What is Employee Development and Why it's Important | BrightHR Canada

Group of employee's participating in a workshop for employee development.

First published on Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Last updated on Friday, October 25, 2024

Employee development could be your secret weapon in gaining an edge over your competitors. After all, employees are your company’s most valuable assets, and their development can positively impact everything from productivity to customer satisfaction.

Despite the recognized benefits, many companies fall short in developing their employees. The statistics back this up, with 2 out of every 10 employees dissatisfied with the skill variety of corporate training and 20% of Gen Z workers feeling that their managers don’t understand their skill development needs.

Thankfully, you can count on us as we take an in-depth look at employee development and its significance in the workplace. Read on as we explore the concept, sharing insights to help your organization create and implement effective career development strategies.

What is employee development?

Employee development is exactly what the name implies—a means of building on the strengths and qualities of your staff members. Such a commitment is bound to have a positive effect on your company’s prospects, meaning that you aren’t left behind by the competition. Yes, it requires time, effort, and money. But the return on investment is undeniable.

Employee development is particularly relevant in the contemporary business world, where workers are expected to keep pace with emerging technologies and compete in tough job markets. From career pathing to mentorship, they can access a broad range of resources for developing hard and soft skills.

Such career development opportunities will also bring wider company benefits, with improved quality of work, employee satisfaction, and loyalty. The delivery of better products and services is bound to drive profits.

What are the goals and benefits of employee development?

One of the main aims of employee development is to support personal and professional growth. It should enhance the employees’ skills so that they can perform their duties more effectively. In turn, this should make for a greater sense of achievement and self-confidence.

It’s also likely to increase your confidence in allocating responsibilities and making promotions. For instance, employees could develop leadership skills that will be of value in managerial roles.

An employee development program could also be designed with these goals in mind:

Boosting levels of employee engagement and productivity
Helping employees adapt to changes in the workplace and wider industry
Developing skills in time and stress management for reduced pressure and greater job satisfaction
Driving better company performance and revenue

Committing to employee development will equip your staff members with a broader range of skills and knowledge. Given such opportunities, employees are more likely to feel valued and positive when making a long-term commitment to your company.

News of your positive approach to developing employees is likely to spread, making it easier to attract high quality job candidates. This will put your company in a strong position with employees who are in tune with your goals and visions.

Strategies for employee development

Once you’re ready to explore your employee development opportunities, it’s best to begin with team consultation, taking enough time to ask about your staff members’ desires and goals. Make comparisons with wider company objectives to ensure fully aligned development plans are created.

It’s also important to involve all employees, regardless of how long they’ve been employed, or which positions they hold.

Here are a few ways you can foster employee growth:

Training

Employee support could be shown through training funding, which might take the form of expert-led courses or workshops. You could also offer cross-training, with employees learning from colleagues from different departments.

Coaching

This may involve partnering an employee with a more experienced professional for task-focused training and guidance. It’s usually for a limited duration, with the coach taking a non-directive approach and empowering workers to see their way through problems.

Mentorship

This involves the guidance of a fellow professional but will have more of a relationship and growth-based focus. It’s also likely to be a longer-term strategy, with regular meetings to discuss the mentee’s performance.

How to implement an employee development program

Employee development programs aren’t always easy to implement. There may be many challenges to overcome when developing your employees.

For example, you might have difficulty determining the gap between your organization’s needs and the skills that your staff members already possess. Without such an understanding, you’ll struggle to make your initiatives focused and effective.

However, you can use self-assessment, SWOT analysis, and manager feedback to pinpoint the gaps for creating effective development initiatives.

Time and budget constraints can also be a hurdle, especially if you’re a smaller business. But that’s where a cost-effective solution like BrightLearn comes in. With 20+ courses covering everything from workplace equality to time management, it’s the learning management solution that you need to upskill your employees effectively.

You’ll avoid the costly arrangement of long and exhausting training days, instead granting your employees the chance to learn whenever and wherever is convenient.

Of course, your employees might see career development as tedious, non-essential rather than a means of achieving a better and more rewarding work life. This could manifest as a lack of engagement, with your investment potentially going to waste.

But that doesn’t have to be the case, given the potential of making learning fun with tests, quizzes and certificates. You’ll have a much better chance of achieving employee buy-in if you highlight the links between learning and future aspirations.

You can boost the chances of successful employee development program implementation by:

Creating personalized plans and learning paths based on your employee’s established skills and goals
Catering to different learning styles with training in a range of formats (e.g. online courses, workshops, and on-the-job coaching
Breaking learning opportunities up into bite-sized chunks to avoid overwhelming employees
Having senior staff members lead by example through engagement and promotion of learning
Setting incentives for the achievement of specific learning results

Evaluating the success of your employee development program

There may also be challenges in monitoring the effectiveness and communicating the value of your employee development program. However, you can cross this out by setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These should be specific, both to the progress of employees and the wider realization of company benefits. They’ll ideally be included within employee development plans and referred to for an idea of expectations.

Here are some examples of development program KPI’s:

Levels of participation
Training completion rates
Conversion and sales figures
Training return on investment
Time to proficiency
Knowledge retention rates
Employee feedback scores

Achieving learning-specific KPIs is bound to give your employees more confidence and motivation. It’s also worth arranging regular performance reviews to identify where your employees have excelled and where they could do better.

Give constructive feedback, highlight the positive aspects of performance, and give recommendations on achieving better results in the future. This feedback should link with the continuous improvement and refinement of employee development strategies.

Leveraging BrightHR software for your employee development

By adopting the recommendations in this comprehensive guide, you can achieve a range of significant benefits. Employees and your wider business will likely experience improved performance, better preparation for leadership roles, and greater adaptability to industry changes.

Of course, there are hurdles to overcome if you’re to see desirable company and employee growth. However, you can boost your chances of success with the right HR software. And that’s where BrightHR comes in.

Adopting our all-in-one platform will assure you of 24/7 advice, with our HR experts just a call away. Plus, you’ll get access to a tailored range of training materials, resources, and courses with our learning mangement system (LMS) BrightLearn.

Check out the other benefits of our built-in LMS: