Employee development includes “formal education, job
experiences, relationships, and assessment of personality and skills that help
employees prepare for the future” (Noe, 2013, p.367). Development is important
not only for preparing employees for expanding their ability to grow into new
roles or positions, but also for expanding their abilities and preparing them
for changes within the workplace that take place both due to external and
internal impacts (Noe, 2013). To address my own personal development both to
prepare myself for new roles or opportunities and to prepare myself for changes
that may occur in my workplace there are several types of development that I can
initiate both on my own as well as with the support of my current employer. These
include formal education outside my workplace, formal education within my
workplace, job experiences, and interpersonal relationships.
Formal Education Within My
Workplace
Formal education sponsored by organizations can occur both
off-site and on-site and with some programs that are designed to be directly
linked to the organization’s business strategies (Noe, 2013). The organization
that I currently work for has many different formal education programs that
employees can attend to obtain various certifications and acquire knowledge and
skills needed for supporting some of the business goals that the organization
has. These programs include a focus on development of leadership skills as well
as other functional programs such as certifications in six sigma process
improvement or certifications in project management. Attending programs that
focus on leadership will help to support me in my current career track at the
organization and obtaining certifications in other areas will help me support
some of the goals of the organization in improving processes and ensuring
productivity.
Formal Education Outside of My
Workplace
While my organization offers a wide variety of formal
education programs to support my development, I also intend to continue pursue
educational programs outside of my workplace. Many organizations offer tuition
reimbursement which allows employees to receive financial contributions towards
coursework and degree programs that can support their development (Noe, 2013).
Tuition reimbursement has been shown to also support “employee retention rates
and readiness for promotion, and improve job performance" (Noe, 2013, p.379). My
organization does provide a tuition reimbursement program and while I am not
currently taking advantage of this for completing the graduate program I am
currently enrolled in I do plan on utilizing this benefit for future pursuits of
coursework that will help me grow professionally in my current role and help me
with being ready for taking on new roles within the organization in the future.
Job Experiences
Job experiences are an approach to development that helps
employees to apply their existing knowledge and skills to new experiences in
order to expand and develop new skills (Noe, 2013). At the end of August I will
have completed my masters in instructional design and technology with a
specialization in training and performance improvement. My development plan for
myself includes having the opportunity for job enlargement and volunteer
assignments to help me expand and develop some of the skills I have acquired
through this graduate program as well as within my current role. Job
enlargement consists of providing new responsibilities to an existing job
through new projects, assignments, or roles (Noe, 2013). I have already had opportunities to take on a new roles within my department to expand my skills, but
I am looking forward to taking on other responsibilities and projects to
develop and expand on some of the instructional design skills I have acquired.
More specifically in the short term I envision taking on a project of
redesigning our new hire training program that has not been addressed in
several years. I also foresee volunteer assignments playing an integral role in
my development as it will give me an opportunity to expand my skills by
experiencing new challenges and responsibilities that I may not encounter in my
job (Noe, 2013). Additionally, volunteer work is an important development
opportunity as it will help me to fulfill some of the values that organization
has outside of work and will promote my overall well-being as I will feel
gratified by having the opportunity to give back to the community.
Interpersonal Relationships
Interpersonal relationships help employees to develop their
knowledge of the organization through either mentoring or coaching where the
employee is able to interact with individuals who have more experience within
the organization (Noe, 2013). The type of interpersonal relationship
development that I plan to partake in is mentoring. “A mentor is an experienced
productive senior employee who helps develop less experience employees” (Noe,
2013, p.394). I plan to partake in this development activity in two ways both
by establishing a relationship with an experienced employee in a leadership
position as well as through providing my mentoring to an employee who is
seeking out a mentor. Our organization has a formal mentor program that uses a
database matching system where employees are matched to a mentor with the
skills and expertise that the employee is seeking development in (Noe, 2013). I
will utilize this formal program to help further develop my leaderships as well
as assist other employee seeking development. I also plan to establish a more informal
mentor relationship with a manager within my department who can help me to grow
and further develop my leadership skills.
References
Noe,
R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6th ed.). New York, NY:
McGraw Hill.