Responsibility for Employee Development

Responsibility for employee development lies on the shoulders of both supervisor and employee:

Supervisor

The supervisor has several roles to play, but providing information and support to facilitate the employee’s development is most important. There are a few basic roles for a supervisor in developing employees.

They are as follows:

1. Coaching employees to help them to determine what they need for development.
2. Providing both positive and corrective feedback.
3. Offering organisational insight, information, and advice.
4. Guiding the planning through goal-setting and checking back over time.
5. Allotting time and money for development experiences.
6. Ensuring opportunities for applications of new learning.

It is very helpful for an employee to get an honest assessment of their work and access to others who may be able to provide information or coach with the employee.

The successful supervisor will also respect every employee’s learning curve. It takes time for anyone to learn new skills and be able to apply them well; this does not happen overnight.

Building this development time into the application of a new skill set will make the employee more successful.

Employee

Some things that the employee should consider in their development include seeking various assignments, tackling tough problems and asking for feedback.

Coaching is another helpful activity in looking for opportunities to coach others and finding good coaches for them.

It can help to ask for feedback when working with various people and in various situations. Employees should be looking for developmental relationships that can provide a variety of learning.

They can also identify new skills and abilities goals and then look for ways to meet those goals. It can also be helpful to attend classes and workshops to fill in conceptual needs.

While employee development is critical to the success of an organisation., both the employee and the organisation must recognise that most of the responsibility for development falls to the employee.

Some tilings the employee should have and consider when beginning work towards development are as follows:

1. Specific goals; identify goals for new skills and look for ways to meet those goals;
2. Energy to make the development possible;
3. A variety of work assignments;
4. Asking for feedback;
5. Opportunities to coach others and find good coaches for him or herself; and
6. Developmental relationships provide a variety of learning.