1 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development

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BS3916 Thinking about Management

8: Employee Development

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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

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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

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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 ?

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Learning Styles

Kolb (1974) argues that four stages influence learning:• experience• observation and reflection• theorising and conceptualisation• testing and experimentation

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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

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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

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Themes for effective career self-management:

1. Focus on life rather than occupation2. 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)

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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

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SMART system of objectives agreed between manager and employee:

1. Specific ( or Stretching) objectives2. Measurable3. Agreed/Achievable4. Realistic5. Time-bounded

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Key features of appraisal:

(a) Emphasis upon performance improvement

(b) Forward looking and not backward looking

(c) Adequate preparation on both sides

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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

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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.

Documents

1 BS3916 Thinking about Management 8: Employee Development