance. In this step, the business’ vision and potential career paths for employees need to be communicated clearly.
Identifying what the company and the teams need would help with establishing criteria for when new roles will be expanded or even created if necessary. On the other hand, it is significant to provide employees with an opportunity to explore other roles and responsibilities within the establishment.
This can be done smoothly if a recurring discussion about the development is focused on the competencies and career paths of employees. When employees are informed about the company's vision and all the possibilities of their career growth, they are much more enthused about their productivity in the workplace and feel motivated and engaged.
The Impact of Employee Development on Retention -
Different reports state that one of the major reasons why employees leave their current workplaces or companies is because they do not see a career opportunity. It would be surprising to know that twice as many employees leave a company within the first 12 months when they are not given access to Learning and Development training and opportunities. So, the lack of opportunities for career growth has now become the most common reason for employees to leave their current employer.
When employees wait anxiously just for another job opportunity to come and "save" them, then the energy impacts the workplace negatively. Obviously, the engagement from that employee will be reduced over time and they will keep doing the bare minimum until they secure a better job. So, in every workplace continuous career progression and development should be a major part of employee experience, reducing retention.
Development’s Impact on Workplace Engagement -
Getting an employee engaged at their workplaces is one of the easiest things a company can do, yet most of them fail miserably. Providing your employees with development opportunities will allow you to drive engagement of your employees. When your employees get the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge related to their field of interest, they automatically become more engaged in projects, resulting in better performance and productivity.
By receiving development opportunities, employees learn to reflect and identify their strengths, the values of the company, and what motivates them to get through. It also gives the workers the final push of empowerment, allowing them to use the developed skills and knowledge in necessary fields.
Additionally, career paths along with development opportunities motivate workers to a great extent. They allow the employees to become aware of their probable growth in the organization. However, for this, you need to provide successful examples of career progressions at the workplace.
