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 Creating the Right Development Experiences

Executing business strategies requires having the right people doing the right things in the right way. Maintaining business exe- cution over time requires developing employees to meet changing business demands. This chapter discusses concepts associated with employee development. Emphasis is placed on integrating develop- ment methods to maximize business impact and addressing process design and organizational issues that often limit the effectiveness of development methods.

The term development refers to processes designed to build the capabilities of employees and leaders within the organization. It is a result of giving people experiences that enable them to acquire new skills, knowledge, and insights. It also involves providing tools that help people maximize the learning obtained from these experiences, as well as putting people in roles that expose them to novel tasks and environments, establishing relationships that support learning and development, and providing training and development resources to acquire job-relevant knowledge, skills, and capabilities. Development is also about trans- fer of training to help people use skills acquired in one setting to address busi- ness challenges encountered in a different setting.

Development is arguably the most complicated area of strategic HR. First, there are many ways to influence learning. Designing effective development

S E V E N c h a p t e r

Hunt, Steven T.. <i>Common Sense Talent Management : Fundamental Methods for Increasing Workforce Productivity</i>, Center for Creative Leadership, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=827115. Created from ashford-ebooks on 2019-11-13 21:52:32.

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Commonsense Talent Management250

programs requires coordinating multiple talent activities toward a common goal. Second, development requires changing who employees are in terms of their skills, knowledge, and self-insights. Most strategic HR processes use com- munication and motivation to influence employee behavior. In contrast, most development methods are used to change the employee attributes that underlie different job behaviors (see figure 7.1). Changing people’s underlying capabilities by giving them new experiences, awareness, and knowledge tends to be far more difficult than changing their behaviors through giving them direction, rewards, and feedback. It can be likened to the difference between asking someone to read a document versus actually teaching this person how to read.

This chapter discusses several methods of development and emphasizes the importance of integrating them into a single development program. Section 7.1 describes the four basic components of a development process. Section 7.2 pro- vides an overview of six major development methods. Section 7.3 discusses the value of building integrated development programs and suggests ways to do this. One of the reasons many development programs struggle is that they focus too much on individual development methods by themselves and not enough on using multiple methods in a coordinated fashion (see the discussion: “The 360 Survey Fad: A Lesson in Misguided Development”). Section 7.4 reviews seven critical questions for designing and implementing integrated development pro- grams. Section 7.5 describes five levels of development process maturity and dis- cusses methods for achieving each level.

Figure 7.1 How Development Works

• Succession Management • Career Planning • Social Learning • Assessment Measures • Training Management • Transition Management

• Knowledge and Skills • Aptitudes and Abilities • Motives and Interests

Development Methods: Using roles, relationships and resources

Learning Objectives: To change employee attributes

Development Requirements: So employees can fulfill job demands

• Job Qualifications • Competencies and Behaviors • Goals and Accomplishments

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Creating the Right Development Experiences 251

T H E 3 6 0 S U R V E Y F A D : A L E S S O N I N M I S G U I D E D D E V E L O P M E N T

Companies often implement development methods like training, 360 sur-

veys, or succession management without fully defining how these methods

will affect business needs or integrate with other strategic HR processes.

What often happens in these situations is that a good development

method fails because it is not targeting learning objectives that really mat-

ter for the company’s strategy. The 360 survey fad that began in the late

1990s is an excellent example of this happening on a widespread basis.

These surveys are assessment measures that ask an employee’s man-

ager, peers, and direct reports to provide ratings on the employee’s

strengths and weaknesses. These surveys are used to provide employees

with in-depth feedback to guide self-development. They were considered

something of a major innovation when they were developed, and many

HR departments and their consulting partners touted them as a key tool

for developing employee performance. In a relatively short amount of

time, 360 surveys were being used across a wide range of companies.

Problems started to emerge as more and more companies rushed to take

advantage of these surveys. Although they can be an effective develop-

ment method in some situations, they do not work equally well all the time.

And several studies were published showing that they can actually decrease

performance if they are deployed in the wrong setting or using the wrong

process.a This awakened people to the fact that 360 surveys were not the

developmental silver bullet that many had hoped they would be.

The lesson to be learned from the 360 survey fad is that no develop-

ment method is effective all the time. These surveys can be very effec-

tive in some settings but not in others.

It is costly and potentially detrimental to implement development

methods that are not well aligned with the company’s business needs.

Development strategies should never start with the question, “How can

we use this development method?” They should start with this question

instead: “What are our business needs, and what learning objectives

do we need to achieve to address them?” Only after this is answered

should companies begin to consider what development methods to use.

aToegel, G., & Conger, J. A. (2003). 360 degree assessment: Time for reinvention. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2, 297–311.

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Commonsense Talent Management252

7.1 THE BASIC COMPONENTS OF A DEVELOPMENT PROCESS The discussion in this chapter is built around understanding four basic compo- nents of development and how they interrelate: talent requirements, learning objectives, development methods, and development programs.

• Talent requirements: The term talent requirements is used to describe things employees in the workforce must be able to do in the future that they may not be able to do now. Most business strategies require employees to do things in the future that they have not done in the past such as performing current tasks more effectively and building qualifications to take on new roles and respon- sibilities. The purpose of development is ultimately to address talent require- ments. Talent requirements can be tied to specific operational needs like “train sales employees so they can demo the new mobile product application,” or they can reflect more general workforce capabilities like “maintain a steady supply of internal talent available to staff all of our global leadership positions.”

• Learning objectives: Learning objectives describe the attributes employ- ees must develop to meet talent requirements. They define specific types of knowledge, skills, aptitudes, abilities, motives, and interests that influence employee performance now and in the future. Development is used to help employees achieve learning objectives that support the company’s talent requirements. Like talent requirements, learning objectives can be specific or more general—for example, “ensure employees know how to install the mobile product application onto their smart phones” or “educate leaders on methods for managing a virtual workforce.” Learning objectives define what capabilities employees need to develop. Talent requirements define why they need these capabilities.

• Development methods. Development methods are used to achieve learning objectives. There are six primary categories of development methods: suc- cession management, career planning, training resources, social learning, assessment measures, and transition management (see table 7.1). All develop- ment methods use a combination of three basic techniques to build employee capabilities: giving people roles that expose them to learning experiences, creating relationships that help employees learn from others, and providing resources that support the learning of new skills, knowledge acquisition, and self-insights.

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Creating the Right Development Experiences 253

(Continued )

Method Purpose and Characteristics

Primary Talent Requirements Addressed

Succession management

To identify and develop talent to fill key posi- tions in an organization. Includes nine box talent reviews, job rotation programs, high-poten- tial identification, and leadership development programs.*

Helps ensure a steady supply of high-performing talent in critical roles

Engage, retain, and use high-potential employees

Career planning To help employees build their capabilities and achieve their career goals. Includes career devel- opment plans, career paths, and career interest inventories.

Engage, retain, and develop employees who are seeking to build a career

Training resources To provide employees with specific knowl- edge, training, and skills needed to perform their current roles or prepare for future roles. Includes online and classroom training.

Provides employees with access to knowledge needed to perform current roles or move into future roles

Social learning To provide employees with guidance on how to advance their careers and build relationships to increase engagement and knowledge sharing. Includes formal and infor- mal career coaches, men- tors, and online learning communities.

Provides employees with knowledge and relation- ships that help them advance their career

Emphasis on learning through relationships, which increases employee retention

Table 7.1 Common Development Methods

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Method Purpose and Characteristics

Primary Talent Requirements Addressed

Assessment measures

To provide employees with insight into per- formance strengths and development oppor- tunities. Includes 360 surveys and psychometric measures of work style, personality, and motives.

Increases employees’ self- awareness and under- standing of strengths and limitations

Focuses development energy on things that mat- ter the most

Transition management

To help employees adapt and rapidly reach full pro- ductivity in new positions. Focuses on technical training as well as meth- ods to socialize people into new companies or groups.

Helps employees to reach full productivity in new roles while decreasing the risk of turnover in new staff

*Nine box talent reviews are a method commonly used in succession management to evaluate employ- ees based on their performance and potential. A nine box is a three-by-three grid where one axis is used to categorize employees according to three levels of performance and the other axis is used to categorize employees based on three levels of potential.

• Development programs. A development program is a process for leveraging one or more development methods in combination with other talent man- agement activities to achieve learning objectives that address a specific set of talent requirements. Companies typically implement development meth- ods in combination with other activities to form integrated development programs.

An example illustrates how these four components come together to create an integrated development process. When a utility company realized that over 25 percent of its skilled power line workers were eligible for retirement, it iden- tified a “talent requirement” to hire and develop internal talent to fill these roles within the next five years. To fill these roles, employees had to achieve the learning objectives of mastering technical skills needed to work the lines, as well as gain

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Creating the Right Development Experiences 255

experience working on the line in specific types of challenging environments (e.g., during storms or large-scale power outages). The company designed a develop- ment program that integrated four development methods: succession manage- ment to identify high-potential employees and determine who could move into specific roles over the next three to five years, career planning to help high-poten- tial employees map out the actions and experiences they needed to be qualified for more specialized jobs working on the line, training resources to teach special- ized technical skills to high-potential employees so they could perform critical job tasks, and social learning to build mentoring relationships between high-potential employees and highly experienced employees currently working on the line.

Before you can create an effective development program, you need to clearly define the talent requirements the program will address, determine the learning objectives the program must support to meet those requirements, and identify what development methods make the most sense given the program’s learning objectives. Too often companies start with looking at development methods first and then try to show how these methods address talent requirements. This is akin to picking a solution first and then trying to find a problem that matches it. Remember that many business leaders don’t care a lot about development meth- ods, but all business leaders care about addressing talent requirements that have a direct impact on business performance. Start where their interest lies.

7.2 THE SIX PRIMARY DEVELOPMENT METHODS Table 7.1 summarizes the six methods commonly used to support employee development: succession management, career planning, training resources, social learning, assessment measures, and transition management. The names used for these categories highlight what is unique about each method in terms of its focus and design.1

Succession management methods are used to ensure a steady supply of quali- fied talent for critical job roles. Historically succession management focused on figuring out who would replace top executives. Organizations now use succes- sion management for roles across the company, including key individual con- tributor positions. Succession management in some companies extends all the way to frontline employees. Many tools have been created specifically to sup- port succession management (e.g., nine box talent reviews), but much of succes- sion management is actually about coordinating other talent processes such as

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workforce planning, staffing, and career planning to forecast, identify, develop, and place talent in critical positions.

Career planning methods help employees define strategies to achieve their career goals. Career planning focuses on acquiring skills and building compe- tencies to take on new roles and responsibilities and improve effectiveness in current roles. Career planning can be thought of as the flip side of succession management. Succession management takes a top-down organization-based approach to ensure a supply of talent for future business demands. In contrast, career planning uses a bottom-up employee-based approach to build individual skills to meet requirements for future jobs or job assignments.

Training resources are structured classes, workshops, webinars, books, and other resources used to provide employees with specific knowledge, skills, and insights. Training resources are often deployed using learning management sys- tems (LMS), which are technology platforms that coordinate, deliver, and man- age costs associated with providing training resources to a company’s workforce. Training resources can be delivered in person, online, or through books or other materials. They are typically used to help employees more effectively perform their current jobs and achieve their future career goals. Training resources are also used to comply with regulations that ensure employees are qualified to perform specific tasks or understand key job policies. Training resources tend to fall into two categories: formally developed activities created and delivered by professional instructional designers and educators, and informally developed activities built and delivered by employees themselves (e.g., employee-created training videos).

Social learning methods create personal relationships that support employee development. These methods emphasize development through social interac- tion. Social learning methods tend to fall into two categories: methods focused on creating one-to-one development, such as mentoring and coaching relation- ships, and methods focused on creating learning communities such as online groups where employees with common development goals can share questions, ideas, and suggestions.

Assessment measures are structured tools used to evaluate employee attributes and increase awareness of performance strengths, developmental opportunities, and underlying work tendencies and motives. They tend to fall into three categories:

• 360 surveys, where an employee’s coworkers respond to structured questions about the employee’s behavior and developmental needs

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Creating the Right Development Experiences 257

• Personality questionnaires, simulation exercises, and other structured tools that measure underlying work style, decision-making abilities, and career interests

• Tests where employees must answer questions or perform tasks that demon- strate proficiency with regard to specific knowledge and skills

Transition management methods focus on helping employees assimilate to new jobs and work environments. The methods tend to fall into two cat- egories: onboarding programs that help newly hired employees adjust to their roles within the organization and role transition programs to support internal job transfers within a company, such as moving from an individual contributor to a managerial position. Most transition management methods focus on pro- viding administrative information that people need to perform their jobs (e.g., instructions on how to fill out expense reports), training on job-relevant skills (e.g., product training for new salespeople), and socialization activities designed to help people adjust to the company and culture (e.g., establishing “new hire buddies” who help new employees adjust to the organization).

Companies often treat these methods as individual activities rather than differ- ent parts of a single development program. Similarly, many HR professionals will specialize in one or two of these methods without recognizing how the methods they support can and should integrate with other methods. The result is that com- panies often fail to realize the value that comes from approaching all six methods as parts of a single integrated process for developing workforce capabilities.

7.3 APPROACHING DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS FROM AN INTEGRATED PERSPECTIVE Creating an integrated development program requires aligning different devel- opment methods so they support one another in a coherent fashion. For exam- ple, succession management methods often use assessment measures to identify leadership potential, training resources to develop leadership skills, and social learning to establish high-potential mentorships and learning communities. It makes sense to think of succession management, assessment measures, training resources, and social learning as all being components of a single development program. Yet companies do not always think of development this way.

One of the reasons for poorly integrated development programs is a ten- dency for companies to treat the six methods listed in table 7.1 as separate

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Commonsense Talent Management258

programs managed by separate groups. For example, training resources, suc- cession management, and career planning are often administered by different groups within a company. The problem becomes worse when each group uses its own set of tools and technology without planning how to share data and information with the others. Different development groups may even compete against one another for resources rather than collaborating to build integrated development programs. It sometimes feels as if the only things integrating dif- ferent development methods in these companies are the employees who have to use them.

One can argue that companies need separate departments for these meth- ods since each one requires attending to a variety of unique details and logis- tics. This may be true, but these methods are still fundamentally tied together by a common focus on building employee capabilities. They work best when they are coordinated with each other. The best way to create integrated development programs is to treat all development methods as aspects of the same overall function. People charged with designing and supporting different development methods should be encouraged to work together, leverage common technologies and models, and create direct links between each other’s processes.

It is also common for the six development methods described in table 7.1 to be deployed as separate activities rather than presenting them as integrated programs. Organizations frequently emphasize going live with individual devel- opment methods in as a short a time as possible rather than taking time to coor- dinate multiple development methods into a single program. Implementing development methods in isolation can be easier than deploying an integrated development program. Although there is value in getting development meth- ods up and running quickly, failure to tie development methods together can result in a poor use of resources. Even worse, it can lead to abandoning develop- ment methods because they cannot be sustained as isolated activities. The his- tory of human resources is littered with defunct development methods that were launched with great fanfare, only to be dropped because they were never effec- tively linked into the broader talent management strategy.

Understanding common threads and interdependencies across development methods allows companies to leverage development resources for multiple pur- poses and avoid duplication of effort. Creating integrated development programs also allows managers and employees to experience development as a coherent

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Creating the Right Development Experiences 259

sequence of steps rather than a disjointed series of events. It also decreases the risk of creating development methods that conflict with one another, such as encouraging employees to pursue career plans that do not align with the com- pany’s succession management needs.

Adopting the following perspectives helps to ensure that development pro- grams are designed with integration in mind:

• All development methods should leverage other development methods.

• All development is based on roles, relationships, and resources, and the most effective development programs use methods cutting across these three areas.

• Development is most effective when it is integrated into ongoing business operations.

7.3.1 All Development Methods Should Leverage Other Development Methods Figure 7.2 illustrates some ways the six primary development methods inter- relate. Every development method provides information or tools that can be used to support each of the other five methods. For example, succession man- agement influences the kinds of career planning that should be encouraged among employees. Employees’ career plans affect the types of training resources and social learning the company will want to support. A company’s training resources and social learning methods will influence how it designs and uses assessment measures. No development method should be approached in isola- tion. How you design and use one method should influence and be influenced by how you use the other methods.

In addition, do not assume that one type of development method is inher- ently more valuable or important than another. The method that is most impor- tant depends on the circumstance. A company may allocate more money to support training resources than to support succession management, but that does not mean training is always more critical to business success than succes- sion. The value of development methods depends on the talent requirements facing the organization.

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260

Figure 7.2 Relationships between Developmental Methods

Integration points 1. What jobs do we want employees to prepare for? 2. Who can help employees develop their careers? 3. What developmental insights will support more effective coaching? 4. What training will help employees address developmental needs? 5. What training do people need to transition to new roles? 6. How can we help leaders move into new positions? 7. What training will build the talent we need for future jobs? 8. What competencies do we need to assess and build in future leaders? 9. What coaching and mentoring will help develop future leaders? 10. What are the career paths for new employees? 11. What training will help employees get to the next level in their jobs? 12. What insights will help employees improve their performance? 13. What relationships will help new employees succeed? 14. How can we augment coaching with formal learning, and vice versa? 15. What things do employees need to be aware of as they move into new roles?

Succession Management

Transtion Management

Training Resources

Assessment Measures

Social Learning

Career Planning

3 4

6 7 8 9

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Creating the Right Development Experiences 261

7.3.2 All Development Methods Use Roles, Relationships, and Resources to Achieve Learning Objectives There are three ways companies can help employees achieve learning objectives:

• Roles: Give employees job tasks or goals that allow them to acquire new capa- bilities by learning from experience.

• Relationships: Build relationships between employees and people that support development, such as coaches, mentors, observers, or supportive colleagues.

• Resources: Provide employees access to training, assessment measures, and other resources that enable them to acquire new skills, knowledge, and devel- opmental insights.

Roles involve giving employees jobs and work assignments that expose them to certain environments, tasks, people, tools, or technology—in other words, asking people to do things they have not done before that enable them to learn from expe- rience. This is arguably the most powerful form of employee development.2 If you want someone to develop a competency, then give that person a job assignment that requires him or her to build this competency to succeed. This doesn’t necessarily mean throwing people in the deep end and seeing if they can swim, although such an extreme approach to development can be effective in some situations. It does mean recognizing that the strongest development comes from hands-on experience.

Relationships help employees establish connections with people who can sup- port their development by providing constructive feedback, offering guidance and instruction, and giving moral support and encouragement. Development relationships can be with anyone in a position to teach employees new skills, help them learn from job experiences, or succeed when they face developmental challenges. Development relationships may come in the form of formal mentor- ing programs, work interactions between an employee and his or her manager or coworkers, and online collaborative learning communities where employees share knowledge and developmental support with other people with similar career challenges or aspirations.

Resources are tangible tools that help employees acquire new skills, knowledge, and developmental insights. Training is the most common development resource, whether it is in the form of classroom instruction, online courses, or written mate- rials. Another widely used set of resources is represented by 360 surveys and devel- opment assessments. Companies are also increasingly providing development

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Commonsense Talent Management262

resources in the form of social learning videos and online instructional tools cre- ated by coworkers to share job-relevant knowledge and information.

Table 7.2 shows how the six major development methods use roles, relation- ships, and resources. Succession management and career planning are largely about determining what job assignments will best support a person’s ongoing development. Training resources provide employees with courses, books, and other materials that help them acquire knowledge and skills to perform their current jobs and develop capabilities for future roles. Assessment measures are a specialized type of development resource. Social learning methods are all about relationships. Transition management methods use a combination of roles, rela- tionships, and resources to help people move into new positions.

Table 7.2 Mapping Roles, Relationships, and Resources to

Six Common Development Methods*

Roles: Giving People Job Assignments That Enable Learning from Experience

Relationships: Helping People Learn from Others

Resources: Providing Tools and Information to Increase Knowledge and Self-Insight

Succession management

✓✓✓ ✓ ✓✓

Career planning ✓✓ ✓✓ ✓✓

Training resources ✓✓✓

Social learning ✓ ✓✓✓ ✓

Assessment measures

✓ ✓✓✓

Transition management

✓ ✓✓ ✓✓

*The check marks indicate the emphasis different development methods place on the use of roles, relationships, and resources, for example, social learning methods rely heavily on establishing men- toring and coaching relationships that support employee development and typically rely less on the use of structured tools to support learning.

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Development methods that emphasize roles usually have the biggest impact on employee development. This is because employees tend to learn the most from on-the-job experience. But role-based development methods like suc- cession management and career planning work best when they incorporate relationship-based and resource-based development methods such as train- ing, assessment measures, and social learning. Integrating role-based, resource- based, and relationship-based development methods maximizes people’s ability to learn from job experience. For example, if you want to develop an employee’s managerial skills, the best results are likely to come from giving that person a task that requires him or her to manage others (e.g., leading a team project). But if you want to maximize the learning value of this assignment, also provide him or her with training resources on how to manage others and help them establish relationships with experienced managers who can coach them in their new role.

When creating a development program, try to draw broadly across different types of development methods. Think about development in terms of the roles, relation- ships, and resources that will provide the most developmental value given your talent requirements. Figure this out first, and then determine how to combine succession management, career planning, training resources, social learning, assessment mea- sures, and transition management to address key learning objectives. Do not limit yourself to one method just because it happens to be readily available. For example, many companies overly rely on resource-based development methods like training because they are relatively easy to obtain—even though role-based and relationship- based methods are often much more effective. Challenge the organization to leverage the methods that make the most sense given its particular talent requirements.

7.3.3 Development Is Most Effective When It Is Built Directly into Business Operations Every business leader will say that development is important. Yet managers com- monly complain about having to attend a development program or engage in a development exercise instead of being allowed to focus on running the business. Similarly, employees often approach development activities as something they do instead of actual work. This is a result of people failing to see the connection between development programs and talent requirements (see the discussion: “Why Development Has No Inherent Business Value and What to Do about It”). The way to address this challenge is to ensure that development activities are integrated into work itself rather than being treated as stand-alone activities.

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W H Y D E V E L O P M E N T H A S N O I N H E R E N T B U S I N E S S V A L U E A N D W H A T T O D O A B O U T I T

Employee development has no inherent business value. Development

becomes valuable only when it leads to addressing talent requirements

that are important to business operations. Furthermore, most devel-

opment activities are two or more steps removed from actual busi-

ness results. Consider the example of training. The immediate result of

employee training is increased employee knowledge and skills. But this

training does not have an impact on business results until employees

use their newly acquired knowledge and skills to solve business chal-

lenges. The business value of training depends on whether employees

have opportunities and motivation to apply the knowledge gained

through training to address business objectives.

Because most development methods do not directly affect business

results, it is important to demonstrate how development methods will

support learning objectives that are critical to talent requirements.

Business leaders should never wonder, “How does this development

method help me achieve my department’s business objectives?” The

link should be obvious. If leaders do not see clearly how development

methods and talent requirements help business operations, they will

resist using or funding these methods.

Linking development methods to talent requirements in order to

affect business outcomes may seem like an obvious action, yet many

development departments struggle to do this effectively. This may be

due in part to a tendency of HR professionals to assume that “devel-

opment is its own reward.” However, many business leaders do not

actually care strongly about employee development; they care only

about the business results it creates. HR people tend to talk about how

development methods make employees smarter (more skilled, more

self-aware) without realizing that business leaders don’t want smart

employees. They want effective employees. There are certainly jobs

where employees have to be smart in order to be effective, but being

smart is not the same as being effective.

Development methods are often sold to business leaders based on

what they will enable employees to do. But a better approach may be

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Creating the Right Development Experiences 265

to talk about what will happen to the company if it does not provide

development to its employees. Leaders should understand how the

organization will be affected if a development program is discontinued.

What will people fail to do in the future unless they are developed? How

will business results be affected if the company chooses not to develop

people? If you cannot answer these questions clearly, then do not be sur-

prised when your development program is suddenly discontinued.

Development should not be something managers and employees do in addi- tion to their regular jobs. It should be part of their regular jobs. Development processes should be closely integrated with processes used to support ongoing business operations.3 Development activities should have an immediate and clear link to people’s business objectives or personal career goals. Following are a few examples of what this looks like in practice:

• A consulting company wanted to increase the number of employees who were qualified to support a new technology. To build these skills, it gave peo- ple job assignments that required using this technology. Then the company gave people training on the technology just before the assignments started.

• A manufacturing company wanted to build leaders with greater levels of cross- functional experience. It asked leaders to set learning objectives on their career plans that were related to cross-functional experience. Progress toward these objectives was used as a measure of readiness for promotion into higher-level leadership positions.

• A food processing company needed more cross-cultural leaders to support its growth plans, so it changed its monthly operations meetings to include a discussion of how near-term operational assignments could be used to give high-potential leadership candidates cross-cultural experience.

All of these examples focused on issues directly related to business objectives. The companies had to meet these objectives, and they did it in a way that also supported employee development.

Employees are ideally developed through their day-to-day work, not in addi- tion to it. Blurring the distinction between work and development makes it eas- ier for employees to see how development is helping them achieve their career

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goals. Making development part of ongoing work creates a direct link between development activities and business results. In my experience, some of the best development experiences are things people never thought of as actually being developmental experiences. They just thought it was part of their job.

7.3.4 Integrated Development as a Way of Thinking To ensure the creation of effective, well-integrated, long-lasting development programs, it is important to get people who manage different development methods to interact with one another. Avoid organizational structures and tech- nology systems that create silos between succession management, career plan- ning, training resources, assessment measures, social learning methods, and transition management methods. Think how different developmental methods can be used in combination to address talent requirements.

Also solicit the opinions of line managers and employees regarding the busi- ness value of development methods. Clarify the link between development pro- grams and ongoing business operations. Show how development methods have a direct impact on employees’ ability to achieve their job objectives and career goals and improve managers’ ability to improve the productivity of their teams. Overall, remind everyone that the ultimate goal is not to implement development methods or build employee capabilities. It is to address the company’s talent requirements.

7.4 CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT DESIGN QUESTIONS There are seven key design questions related to building and deploying inte- grated development programs:

1. What talent requirements are you addressing?

2. What positions or people do you need to develop?

3. What employee attributes do you need to develop to achieve your learning objectives?

4. How will you build and maintain development methods?

5. How will you administer and support development programs?

6. How will you measure the impact of development programs?

7. How will you create an environment that supports use of development methods?

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These questions are applicable to the design of any development program regardless of the methods used. The answers to them depend on your company’s particular talent requirements, the nature of its workforce, and existing talent management processes. Failure to address any of these questions adequately can result in a suboptimal developmental program.

7.4.1 What Talent Requirements Are You Addressing? Many development programs take several years to become fully effective, for two reasons. First, the effectiveness of these programs is limited by the rate at which people can learn and apply new knowledge, skills, and capabilities. You can teach employees basic facts and procedures in as little as ten minutes, but creating global leaders or specialized technical experts takes years. Second, considerable operational logistics go into building high-impact development programs. You can get simple methods running in under three months. It takes quite a bit more time to build the infrastructure and organizational change to support develop- ment programs integrating multiple development methods such as workforce planning, succession management, performance management, career planning, training resources, social learning, and staffing.

Before building a major development program it is important to ask, “Why do this at all?” The following are talent requirements that can be addressed through development programs (see table 7.3):

• Staffing critical roles. In every company, certain jobs disproportionately affect overall company performance. These include senior leadership roles such as the CEO, but also key technical and operational roles. Examples of critical roles include merchandise buyers in retail organizations, software architects in technology companies, and nurse managers in hospitals. Failure to identify and develop talent for these roles can have devastating consequences on over- all company performance. Extended senior leadership vacancies create confu- sion and may generate organizational politics and infighting in an effort to fill the power vacuum. Extended vacancies in critical operational positions can have a significant impact on profitability, quality, and service. In many cases, the best and most cost-efficient way to ensure you have the people you need when you need them is through proactive development of internal talent.

• Sustaining and increasing performance. Even your best employees will become poor performers over time if they are not given resources to develop and maintain

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Talent Requirements Questions for Assessing Talent Requirements

Staffing critical roles

What are the critical roles in the organization? What is the financial impact of filling these roles with average com- pared to high-performing employees?

What is the time required to fill a vacancy in each critical role? What is the cost per hire to fill these roles?

How many internal succession candidates are identified for each critical role in your company? How many of these candidates are ready now?

Sustaining and increasing performance

What methods are used to measure employee perfor- mance? How do we ensure performance is at acceptable levels?

Are performance levels in the organization increasing or decreasing?

What development methods are used to ensure that employees keep their knowledge and skills current?

Accelerating performance

How are new people transitioned into the organization?

How long does it take them to reach full productivity?

What methods are in place to support employees’ transi- tion into new roles?

Managing turnover

What are the projections for turnover across critical roles? How many people must be hired to support these roles in the future?

What is the current retention risk of employees in critical roles? How does the company assess employee engage- ment in these roles?

What methods are used to transfer knowledge across and ensure smooth hand-offs from one employee to another during job transitions?

Preventing avoidable turnover

Who are the high-potential employees in the organiza- tion? How are they being developed?

What actions are being taken to build a sense of commit- ment and engagement among these employees?

Table 7.3 Talent Requirements Addressed by Development Processes

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their skills. Sustaining and increasing performance levels requires giving employ- ees methods to hone their skills and keep their knowledge current with changing business demands, technology innovations, and market conditions.

• Accelerating performance. Each time an employee moves into a new role, there is a drop in workforce productivity as that employee adjusts to the new job demands. Development methods that support onboarding of new employees and internal role transitions significantly decrease the time required for employees to achieve full performance.

• Managing turnover. All employees are going to leave at some point. Development methods cannot eliminate turnover, but they can lessen the impact that turnover has on company performance. If managed effectively, turnover can even be used as an opportunity to increase organizational capa- bilities by moving high-potential talent into key roles. This works only if a com- pany has development processes that anticipate and manage turnover events.

Avoiding skilled talent shortages

What skills and capabilities will be critical for future orga- nizational performance?

What are the projected gaps between the skills found in the current workforce and the skills the business will need three, five, and ten years into the future?

Workforce diversity

Does the diversity of employees in key roles in the organization match the diversity profile of the company as a whole? Does it align with the diversity profile for customers?

How does the company encourage career development among underrepresented employee populations?

Regulatory compliance

How does the company monitor whether employees have the training and knowledge required to perform critical job tasks?

What methods are used to ensure your company is com- plying with relevant training requirements and policy guidelines?

Talent Requirements Questions for Assessing Talent Requirements

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• Preventing avoidable turnover. High-performing employees are inherent reten- tion risks. The attributes that make them high performers, such as a strong record of accomplishment, also make them attractive to other companies. These employees also tend to focus on the next opportunity to advance their careers— inside or outside the company. The best way to keep high-potential talent is to implement development methods that let them know that the career opportuni- ties in your company are better than those they might find elsewhere.

• Avoiding skilled talent shortages. Much has been written about shortages of skilled labor across the globe. Companies that fail to acknowledge and address this shortage may soon find that they no longer have the skilled talent needed to perform even basic operational tasks. Development plays a key role in addressing future skill shortages before they occur.

• Workforce diversity. Many organizations struggle to build demographically diverse workforces in certain technical, customer-facing, or leadership roles. Demographically diverse workforces can have a significant impact on busi- ness issues related to customer service, attraction of talent, and regulatory compliance.4 Actively developing talent from targeted demographic groups is pivotal to building and maintaining a diverse workforce. Coaching and men- toring methods are particularly effective for addressing this challenge.

• Regulatory compliance. Many jobs have legal policies or other rules that require employees to have certain training and knowledge to perform differ- ent functions. Well-managed development programs are critical to ensuring employees are fully qualified to fill these jobs.

Any of these talent requirements can have a significant impact on business performance. But it is unrealistic and unwise to try to address all of these needs at the same time. Not only would this cost a lot; it could result in overwhelm- ing the organization with change. It is important to work with line-of-business leaders to determine which of these talent requirements are most relevant to your company’s business strategies and why they matter. Then take a targeted approach toward addressing those requirements first. Having a strong under- standing of the company’s talent requirements will have a positive influence on how you design and deploy development programs. It ensures that you invest resources where they matter the most and will help get managers and employ- ees to adopt development methods (see the discussion: “Making a Case for Development”).

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M A K I N G A C A S E F O R D E V E L O P M E N T

To gain support for development business leaders must understand

relationships between talent requirements and business performance.

Managers do not always think a lot about development, and when they

do, it may not be in a positive light. For example, many business lead-

ers do not think about preventing turnover and building talent to staff

critical roles until after a valued employee quits. And when this hap-

pens, they often focus on applying a short-term fix by hiring someone

externally without actually resolving the problem through investing in

long-term employee development. In some cases, managers may even

question the value of developing employees who may subsequently

leave the organization.

Strong development organizations excel at recognizing and publi-

cizing the gains that have been made as a result of development—for

example, highlighting dollars saved by hiring from within instead of

relying on external staffing, monitoring and reporting the percentage

of employees who have received critical training for their roles, and call-

ing attention to the impact that employee development has on engage-

ment, retention, workforce diversity, and productivity. Development is

often a matter of investing a little bit now or paying a lot later. Leaders

must be reminded of this from time to time. When managers say things

like, “Why should we spend all this money on training if employees can

quit and work for someone else?” ask them, “What happens if we don’t

train employees to do their jobs and they stay?”

7.4.2 What Positions or People Do You Need to Develop? Development is an investment. Like any other investment, you want to put it where it will provide the greatest return. Not all jobs or employees need the same amount of development resources. But it is not always obvious where to focus development resources. For example, where should a company invest develop- ment resources to avoid talent shortages in leadership positions? Does it require developing all leadership positions or just certain roles? Should the develop- ment be designed for all employees in these roles or just those who have the most leadership potential? Determining where to focus development resources

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is critical when a company is seeking to address broad talent requirements like “preventing avoidable turnover,” “managing turnover,” or “avoiding talent short- ages in key roles.” The following five approaches can be used to determine where to invest development efforts:

• Based on job levels. This approach assigns development resources based on people’s level in the organization. For example, some succession management methods target senior-level positions starting with the CEO and extending two levels below him or her. Similarly, many companies define training programs specifically for employees moving to first-level manager roles.

• Based on job roles. This approach focuses development resources on spe- cific roles in the company that are crucial to the current and future performance of the organization. Job roles can be used to determine which employees are eligible for development methods such as training, mentoring, developmental assessments, or participation in succession management. These roles tend to fall into three categories (two of these categories were previously discussed in chap- ter 4 in the context of staffing):

• Pivotal positions are roles where small differences in performance have a significant impact on company profitability. This includes strategic leader- ship roles but may also include key operational roles such as plant man- agers in manufacturing companies or technical experts in software and biomedical research companies. It may also include roles that include very large numbers of people such that small changes in performance have big impacts on profitability (e.g., frontline jobs in a retail organization).

• Critical positions are roles that are necessary to maintaining key company operations and where there is a significant shortage of talent—for exam- ple, nurses in health care companies or maintenance specialists in utility companies.

• Development positions are roles that are viewed as feeder positions for provid- ing employees with the skills and experiences needed to move into critical or pivotal roles. For example, many retail companies view assistant store man- ager positions as critical development roles for creating future store managers.

• Based on functions. Many companies create development programs for func- tions related to a common business area or area of expertise. Function-based devel- opment programs can be particularly effective for companies that have relatively

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stable organizational structures where it makes sense to build out five- to ten-year career plans. One example is succession management programs found in some large companies that move employees through a series of finance jobs to prepare them for senior financial leadership positions. Another example can be found in many retail organizations that have programs to help employees progress through field operations functions starting with shift supervisor and moving up to assistant manager, store manager, district manager, and regional vice president.

• Based on employee types. Companies may build development programs that are designed specifically for employees meeting certain criteria. For example, many companies create succession management programs designed for employ- ees who have been formally identified as high potentials. Companies also create performance improvement training programs for employees who are under- performing in their current roles. Development programs can also increase workforce diversity by creating mentorships for employees belonging to certain demographic groups. When using employee types, it is important to develop clear and consistent methods to determine employee eligibility; otherwise some employees may feel unfairly denied access to development resources.

• Based on employee populations. Some development processes involve every employee in a certain department or organization. These processes are usually implemented to address a mixture of the following talent requirements:

• Managing turnover by encouraging employees to engage in knowledge sharing so others can assume their responsibilities when they leave their current position

• Retaining employees by providing and engaging them around possible career paths they can pursue within the company

• Avoiding talent shortages by leveraging the employee population as a source of possible candidates for internal positions

• Ensuring all employees have completed required training programs

Whether it makes sense to allocate development investments based on levels, roles, functions, types, or populations will depend on the talent requirements being addressed and the resources available to invest in development programs. Succession management programs using costly executive coaching and lead- ership assessment centers probably have to be limited to a few high-potential

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employees in select roles. In contrast, social learning programs based on web- based learning communities and chat boards can be effectively and economically scaled across entire employee populations.

Deciding where to invest development resources is basically a three-step process:

1. Define your talent requirements. What problem are you seeking to solve through the use of development?

2. Determine what positions need to be included in the development program.

3. Determine whether it is necessary to apply development to every employee in these positions, or if development should be targeted on a subset of employees meeting certain criteria.

 Build development programs with a clear understanding of who the end users will ultimately be. Do not invest development resources in certain groups just because they asked for it or because it “seems like the right thing to do.” Determine where development resources will provide the greatest positive return on investment for the company, and give those areas priority.

7.4.3 What Employee Attributes Do You Need to Develop in Order to Achieve Your Learning Objectives? The primary purpose of development is to give employees capabilities to per- form new job tasks or more effectively perform existing job tasks—in other words, developing attributes that allow employees to do things in the future they have not or could not have done in the past. This means giving employees new skills, knowledge, experiences, and insights that make them more effective members of the workforce. It requires getting people to make personal changes that will influence their job performance.

Getting people to change can be very difficult. The first principle for chang- ing people is ensuring they understand why the change is beneficial to them. If they do not clearly understand what’s in it for them, they are unlikely to do it. And even then, they may struggle to make the change. This is why it is criti- cal to tie development programs to personal career ambitions. The second prin- ciple for changing people is to be very specific about what you are trying to

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change. This means clearly and precisely answering the question, “What attri- butes do we need to develop in employees for this development program to be successful?”

Employee attributes can be divided into three basic categories: experience, aptitudes, and motives. Understanding these categories and how they relate to your learning objectives is important for determining what development meth- ods to use. It also provides insight into the time and effort that will be required to achieve their learning objectives:

• Experience (what people have done): Knowledge, skills, and qualifications that are acquired and demonstrated through previous job assignments, train- ing programs, and certification exercises.

• Aptitudes (what people can do): Traits primarily associated with personality, temperament, and cognitive ability. Aptitudes comprise a major portion of what is commonly referred to as potential (see the discussion: “Assessing and Developing Potential”).

• Motives (what people want to do): Interests, career goals, and personal con- straints that influence whether someone will pursue, accept, and remain committed toward certain jobs and work environments. Motivation is a func- tion of what people want to do (e.g., make money, develop skills, increase influence) and what they are willing to sacrifice to achieve these goals (e.g., willingness to move, willingness to work long hours).

Understanding what types of attributes you are trying to develop is crit- ical for determining what development methods to use. If the purpose of a development program is to ensure employees have learned basic job policies or regulations, then all that may be needed is a simple online course. If the purpose is to build expertise in solving problems that require a mix of expe- rience, personality, and ability traits, then the program will have to use a much broader range of development methods such as on-the-job learning and developmental interactions with peers and mentors. Examples include job rotation programs that multinational companies use to develop global lead- ers and the extensive apprenticeship programs used to develop master electri- cians and carpenters.

Development programs can be used to influence employee motivation and engagement toward career opportunities and can be effective for increasing

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A S S E S S I N G A N D D E V E L O P I N G P O T E N T I A L

A common goal of many development programs is helping employees

“achieve their full potential.” This usually means developing attributes

that allow people to take on new roles and responsibility. So what are

the attributes that influence people’s capability to assume future roles?

Whether someone has the capability to perform a future job or task

depends on two things: what the person knows how to do and how he

or she responds to work environments and job challenges. What people

know how to do is primarily a function of what they have done in the

past (e.g., training programs they have completed, jobs they have held). In

contrast, how people respond to work environments and job challenges is

heavily influenced by underlying personality and ability traits. For example,

just because someone has the technical training to be a software engineer

does not mean he or she will perform this job effectively under stressful or

competitive situations. Similarly, an individual salesperson may possess the

sales knowledge needed to lead a sales team, but this does not mean he or

she has the right disposition needed to manage others effectively.

A common mistake companies make when assessing and develop-

ing potential is to overemphasize the importance of experience, knowl-

edge, and skills and underemphasize the impact that personality and

ability traits have on future performance. Measuring and changing

knowledge and skills is far easier than measuring and changing under-

lying personality and ability traits. When people perform poorly, it is

more often due to problems with how they act than what they know.

Or to put it another way, companies typically hire people based on their

experience and fire them based on their personality.

The key to assessing and developing potential is to look at both expe-

rience and aptitude. This requires defining and measuring the aptitudes

that influence potential. Measures of aptitudes can range from simple

manager ratings to complex psychometric tools that evaluate underlying

personality and ability traits associated with success in different kinds of

job roles. Most measures of potential tend to focus on three broad areas:

• Cognitive traits reflecting the ability to deal with the kinds of infor-

mation and problems that people will encounter as they move into

positions with increasing responsibility

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• Social traits that influence the ability to build and manage different

types of relationships

• Change management traits reflecting the ability to manage the

stresses and ambiguity associated with different positions

If your development goal is to build employee potential to assume

future roles, then it is a good idea to pay attention to these three areas.

Also be aware that many of the personality and ability traits that influ-

ence potential are relatively hard to change.

Finally, note that aptitudes associated with potential are differ-

ent from motives that influence career direction. Even if someone can

effectively perform a role, that does not necessarily mean he or she will

want to move into that role. Developing motivation tends to be even

more difficult than developing aptitude. If you explain the benefits of

a job to someone and this person is not interested in it, then the better

approach is usually to avoid asking him or her to do it rather than try-

ing to develop his or her interest.

long-term employee retention. The following are some ways to influence employee career choices:

• Using assessment measures that help employees understand what they want to achieve from work and help them align their personal motives to opportu- nities within the company

• Social learning methods that establish coaching and mentoring relationships that help employees define their personal career goals and find ways to match these with company job opportunities

• Career planning and succession management methods that provide employ- ees with a sense of possible future jobs they could pursue within the company and a general plan on how to pursue them

• Transition management methods that help new employees build social networks so they feel a sense of belonging and commitment toward the organization

• Social learning methods that help employees create a sense of community with their peers at work

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Like all other development methods, these tend to be most effective when implemented in a coordinated fashion with each other and with other strategic HR processes such as staffing and performance management.

Table 7.4 indicates the development methods that tend to be the most effective for changing different types of employee attributes. Providing employees with experience related to specific knowledge and skills can often be done with resource-focused development methods (i.e., training resources and assessment measures). Building aptitudes associated with leadership potential and specialized expertise tends to rely more heavily on role- and relationship-focused methods such as succession management, career plan- ning, and social learning. Influencing motivation also tends to be more affected by role- and relationship-based development methods than ones focused on resources.

While table 7.4 provides a general sense of relationships between attributes and development methods, the best methods for developing specific attributes will depend far more on the attribute itself than the general category it belongs to. For example, knowing how to run a meeting and knowing how to speak a foreign language are both elements of knowledge and skill that depend on expe- rience. But the development methods used to teach a language are quite different from those used to teach people how to run a meeting.

Creating an effective development strategy starts by first answering, “What talent requirements are we addressing?” and then, “What jobs employees do we need to develop to address these needs?” This is followed by another question: “What employee attributes do we need to change to achieve our development learning objectives?” The answer to this question will determine the types of development methods to incorporate into the development program.

Development programs are usually most effective if they leverage a com- bination of development methods. For example, if you want to build a skilled workforce or train future leaders, you will want to look at a mixture of meth- ods incorporating elements of succession management, career development, onboarding, training, social learning, and assessments. There are exceptions, such as training programs that target specific regulatory requirements. But stand-alone development methods tend to have less impact than integrated development pro- grams that use multiple methods.5

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Table 7.4 Development Methods That Are Most Effective for Influencing Different Types of Attributes

Attributes to Change Using Roles Using Relationships Using Resources

Experience/have done (knowl- edge, skills, qualifications)

Succession management and career planning methods that give people tasks and job assignments that enable them to acquire and use the skills and knowledge you wish to develop

Social learning methods where people work alongside others who possess the skills and knowledge you want people to acquire

Training materials that address specific skills and knowledge you wish to develop

Transition management methods that provide access to training and knowledge resources needed in new roles

Aptitudes/can do (abilities, work style, temperament)

Succession management and career planning methods that give people assignments or positions that require them to display job behaviors and acquire experiences associated with demonstrating potential

Social learning methods such as coaching that improve people’s self-awareness and ability to identify and leverage their strengths and manage weaknesses that could affect their long-term potential

Transition management methods that help people establish supportive rela- tionships with colleagues

Assessment measures that give people insight into their natu- ral strengths and weaknesses Training materials that help people effectively manage their behaviors to maximize their capabilities

Motives/want to do (interests, career goals)

Succession management and career planning methods that give people a sense of long-term career paths and ensure their cur- rent job assignments are moving them in a direction that aligns with their personal career goals

Social learning methods that help peo- ple find links between their personal career interests and career development opportunities within the company

Onboarding programs that help employees establish social connections with the others in the company

Assessment measures that help people identify their career interests

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7.4.4 How Will You Build and Maintain Development Methods? It would take several books to thoroughly discuss all the development methods that can go into an integrated development program. Entire industries have been created to support development methods like succession management and train- ing resources. But here are a few general guidelines to keep in mind when defin- ing and assembling development programs:

• Avoid doing it all yourself. The development industry is one of the largest seg- ments of the human resource market. Chances are someone has already built tools, technology, and other resources needed to support the development meth- ods you need. Actively scan the marketplace and take advantage of others’ work. It is usually much faster, easier, and more cost-effective than building it yourself.

• Avoid unnecessary learning. Development requires people to change, which tends to be difficult. When assembling content, focus on development meth- ods that directly address the employee attributes tied to your learning objec- tives. View any development methods that do not directly target your core objectives as distractions, not opportunities.

• A little tailoring goes a long way. When adopting off-the-shelf development methods, look for ways to make minor modifications so the content aligns with the language and concepts in your organization. For example, if a train- ing program talks about “objectives” and your company talks about “goals,” change the language in the training program so employees don’t have to make this translation in their head. What may seem like trivial modifications can significantly improve the adoption and use of development methods (see the discussion: “Aligning New Ideas to Familiar Concepts: Why Words Matter”).

A L I G N I N G N E W I D E A S T O F A M I L I A R C O N C E P T S : W H Y W O R D S M A T T E R

The goal of many development programs is to change how employ-

ees approach work situations—for example, getting employees to rec-

ognize how their behaviors influence the actions of others or getting

them to adopt more effective methods to solve work problems. The

challenge these types of programs face is they require people to do

more than just act differently; they must learn to think differently. You

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cannot simply show them what to do; you have to change the mental

methods they use to understand, interpret, and act toward situations.

One of the more effective techniques to influence how people think is

to point out similarities between new ideas and familiar concepts. This is

why analogies are such a powerful tool for communication. They enable

people to understand a novel concept using frameworks they already

understand. This is also why it is important to minimize the use of new or

unfamiliar words and models when deploying development programs. The

more you tie the concepts you are teaching to things people already under-

stand, the more easily they will understand and adopt these new concepts.

I saw a great example of this during a program used to teach specialty

coffee shop managers how to select job candidates. The challenge was

getting managers to adopt a structured interview process to systemati-

cally evaluate candidates. Rather than trying to explain psychological con-

cepts related to measuring and matching applicant traits to job demands,

the company used an analogy between interviewing candidates and tast-

ing coffee. They talked about the fact that there isn’t just one best type

of coffee and the importance of matching different types of coffee based

on the meal or time of day. They then pointed out that the same con-

cepts apply to hiring. Whether a candidate will be a good fit depends on

the job he or she is being hired for. They extended the analogy to the

importance of evaluating coffee using a consistent, structured tasting

process and noted that this same concept applied to interviewing candi-

dates using the same set of questions asked in the same way.

This analogy to interviewing and coffee would probably confuse hir-

ing managers in other companies. But it made absolute sense to these

managers because of their experience with coffee tasting. What’s more,

the managers did not have to learn a bunch of new interviewing terms

and models that were originally included in the off-the-shelf version of

the training. Instead they became more effective interviewers by using

terms and concepts that were already familiar to them. The lesson to be

learned from this is to avoid introducing new words and models when

you can achieve your development objectives using words and concepts

that are already familiar to people in the company.

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• Plan scheduled maintenance and upgrades. No matter how much work goes into the creation of a development program, it is going to contain limita- tions and eventually will become outdated. Define a time line for reviewing, updating, and refreshing development methods. Schedule sufficient time between upgrades for the methods to become familiar to end users, but do not wait so long that people become frustrated by their limitations. How often upgrades should occur will depend on the type of method and how it is used, but for most development methods, a three-year upgrade cycle often works well.

• Explore user-generated learning resources. A distinction can be made between user-generated “organic” development content and more formally designed “structured” content built by training and development experts.

• Organic content includes things like web posts and short videos created by employees to share ideas and knowledge (see the discussion: “User- Generated Learning: Where the Future Meets the Past”). It has the advan- tage of usually being fairly current because it emerges in real time from employees working on the front lines. Organic content development meth- ods are particularly useful when the types of content needed are rapidly changing due to constant shifts in technology, markets, or business struc- tures. But it tends to pose risks associated with poor quality and lack of integration with other development content.

• Structured content such as formal training programs and manuals tends to have better quality control but costs more to create and can quickly become outdated as the business changes. Structured content development methods are well suited for situations where employees have to learn specific things that are unlikely to change over time or when employees are working in rel- atively stable jobs or organizational structures.

U S E R - G E N E R A T E D L E A R N I N G C O N T E N T : W H E R E T H E F U T U R E M E E T S T H E P A S T

More and more companies are discovering that development pro-

grams that rely solely on classroom training and structured courses

are not effective or efficient enough to meet their growing demands

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for skilled labor. As a result, companies are looking at alternative

methods for developing employees. One of the more promising inno-

vations is the ability to use social technology to leverage user-gener-

ated learning content. What is interesting about this trend is that in

many ways it represents a shift back to the future when it comes to

learning. To explain this, let’s take a look at the rise of formal class-

room training.

Going to class is not the natural way for people to learn. Humans did

not develop classrooms until fairly late in our evolution. For centuries,

we managed to learn without structured courses. So how did we do it?

The answer is that we learned from experience and observation. People

acquired skills by working alongside others who knew more than they

did, that is, by being apprentices. The problem with the apprentice-

ship approach was that it did not scale well: there weren’t enough

apprenticeship opportunities available to produce the number of skilled

employees needed. In addition, not all experts make good mentors and

coaches. Classroom training was created in part to respond to shortages

of mentors and apprenticeships.

Social learning technology is starting to change this. YouTube is

probably the best widespread example of how technology is allowing

skilled mentors to share their expertise with people around the world.

Want to learn to play guitar like rock musician Brian Setzer? There’s a

video where you can virtually “sit down” with him for an hour while

he shows you various tips and tricks. Want to learn how to cook like

Emeril? Check out videos where he’ll walk you through what he does

to create unique flavors. Social learning technologies are addressing

the historic challenge of scaling expertise through mentorships.

Companies are also using social communication technology to enable

greater collaboration and knowledge sharing among employees. Chat

sites, blogs, and community web pages allow employees to learn much

more from each other than was possible when learning was limited

to the person you happened to be working with that day. Colleagues

working different shifts or in different locations can readily share ideas,

pose questions, provide recognition, and offer constructive coaching to

one another. The result is that many workplaces provide much richer

sources of learning than did those that existed just a few years ago.

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Social learning technology provides an alternative way to teach and

enable new skills that is cheaper, easier to access, and in many ways

complementary to more traditional training programs. I am not sug-

gesting this technology will totally replace formal educational pro-

grams. But the upsides of this technology are considerable. Instead of

people having to go to training to acquire new skills, they can increas-

ingly leverage the expertise embedded within their broader working

community.

Assembling and maintaining development methods to support a large-scale integrated development program is a major undertaking. Paying attention to the concepts presented here and thinking through how different methods will integrate into a larger development program will have major benefits later. Remember that the value of most development methods is not determined by your ability to deploy them in the short term but by whether the method is still considered useful several years into the future.

7.4.5 How Will You Administer and Support Development Methods? After defining the goals of your development program, identifying which people to develop, defining what they need to develop, and deciding what methods will be used to develop them, the next step is to ensure these development methods are effectively administered within the organization. Unless you are a very small company, technology is going to be a central component for administering and supporting development methods here. The logistics associated with implement- ing most development methods to more than one hundred or so employees can become overwhelming without the right technological tools.

It is beyond the scope of this book to detail all the features you might con- sider when choosing technology to support development methods. What you will want depends on the development methods you are deploying, the peo- ple you are deploying it to, and the impact you want to have. For example, the technology features needed to deploy customer service training to frontline hotel employees across the globe are much different from the features needed to deploy succession management for executives in a regionally based financial services organization. Technology systems used to support career planning for

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managers in an engineering company may be set up differently from those used to support career planning for nurses in a hospital. Given the variety of ways you are likely to use development technology, it is best to look for systems that pro- vide a range of options and features that can be configured to support different needs. This allows you to support all your development programs through the same core technology platform.

It is also important to choose technology that allows you to integrate and share data across development methods and with other talent management pro- cesses. Table 7.5 lists integration features to consider when evaluating develop- ment technology. These feature fall into three areas:

• Integrating development methods with each other. It should be possible to access content and data associated with one development method through other development methods. For example, succession management tech- nology should give you the ability to access elements of employees’ career plans. Employees should be able to access training resources from within their career plans. Social learning and assessment measures should be acces- sible from within the platform used to manage traditional training. Ideally, it

(Continued )

Features that enable integrating development methods with each other such as

• Links between career plans and succession management that support examining what succession candidates are doing to develop themselves and adding activities to high-potential candidates’ development plans as a result of succession conversations

• Links between career development and training resources so employees can sign up and access training directly from their career plans

• Features that allow blending traditional training programs and curricula with social learning communities and user-generated training content

• Accessing training and social learning resources directly from the tools used to support transition management and onboarding programs

• Incorporating development assessments and 360 surveys into career plans and succession management processes

Table 7.5 Integration Features to Consider When Evaluating

Development Technology

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Features that enable integrating development with other talent manage- ment processes such as

• Creating links among performance management, succession manage- ment, and career plans

• Creating links among staffing processes, succession management, and onboarding programs

• Linking compensation methods to career plans and training resources to enable rewarding employees for skills development

• Linking goal management programs to career plans and succession management to support the use of job assignments to build employee capabilities

• Linking goal management to social learning communities to promote knowledge sharing tied to job activities

• Creating links between succession management and workforce planning processes

Features integrating development method with administrative data such as

• Creating links between career plans, onboarding, and succession man- agement to human resource information systems data on job codes and employee data to enable links between job types and different develop- ment activities

• Creating links between assessment measures and organizational charts and employee job codes to enable more effective selection of raters for 360 surveys

• Linking career plans and succession management to organizational charts and job codes enabling more effective creation of career paths and iden- tification of succession candidates

• Linking training programs to data on job types in order to manage train- ing requirements for different jobs

• Creating links between development programs and data on employee turnover, promotions, and productivity in order to more effectively evalu- ate the impact of training programs on workforce productivity

• Creating links between development programs and data from financial, productivity, and sales systems to evaluate the impact of development methods on workforce productivity

should be possible to link every development method to every other develop- ment method directly or indirectly.

• Integrating development methods with other talent processes. Most develop- ment programs are used to increase employees’ current job performance or

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build their potential and qualifications to move into new roles. To support these goals, technology should support linking development programs to the processes used for staffing, workforce planning, performance management, goal management, and compensation.

• Integrating development methods with administrative data. There are several rea- sons to link development technology to administrative systems used to track employees job titles, reporting structures, salary, tenure, and work history. First, the nature of development activities like succession, onboarding, and train- ing is often based on where employees are placed in the company (e.g., requir- ing employees in certain jobs to complete specific training programs). Second, knowing where employees are located in the company and having data on their managers, coworkers, and direct reports can be extremely useful for supporting development methods such as succession management, social learning, and 360 surveys. Third, being able to link employee participation in development activi- ties with outcomes associated with turnover, promotion, and productivity is critical to evaluating the impact of development methods.

It is important to define development program needs first and then evaluate technology against those needs. But keep an open mind when looking at the capabilities and constraints of technology systems. It is unlikely that any tech- nology system will perfectly support every feature you might ideally want. And you may find that many technology systems provide features you might ben- efit from but might not have considered. Selection of technology always comes with some level of trade-off between what is wanted, what is needed, and what is possible. This is particularly true when looking at technology used to support systems as complex as integrated talent development. Do not compromise on critical features, but remember that there may be more than one way to support your requirements.

7.4.6 How Will You Measure the Impact of Development Programs? Development methods typically do not have a direct impact on short-term business results (see the discussion: “Why Development Is Like Routine Maintenance”). Development programs build the capabilities of employees, but these capabilities do not improve business performance until employees apply

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Commonsense Talent Management288

them to address talent requirements. In other words, just because someone has acquired new knowledge and skills does not mean he or she is using them on the job. This difference between developing knowledge and applying knowledge is often referred to as the transfer-of-training problem.

W H Y D E V E L O P M E N T I S L I K E R O U T I N E M A I N T E N A N C E

Funding for development programs is often the first thing to get

cut when companies are looking to reduce costs. This is particularly

true if business leaders do not see a clear link between the capabili-

ties employees acquire through development and the results they

achieve on the job. Companies can and often do achieve results with-

out spending much money on development, at least for a little while.

What these companies do not realize is the degree to which lack of

development is limiting the performance they could achieve if they

had a more fully engaged and capable staff. Nor do they recognize

the risk that a lack of development creates for maintaining long-term

performance.

An analogy can be made between development and routine engine

maintenance. Most engines can run for a while without regular tune-

ups to improve timing, ensure adequate oil, and check seals for a good

fit. The performance of engines will start to decline as timing drifts

and oil gets dirty, but because this decrease is gradual, drivers may not

notice that the engine has become less efficient and powerful than it

once was. In contrast, people are immediately aware of the costs and

short-term lost productivity associated with taking the engine off-line

and hiring a mechanic to tune it up. Often the only time people rec-

ognize the value of routine maintenance is after something goes cat-

astrophically wrong due to a failure to fix a problem that could have

been easily addressed had it been recognized earlier (e.g., having an

engine seize up because it ran out of oil).

The reasons people ignore routine maintenance on engines are simi-

lar to the reasons that many companies fail to invest in employee devel-

opment. People don’t recognize the value of development programs

because this value plays out in subtle improvements in productivity over

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time, as opposed to giving a company a highly visible short-term boost

in profits. Companies often do not appreciate the value of performance

levels they will achieve or talent shortages they will avoid as a result

of investments in development they are making right now. This is why

it is so critical to ensure that business leaders understand how devel-

opment programs affect business results and long-term productivity. As

one person told me, “Failing to invest in employee development is like

failing to change the oil in your car: you may not regret it right away,

but eventually it hurts you in a way you will regret for a long time.”

One way to ensure the transfer of training and demonstrate the value of development programs is to track the impact of development methods. Table 7.6 lists several metrics that can be used to evaluate development methods. The met- rics are separated into three categories: usage, impact, and outcomes.6

Usage metrics provide insight into whether people are using develop- ment methods at all. They track things such as how many employees have attended training classes, completed career plans, identified succession can- didates, accessed onboarding resources, or used assessments. Usage metrics for development methods like career planning, social learning, and succes- sion should not just track whether employees use the method, but also how frequently they use it—for example, how often people update goals in career plans, contribute new content to online learning communities, or meet with career coaches or mentors. Tracking usage is important because if people are not using development methods, then obviously the methods will not have any impact. Usage also provides insight into whether methods are perceived as valuable or easy to access.

Impact metrics provide insight into whether development methods are improving the capabilities of the employees using them. For example, these metrics can be used to determine whether a succession management program results in greater numbers of high-potential candidates or whether a training program enables more employees to pass a knowledge certification test.

The simplest impact measures assess whether employees felt the develop- ment method was valuable. The problem with this type of metric is that just because employees liked participating in a program does not mean it actually improved their capabilities. Conversely, effective development interventions are

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Table 7.6 Examples of Development Metrics

Development Method Usage Metrics Impact Metrics Development Outcomes

Succession management

Percent of employees with com- pleted talent profiles

Percent of updated talent reviews/nine boxes

Percent of employees identified as high potentials

Percent of roles with ready-now candidates identified

Number of ready-now candidates identified for key roles

Changes in employee perfor- mance and potential ratings over time

Employee engagement and commitment survey scores

Percent of positions filled with internal promotions or transfer

Time to fill for key roles

Retention rate of high-perform- ing employees

Demographic diversity in key roles

Increased revenue per employee

Development of workforce pipeline to support future tal- ent requirements

Decreased time to competence in new roles

Employee, manager, and execu- tive ratings of career develop- ment process

Increased retention

Increased internal promotion rates

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Percent of employees with career plans

Percent of employees using development resources available through career planning (e.g., training programs)

Progress against development objectives

Percent of employees with well- defined career paths

Percent of managers using career development plans to evaluate employee potential

Training curriculums

Number of people completing courses

Percent of people passing certifi- cation tests tied to training

Trainee ratings on course quality

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Number of people volunteering to participate in mentor programs or social learning groups

Number of mentor-mentee rela- tionships established

Number of user-generated train- ing videos or posts created

Employee evaluations of qual- ity and utility of social learning programs

Number of employees accessing social learning sites or user-gen- erated training content

Percent of employee recom- mending mentoring programs for others

Onboarding and other transitions

Trainee ratings of onboarding course value

Percent of new employees using onboarding development resources

Employee ratings of the overall onboarding or job transition process

Assessments including 360 surveys

Number of employees receiving developmental feedback such as 360s

Number of employees completing assessments

Percent of employees recom- mending assessments, 360s for coworkers

Relative changes or improve- ments in employees assessment, 360 scores over time

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not necessarily enjoyable. Consider the use of 360 surveys to give people con- structive but critical feedback on their performance. Learning painful truths about one’s developmental needs can be valuable, but it is rarely pleasant. The best impact measures assess the degree to which development programs improve employee capabilities without asking employees to simply report their percep- tions—for example, formally testing employee skills after a training course or collecting manager and coworker evaluations of how employee performance has changed as a result of a coaching or succession management program.

Impact measures can also provide evidence to support the cost of a devel- opment program. Simply showing that a development program is improving the skills of employees may provide justification to continue the program. On the other hand, impact measures do not necessarily indicate that a develop- ment program is improving business performance. This is because of the transfer-of-training problem. Even if employees have developed new capabili- ties, this does not mean they are using them to address business challenges. Companies that rely solely on impact measures to assess the value of develop- ment programs may find these programs in jeopardy if the company needs to cut costs. The only way to ensure that development programs are fully effective and appreciated is to create links between the use of development methods and outcome metrics.

Outcome metrics illustrate the true business value of development processes. They do this by linking development methods to data reflecting workforce pro- ductivity, efficiency, sustainability, scalability, and governance. The ultimate value of development programs is their ability to improve things like revenue generated per full-time employee, cost per hire, retention of high-performing employees, time required to onboard new employees, time to fill critical posi- tions, and percentage of employees certified to perform key job tasks.

Some outcome metrics are closely related to certain types of development methods (e.g., succession management, time to fill critical positions). But most outcome metrics depend on multiple development methods as well as factors that have nothing to do with development. For example, turnover can be influ- enced by onboarding, mentoring, and succession management. But turnover is also influenced by compensation and changes in the external labor market. This can make it difficult to establish direct links between development methods and specific outcomes. Nevertheless, tracking outcome metrics is critical if you want to build a strong case for the business value of development.

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The relationship between development methods and outcome metrics does not need to be sophisticated to be effective. The following are examples of simple but effective use of outcome metrics to demonstrate the value of development meth- ods: showing that new salespeople who completed an onboarding program achieved quota several months faster on average than salespeople who did not participate in or finish the program, demonstrating that employee retention significantly increased after a new career development program was put in place, and showing an increase in internal promotion rates that occurred after implementation of a succession man- agement process. None of these examples required a lot of sophisticated workforce analytics. They simply pointed out changes that occurred in the workforce that could reasonably be attributed to the use of different development programs.

The success of most development methods does not depend on the opinions of human resources or even the employees participating in the program. It depends on the opinions of the line-of-business managers who must decide whether the time and money they and their employees spend on a development program gener- ate enough business value to justify the cost. One way to determine what develop- ment metrics to track is to simply ask line-of-business leaders, “What data would demonstrate whether this development method was adding real value to business operations?” It is a good idea to also provide the leaders with a list of possible met- rics, or they may recommend metrics that are difficult or impossible measure.

7.4.7 How Will You Create an Environment That Supports Use of Development Methods? The final issue to explore when building a development strategy is whether peo- ple are adequately rewarded and supported for using development methods. On the positive side, development is in many ways its own reward: most people like to learn new things, assuming these things are relevant to their jobs and appropriately matched to their skills and capabilities. Few doubt the importance of development as a key element for long-term success. On the negative side, most organizations contain a range of direct and hidden barriers to development. Even the best devel- opment methods will fail if people in the organization are unwilling to adopt them.

Potential barriers to development range from tangible policies to more subtle cultural traits. Most of these barriers can be placed into four general categories:

• Does the company reward actions associated with development? Most develop- ment methods require making sacrifices to short-term productivity to build

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capabilities to accomplish higher levels of long-term performance. Yet many companies reward short-term productivity far more than long-term perfor- mance improvement (see the discussion: “Some Companies Punish People for Development: Is Yours One of Them?”). What criteria does your com- pany use to evaluate employee and manager performance? Do these criteria include metrics and ratings that encourage people to invest time and energy into developing themselves and others? Or are the metrics focused solely on past performance with little reward for doing things that build the long-term capabilities of the company?

S O M E C O M P A N I E S P U N I S H P E O P L E F O R D E V E L O P M E N T : I S Y O U R S O N E O F T H E M ?

You can tell a lot about how much a company values development by

looking at the criteria used to guide compensation and promotion deci-

sions. Are managers and employees rewarded for investing time in build-

ing long-term talent? Or is it all about last quarter’s business results?

Here are some examples of ways companies punish employees, manag-

ers, and human resource leaders for investing time toward development.

Punishing Employees

The best way for employees to develop is by taking on goals that

require performing new job roles, adapting to new work environments,

and learning new capabilities. These goals are typically harder to com-

plete than familiar ones because they require learning new things. Many

companies do not distinguish between developmentally challenging

goals and familiar goals when evaluating employee performance. All

that matters is whether employees meet their targets. As a general rule,

if an employee hits 100 percent of his or her goals year after year, these

goals are not challenging. Yet employees who achieve familiar goals

with little development value may appear to have stronger performance

than employees who set unfamiliar and far more challenging goals.

Punishing Managers

From a short-term operational standpoint, investing in employee

development is a lousy managerial strategy. Why should a manager

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risk short-term targets by giving stretch job assignments to employ-

ees who have not done them before? Why take time away from

daily operations to invest in employee learning? And why encourage

employees to pursue career opportunities or promotions elsewhere in

the company? How does giving away talent help the manager? The

degree to which a company supports developmentally minded man-

agers can be assessed by evaluating whether managers who promote

people past them are rewarded or punished. Are these managers cel-

ebrated as talent creators or looked down on as people who have hit

a career plateau and are now being passed by? Similarly, are managers

rewarded for hiring and developing less-experienced and less-costly

candidates? Is there any incentive for managers to save on salary costs

by developing talent instead of buying it? Are there metrics related to

talent development and retention on the scorecards used to evaluate

managers?

I once asked a business leader how his company rewarded managers

who developed and promoted people out of their teams. His answer

was, “We don’t; we punish them by not backfilling their positions.”

Given this, it is little wonder that a lot of managers express skepticism

toward the relative value of development programs.

Punishing HR

The saying that what gets measured gets managed is as true in HR as

anywhere else. Many of the things that are easy to measure in HR do

not support investment in development programs. For example, it is far

easier to track the cost of training than to track the value created by

training. As a result, more emphasis may be placed on using inexpen-

sive development methods instead of effective ones.

HR metrics can also create conflict within the HR organization itself.

An example of this occurred in a company I was working with where

the director of leadership development was rewarded based on the

percentage of positions filled by internal candidates while the direc-

tor of recruiting was rewarded based on number of external hires. This

placed the recruiting organization in direct competition with the devel-

opment organization. Rather than cooperating to see if it made more

sense to treat specific positions as opportunities to develop internal

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talent versus opportunities to bring fresh talent into the company, it

was just a race to see who could fill them first.

No company intentionally creates rules and cultural norms to dis-

courage development. These things result from a failure to think

through the implications of organizational policies and leadership deci-

sions. Compare these examples to the methods your company uses to

recognize and reward performance. Are you truly supporting people

who invest in developing themselves and others, or do you merely give

lip-service to the value of development without actually rewarding it?

• Does the company provide adequate time and resources to support develop- ment efforts? Development takes time. This is particularly true if employees are working to build significantly new skill sets. Think about the first time you learned to perform a highly novel task, whether it was driving a car or managing a large-scale project. Learning something requires far more energy and attention than it takes after you have been doing it awhile. Managers must be patient and supportive of employees who are challenging themselves to develop. This means giving employees both moral support and additional time until they acquire some level of mastery. It may also mean temporarily decreasing productivity expectations for them so they can focus more energy on development activities.

• Does the company culture encourage people to take on development challenges? Development is about self-improvement. The best development occurs in environments where people are comfortable openly discussing strengths and weaknesses and actively enlist help from others to get advice on how they can improve. Employees should trust that their managers and coworkers will encourage their growth, help them learn from mistakes, and not punish or mock them for taking on novel tasks that may be difficult for them at first. Not all companies have this sort of supportive culture. If your company is not a place where people feel comfortable and encouraged taking risks in order to build their skills, then employees are likely to resist attempts to get them to step outside their comfort zone.

• Does the company support internal career growth and advancement? The main reason employees pursue development is to achieve their career goals.

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Supporting the talent requirements of the organization is secondary to this primary goal. Yet many organizations have norms and policies that discourage employees from pursuing career advancement within the company. For exam- ple, managers may explicitly or implicitly punish direct reports who apply for jobs elsewhere in the company. Rather than supporting these employ- ees’ career interests, managers treat them as though they were being disloyal. Some companies also create norms and rules to restrict internal talent move- ment, ignoring the fact that high-potential employees will seek jobs in other companies if they feel it will more quickly advance their careers (see the dis- cussion: “Talent Poaching: A Concept That Shouldn’t Exist”).

T A L E N T P O A C H I N G : A C O N C E P T T H A T S H O U L D N ’ T E X I S T

A common complaint made about development programs is the con-

cern that it will create employee turnover. As employees develop new

capabilities, they will be dissatisfied staying in their current roles and

will begin seeking opportunities elsewhere. People argue that “if we

develop our employees, other people will hire them away.” Or as some

managers put it, “Why should I develop people just so others can poach

them from me?”

Concerns about talent poaching are misguided and extremely det-

rimental to long-term organizational health. First, what company

wants to employ people whom no one else is interested in hiring? Do

you want your organization to be the place that hires people no one

else wants? Second, not developing people for fear they will be hired

away is like refusing to maintain your house for fear that it will look

more attractive to thieves. Although there is risk of developing people,

only to have them leave, it is far worse to not develop them and have

them stay. Third, retaining employees by discouraging career advance-

ment is a great way to build teams of employees who lack ambition

and energy.

A manager who complains of losing an employee because he or she

was poached by someone else is blaming the wrong person. The prob-

lem is not with the employee or the poacher; it is with the manager

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Many companies also set up compensation plans that do not reward employee loyalty and internal career development. Employees who are promoted internally often receive smaller salary increases than they would have gotten had they quit the organization entirely and applied for the job as an external candi- date. Years ago a manager advised me to “change companies every three to five years as it’s the only way to get a really meaningful pay increase.” Take an honest look at how you establish compensation for internal transfers and make sure that statement could not be applied to your organization.

Some of the organizational issues that limit the adoption and value of devel- opment methods can be quickly addressed and changed (e.g., eliminating overly restrictive policies for internal transfers, changing compensation strate- gies to reward managers who invest in employee development). Others are more subtle and may take years to change (e.g., creating a culture that encourages taking risks to support development). To ensure the success of your develop- ment programs, have a discussion with company leaders about barriers in the

who failed to create a more desirable career path for the employee. If

a valued employee unexpectedly leaves to pursue opportunities else-

where, the fault for the turnover lies on the manager for failing to

recognize the employee’s career ambitions and the organization for

failing to give the employee access to career opportunities that match

their long-term interests. The only loyalty companies should ask for and

expect from employees is loyalty toward a work environment that pro-

vides them with opportunities to fulfill their career goals.

The concept of talent poaching should be stricken from any organi-

zation that is committed to development. It may make sense to have

guidelines on internal transfers in order to avoid excessive turnover in

specific roles. But it never makes sense to punish employees for explor-

ing alternative career options within the company. Nor should manag-

ers be discouraged from talking with employees in other groups about

internal positions that will help advance their careers. Remember

that the question is not whether employees with strong performance

and potential are going to seek new job opportunities; the question

is whether they will look for these opportunities within their current

company.

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organization that could hinder development efforts. Be realistic about what sorts of changes leadership will or will not support; then adjust your development objectives accordingly.

If leaders in the company are not willing to reward managers for promoting tal- ent out of their departments, then it is probably a waste of time to implement suc- cession management methods that encourage managers to share talent with others. If employees are not given time to engage in self-development activities and train- ing, then there is little sense in providing these sorts of resources to them. When employees are encouraged to develop capabilities but are not given job assignments where they can use them, the company is wasting its investment in development, and employees are likely to become frustrated at having learned something they don’t have an opportunity to use. It is often better to do nothing than to deploy development methods that are not supported by managers or senior leadership or that do not help employees advance their careers within the organization. A likely outcome is that you will increase employees’ sense of frustration over the lack of support for their personal career development in the organization.

7.5 INCREASING DEVELOPMENT PROCESS MATURITY Development is arguably the most complex area of talent management for at least three reasons. First, development encompasses six different methods, each with its own unique set of tools, techniques, and design features. Setting up these methods can be a significant undertaking. This becomes even more complicated when attention is placed on integrating the methods with one other. Second, development programs can be used to improve a range of employee capabilities, each requiring different types of development approaches. The nature of devel- opment changes depending on whether the focus is on building technical skills, leadership potential, career motivation, teamwork, or other attributes. Third, development processes must be able to change based on the learning objectives of employees. The more extensive a development program becomes, the more flexible it needs to be to support career growth across a diverse range of employ- ees. Development programs must support basic training for new employees and career growth for highly experienced leaders and professionals. Achieving high levels of development process maturity is not about creating a single system that does one thing really well; it is about creating a flexible system that can be used to support a range of developmental needs that shift over time.

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It is important to approach development as an ongoing series of projects and activities. Companies can implement individual development methods that quickly add value in a matter of months. For example, implementing a new 360 survey assessment or training program takes very little time. But it typically takes years to build a fully comprehensive development program (for an example, see appendix B). Companies with highly mature development processes constantly modify them to leverage new development methods and adapt to shifting business requirements. Do not think of the development process as a house you design once, build once, and then maintain. Think of it as a garden that you build and nurture over time, constantly finding ways to improve and modify it as it grows.

Figure 7.3 illustrates five basic levels of development process maturity. Understanding these levels provides a framework for structuring a long-term development strategy. Level 1 is focused on individual development planning to improve employees’ performance in their current roles. This is about making sure employees have discussed development needs with their managers, have some form of development plan, and have access to development resources such as job-relevant training materials.

Figure 7.3 Development Process Maturity

1. Individual development plans: employees have access to development resource and are working to develop capabilities

2. Targeted development and replacement planning: employee development is focused on development requirements needed for current or future roles

3. Business-driven development: staffing and job assignments are made with development in mind

4. Career growth plans: employees are pursuing long- term career opportunities in the company

5. Maintaining talent pipelines: development is integrated with staffing and other management activities to ensure a steady supply of talent in key roles

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Level 2 emphasizes targeted development to build employee capabilities for tak- ing on new tasks or preparing for future job roles. Within the context of succession management, this level is often thought of as “replacement planning” to develop internal people who can replace more experienced employees if they leave or move into different roles. This level also includes focused training programs to help employees qualify for expanded responsibilities within their current jobs.

Level 3 emphasizes business-driven development where managers staff jobs, assign goals, and structure work groups in a way that stretches employees to develop new skills and capabilities. This level requires integrating career plan- ning and social learning with staffing and goal management so employees build new capabilities as a result of the work they are doing and whom they are work- ing with. Level 4 shifts the time horizon to the future by providing employees with guidance on identifying and achieving long-term career objectives within the organization. Mentoring, career planning, and succession management are highly important to achieving this level.

Level 5 is about integrating employee development with workforce planning and staffing to maintain a steady supply of high-performing talent in key jobs across the company. At this point, development becomes entirely intertwined with workforce staffing (see discussion: “Staffing and Development: Two Sides of the Same Coin”).

S T A F F I N G A N D D E V E L O P M E N T : T W O S I D E S O F T H E S A M E C O I N

Companies can increase workforce productivity in four basic ways: put

the right people in the right jobs, focus people on the right things,

ensure people are performing their jobs in the right way, and give peo-

ple assignments and tools that ensure they are getting the right devel-

opment. All of these processes are interrelated, but two are particularly

intertwined: right people and right development.

Having the right people requires having staffing processes that

attract, identify, and select employees whose attributes match the

demands of the jobs they are hired to perform. Providing the right devel-

opment is about creating processes that build employee attributes to

meet current and future job demands. A company’s ability to staff future

jobs using internal talent depends on its ability to develop the attributes

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of current employees. Conversely, the best way to develop employees

is to put them in positions that allow them to learn through on-the-job

experience. And one of the main motives for employees to develop their

attributes is to create future job opportunities for themselves.

At the highest levels of talent process maturity, staffing and devel-

opment become completely intertwined. Staffing focuses on creating

talent pipelines that ensure access to adequate numbers of qualified

candidates needed to fill ongoing job demands. Development focuses

on keeping talent flowing through these pipelines by creating inter-

nal talent pools of employees who have the attributes needed to per-

form critical job roles. Staffing leaders are in regular communication

with development leaders to align long-term workforce needs with

near-term development activities so the company builds talent before it

needs it. When a critical position opens, staffing and development lead-

ers discuss whether it makes sense to fill it externally or use it to build

the career of current high-potential employees. In addition, the devel-

opment opportunities provided by the company become integral to the

sourcing strategies it uses to attract talent into the organization.

Companies cannot do staffing at a high level of effectiveness with-

out focusing on development, and vice versa. These processes are two

sides of the same coin.

There are two general approaches to increasing development process matu- rity: starting with employee career goals and working upward, or starting with organizational talent needs and working down. The bottom-up approach focuses on providing tools and resources to help employees build their careers. Supporting employee career development is the primary focus in this approach. Process maturity is built through steadily adding tools and resources to help employees define career goals and pursue career paths to achieve these goals. The top-down approach focuses on building a steady supply of high-performing talent for critical roles in the company. Building talent pipelines is the primary goal in this approach. Process maturity is achieved by identifying what sort of talent the company needs and then building staffing and development programs to ensure the company has access to this talent.

The advantage of the bottom-up approach is that it can generate some very quick wins. The organization determines what sort of development resources

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will help employees achieve their career objectives and then finds ways to provide these resources. Career planning, training resources, social learning, and assess- ment measures typically play a major role in the early phases of this approach. These methods are tied directly to the career goals of employees so employees are likely to appreciate their value.

There are a few major limitations of the bottom-up approach. Employees’ career goals do not always align with their company’s talent requirements. The development methods that employees use may not necessarily be build- ing the workforce capabilities the company truly needs. It is also common for development process maturity to get stuck at level 1 or 2 of the maturity curve. Development methods like training and assessments that work well for individual development and targeted development cannot by themselves get companies to higher levels of process maturity. Achieving these higher levels requires imple- menting methods like succession management, which requires companies to change how they assign job tasks or make staffing decisions. These higher levels also require coordinating development with staffing and goal management. This coordination can be difficult for companies that are used to treating development as an activity primarily focused on supporting employee career goals. It requires a shift in mind-set within HR and within the line of business. HR leaders have to coordinate development processes with those used for staffing, performance management, and goal management. Business leaders have to start thinking about job assignments and promotions as tools for long-term development in addition to viewing them from the perspective of short-term business operations.

The top-down approach starts with a focus on succession management and talent pipelines. Starting from a higher level has several benefits. Because it is focused on the talent needs of the organization rather than the career goals of employees, it will inherently be aligned with the company’s talent requirements. It also forces the company to build development methods that support high lev- els of process maturity. Building talent pools requires getting line leadership to approach staffing and job assignments with a developmental mind-set. Once this higher-level mind-set has been accepted and adopted, it is much easier to build out the resources needed to support lower levels of development process matu- rity. For example, if managers know they will be rewarded for developing and promoting talent out of their teams, they are going to be much more supportive of efforts focused on individual and targeted employee development.

The main challenge with the top-down approach is that it requires consid- erable cross-functional integration and leadership commitment. Rather than

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focusing on the development needs of individual employees, the focus is on addressing longer-term talent needs identified by line leadership. Business lead- ers have to agree on where the company is going strategically and what sort of talent will be needed to execute this strategy. The top-down approach also emphasizes the use of cross-functional development methods like succession management that require close integration with other talent management areas, including development, staffing, workforce planning, and performance manage- ment. In sum, the downside of taking a top-down approach is that it requires a lot of coordination to define and launch the process. The benefit is that once it is launched, it is likely to have a much stronger business impact over the long term.

Most development programs are built through a mixture of top-down and bottom-up approaches. To be successful, development programs must support both the talent needs of the company and the career objectives of employees. True development success is achieved when an organization effectively aligns what the company needs employees to do, what employees are able to do, and what employees want to do.

7.6 CONCLUSION Development can be one of the most rewarding areas of talent management. It pro- vides a means to ensure you have the talent needed to achieve your company’s busi- ness goals and is critical to maintaining employee skills and knowledge to meet the changing nature of business. When done exceptionally well, development can even be used to acquire and keep high-performing employees from joining competitors. It achieves all of this through helping employees achieve their potential while sup- porting the talent requirements of the organization. In this sense, development truly embodies the concept of a win-win partnership between employees and companies.

Development can also be one of the most frustrating areas of strategic HR. It is frustrating because many development programs fail to have a meaningful impact on employee development or business performance. This failure is usu- ally the result of implementing development methods as stand-alone initiatives without adequately linking them to talent requirements and other strategic HR programs. Many failed development programs are classic examples of good con- cepts implemented in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong way.

This chapter discussed how to approach the design and deployment of devel- opment methods in an integrated fashion that will effectively address talent requirements tied directly to business needs. The chapter addressed fundamental

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concepts and design philosophies that underlie high-impact development pro- grams. Attending to the questions reviewed in this chapter will help ensure that the development methods you build and deploy will be grounded in a robust, well-integrated, and effective overall development program.

NOTES 1. There is a tendency to give development methods more expansive names

than the ones used here. This is done to encourage people to think of development more broadly—for example, referring to training resources as “learning management” to emphasize that training is not just about attending courses. I have intentionally chosen to use more narrowly defined names to clarify what it is that makes each of these methods unique from one another.

2. McCall, M. W. (2004). Leadership development through experience. Academy of Management Executive, 18, 127–130.

3. The only time it might make sense to run a development program in iso- lation is when it is being used purely for regulatory purposes (e.g., when employees must complete a training course mandated by law).

4. Stockdale, M. S., & Crosby, F. J. (2004). The psychology and management of workplace diversity. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

5. Burke, M. J., Sarpy, S. A., Smith-Crowe, K., Chan-Serafin, S., Salvador, R. O., & Islam, G. (2006). Relative effectiveness of worker safety and health training methods. American Journal of Public Health, 96, 315–324. Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T., & Huang, J. L. (2010). Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 36, 1065–1105.

6. These three categories of metrics are similar in many ways to Kirkpatrick’s levels of training criteria, which are widely used in the HR field. See Alliger, G. M., & Janak, E. A. (1989). Kirkpatrick’s level of training criteria: Thirty years later. Personnel Psychology, 42, 331–342. The difference is that Kirkpatrick’s framework does not include usage metrics since it assumes people have already completed training. But in practice, one of the main reasons development methods fail to work is that managers and employees never even use them.

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