Chapter 9

Employee Development
McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright 2010 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Development - formal education, job
experiences, relationships, and
assessments of personality and abilities
that help employees perform effectively
in their current or future job and
company.

9-2

Table 9.1 - Comparison Between

Training and Development

9-3

Introduction (cont.)
Why is employee development important?
To improve quality.
To meet the challenges of global competition
and social change.
To incorporate technological advances and
changes in work design.

9-4

Introduction (cont.)
Development activities can help
companies reduce turnover by:
showing employees that the company is
investing in the employees skill development.
developing managers who can create a
positive work environment that makes
employees want to come to work and
contribute to the company goals.

9-5

Approaches to Employee
Development
Formal education programs include:
off-site and on-site programs designed
specifically for the companys employees.
short courses offered by consultants or
universities, executive MBA programs, and
university programs.

Tuition reimbursement - the practice of

reimbursing employees costs for college
and university courses and degree
programs.
9-6

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Assessment
Collecting information and providing feedback
to employees about their behavior,
communication style, values, or skills.
Used most frequently to identify employees
with managerial potential, and measure
current managers strengths and weaknesses.
Companies vary in the methods and sources
of information they use in developmental
assessment.
9-7

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Most popular psychological test for employee
development.
Identifies individuals preferences for energy,
information gathering, decision making, and
lifestyle.
It is a valuable tool for understanding
communication styles and the ways people
prefer to interact with others.
9-8

Table 9.4 - Personality Types Used in the

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment

9-9

Table 9.4 - Personality Types Used in the

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment

9-10

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Assessment center - multiple raters or
evaluators evaluate employees
performance on a number of exercises.
It is used to identify:
if employees have the abilities, personality, and
behaviors for management jobs.
if employees have the necessary skills to work in
teams.

Types of exercises used include leaderless

group discussions, interviews, in-baskets, and
role plays.
9-11

Table 9.5 - Examples of Skills Measured

by Assessment Center Exercises

9-12

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Benchmarks - instrument designed to
measure important factors in being a
successful manager.
Items that are measured include dealing with
subordinates, acquiring resources, and
creating a productive work climate.

9-13

Table 9.6 - Skills Related to

Managerial Success

9-14

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Performance appraisal - process of
measuring employees performance.
Different approaches for measuring
performance:
Ranking employees.
Rating their work behaviors.
Rating the extent to which employees have
desirable traits believed to be necessary for job
success.

9-15

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
The appraisal system must give employees
specific information about their performance
problems and ways they can improve their
performance.
Managers must be trained in providing
performance feedback.

Upward feedback - involves collecting

subordinates evaluations of managers
behaviors or skills.
9-16

Figure 9.1 - 360-Degree

Feedback System

9-17

Table 9.8 - Development- Planning

Activities from 360-Degree Feedback

9-18

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Factors necessary for a 360-degree
feedback system to be effective:
The system must provide consistent or
reliable ratings.
Feedback must be job-related (valid).
The system must be easy to use,
understandable, and relevant.
The system must lead to managerial
development.
9-19

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Job Experiences - relationships,
problems, demands, tasks, or other
features that employees face in their
jobs.
A major assumption is that development is
most likely to occur when there is a mismatch
between the employees skills and past
experiences and the skills required for the job.

9-20

Table 9.9 - Job Demands and the

Lessons Employees Learn from Them

9-21

Table 9.9 - Job Demands and the

Lessons Employees Learn From Them

9-22

Figure 9.2 - How Job Experiences are

Used for Employee Development

9-23

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Job enlargement - adding challenges or
new responsibilities to an employees
current job.
Job rotation - providing employees with
a series of job assignments in various
functional areas of the company or
movement among jobs in a single
functional area or department.
9-24

Table 9.10 - Characteristics of

Effective Job Rotation Systems

9-25

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Transfer - an employee is given a
different job assignment in a different
area of the company.
Promotions - advancements into
positions with greater challenges, more
responsibility, and more authority than in
the previous job.
Downward move - occurs when an
employee is given a reduced level of
responsibility and authority.
9-26

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Externships - employees take full-time,
temporary operational roles at another
company.
Employee exchange is one example of
temporary assignments in which two
companies agree to exchange employees.

9-27

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Volunteer assignments offer employees
opportunities to manage change, to
teach, to take on a higher level of
responsibility, or to be exposed to other
job demands.
Interpersonal relationships
Mentor - experienced, productive senior
employee who helps develop a less
experienced employee (the protg).
Mentors provide career support and
psychosocial support to the protg.

9-28

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Provide opportunities for mentors to:
Develop interpersonal skills, increase feelings of
self-esteem and worth to the organization, and gain
knowledge about important new scientific
developments.

9-29

Table 9.11 - Characteristics of

Successful Formal Mentoring Programs

9-30

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Interpersonal relationships
Purposes of Mentoring Programs
To socialize new employees and to increase the
likelihood of skill transfer from training to the work
setting.
To enable women and minorities to gain the
experience and skills needed for managerial
positions.
To develop managers for top-level management
positions or to help them acquire specific skills.

Group mentoring programs - successful

senior employee is paired with four to six less
experienced protgs.
9-31

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Interpersonal relationships
Coach - a peer or manager who works with
employees to motivate them, help them
develop skills, and provide reinforcement and
feedback.
The best coaches are empathetic, supportive,
practical, and self-confident but do not appear to
know all the answers or want to tell others what to
do.

9-32

Approaches to Employee
Development (cont.)
Interpersonal relationships
Three roles that a coach can play:
One-on-one with an employee, providing feedback
based on psychological tests, 360-degree
assessment, or interviews with bosses, peers, and
subordinates.
Help employees learn for themselves by putting
them in touch with experts who can help them with
their concerns and by teaching them how to obtain
feedback from others.
Provide the employee with resources such as
mentors, courses, or job experiences that the
employee may not otherwise have access to.
9-33

The Development Planning

Process
It involves:
identifying development needs.
choosing a development goal.
identifying the actions that need to be taken
by the employee and the company to achieve
the goal.
determining how progress toward goal
attainment will be measured.
investing time and energy to achieve the goal.
establishing a timetable for development.
9-34

Table 9.12 - Responsibilities in the

Development Planning Process

9-35

Company Strategies for Providing

Development
The most effective development
strategies involve individualization,
learner control, and ongoing support.

9-36