1 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development

2 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development Employee development i.e. spending on the training needs of employees so as to bring benefits both to the organisation and to the employees is still typically seen as a cost (e.g. there may be a staff development budget which is cash limited) Therefore development is not seen as the investment that it is

3 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development A definition of employee development might be: ‘part of HRM that involves the planning and management of people’s learning – including ways to help them manage their own – with the aim of making learning processes more effective, increasingly efficient, properly directed and therefore useful’ Reid and Barrington(1999): Training Interventions: Managing Employee Development, London, IPD

4 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development Talking point…  You are manager of a group of 5-6 recent Graduates in a market research agency. You have a training budget of £3,000 each year. One of the ‘bright young graduates’ asks for help with tuition fees for a MBA that would cost approximately £2,500 per year for each of two years. How do you resolve the problem ?

5 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development Learning Styles Kolb (1974) argues that four stages influence learning: experience observation and reflection theorising and conceptualisation testing and experimentation

6 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development Honey and Munford (1986) defined four major categories of learning styles: activist reflector theorist pragmatist Which correspond to the four stages of ~ concrete experience ~ observation and reflection, ~ formation of abstract concepts ~ testing implications of concepts in new situations

7 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development What features are detrimental to the development of workers in a workforce ? 1.Belief that employees can add nothing to decision making 2.Belief that in order to change an individual’s performance they have to be ‘topped up’ with new skills/knowledge like an ‘empty bottle’ 3.Expectation that mangers are only responsible for tangible issues such as achieving volume/quality 4.‘Partnership’ only thought to apply to a customer and its supplier, not the rest of the organisation

8 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development Themes for effective career self-management: 1. Focus on life rather than occupation 2. Career as a her-and-now issue (a major task is coping with change and re- interpreting past experiences to be relevant) 3. Emphasis upon choice as well as planning (how much freedom does have an individual have to align personal/departmental goals) 4. Emphasis on learning process rather than outcomes (Learning how to learn)

9 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development Appraisal + view : ~ helps to reward and motivate individuals ~ aligns organisational and individual goals -view : ~ seen as an annual ‘ritual’ ~ In the case of Performance Related Pay may be counterproductive ~ Introduces ‘hierarchies’ into teams

10 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development SMART system of objectives agreed between manager and employee: 1.Specific ( or Stretching) objectives 2.Measurable 3.Agreed/Achievable 4.Realistic 5.Time-bounded

11 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development Key features of appraisal: (a)Emphasis upon performance improvement (b)Forward looking and not backward looking (c)Adequate preparation on both sides

12 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development The Interview: Appraisee does most of the talking, so that it becomes self-appraisal Keep the whole year under review No surprises to be launched Sensitivity to other’s concerns Test understanding

13 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development 360-degree feedback Another approach to performance review is designed to give a complete multi-rater assessment from: - managers - those in the team - Colleagues - project workers etc.