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April 19, 2010

Develop or die

Personal development is a necessity in life. We need to feel we are growing as individuals to maintain our sense of self and to ensure continued health and well-being. To do this we must set goals, whether small or large, and then feel we are on the path to achieving them.

Considering we spend an average of 34.5 hours per week in the workplace in Australia - that's approximately 44 per cent of our waking day not including travel to and from work - we need to make the most of those hours to feel fulfilled as individuals. If we don't feel fulfilled we can become disgruntled. This inevitably leads to us either digging in our heels in our current position and infecting colleagues with our misery and complaints, or looking elsewhere to greener pastures.

From the organisational perspective the picture is much the same. If we don't provide opportunity for our people to grow and stretch their own talents and skills, create room for fresh talent and follow a good succession plan, we become stale and lacklustre - production slows and organisational rot can set in.

Neither of these scenarios is anywhere close to a picture any of us want for either ourselves or our organisation. However, we all know people who are unhappy in their work, so this is still clearly a common issue for many organisations.

So what are we doing about it?

It's our job as organisational leaders to foster an environment where employees feel they have the opportunity to grow. Given that opportunity, and time, those same individuals mumbling their disgruntlements next to the coffee machine will likely rise to the challenge and make positive and lasting contributions to the workplace.

Developing a framework for career development is a critical component of a dynamic workplace as it provides the platform for individuals to create their own goals. This is where they will see the opportunities ahead, and provided with some assistance, will be able to take on the responsibility for reaching them.

So how do we support that development?

Career development frameworks come in many and varied forms, but the principle is simple - shared responsibility.

First we need to focus on the skills and knowledge of the individual to determine their potential future. Slavenski and Buckner (1988) called this the 'staffing and orientation' phase. This is where we determine a possible career path based on the individual's skills, knowledge and qualifications etc.

Second, we need to focus on assessing and evaluating performance. There are many methods for doing this, which we can’t cover in detail here. However, a good rule of thumb is to make sure whatever methods you use follow a key principle of career development by always involving the employee. Don't simply tell them how their performance is rating, ensure they are given plenty of opportunity to contribute.

An excellent tool for assessing performance in this way is 360-degree feedback. This tool engages the manager, employee and their colleagues to produce a comprehensive ‘all-angles’ picture of performance.

Open discussion is also a common method used by organisations to discuss career options with their employees. However, as this should involve supervisors and managers as well as HR professionals, make sure your supervisors and managers understand how this works as there is little point to them if there is no follow-up or observable purpose for the employee.

Other great methods that have been proven highly effective include running career development workshops or establishing on-site career development centres.

Career development centres in particular have been shown to have highly positive effects on employees. Even a few books about personal or career development are seen as a sure sign organisations are encouraging employees to look to the future and seek out new challenges.

So take a look at the current methods you are using within your organisation and ask yourself the following questions:

  • Are our current tools supporting the principle of shared responsibility between employer and employee?
  • Could we be doing anything differently/better?
  • What other methods could help us achieve a better outcome?


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