At its core, employee development is the process of improving and refining employees’ existing skills while developing new ones that support organisational objectives. When an employee is confident in their abilities, they’re less likely to struggle with everyday tasks, meaning they’ll complete them at a higher quality and more efficiently.  
 
An employee with limited skills and/or limited interest in developing them can cost their organisations time and money, and negatively impact culture. Letting these employees go can cost almost as much as keeping them, whereas investing in their development negates these issues and improves retention.  
 
When executed correctly, employee development can benefit organisations and employees through: 

• Improved Performance. Poor performance occurs when employees aren’t sure about what they’re supposed to do, how they’re supposed to do it and why they are doing it. Effective development will ultimately improve productivity through both learned technical skills and soft skills.
• Adaptability. The world around us is constantly changing in response to massive forces of business called megatrends. What worked once may not work now. An adaptable employee is largely unfazed by sudden turns of events and can respond effectively.
• Attractive Culture. A continuous learning culture is highly attractive to potential employees, especially the younger generation starting to enter the workforce. The value proposition of professional development is more likely to attract the right prospects for the right vacancy.
• Increased Retention. The longer an employee stays, the more well versed they are in culture and expectations. The simplest way to retain an employee is to train them to fill skills gaps rather than looking externally.
• Leadership Pipeline. Finding the right person to lead is difficult because no longer does seniority demand promotion, nor does someone with awards and merit against their name necessarily have the skills to manage. Training leaders enables you to define the skills that are most important to your organisation.

 
Building personalised training for your entire workforce can be easily achieved by following a few key steps:  

• Ask your employees what they need. Employee development is only engaging if employees find it interesting and useful. One-on-ones between managers and team members are a good jumping off point to discuss what skills those employees would like to develop.
• Define organisational goals. Assessing your workforce’s long-term goals is vital for determining the crucial skills you’re missing. Employees need to understand why they’re being asked to develop skills in a certain area, and may disengage with no explanation.
• Create on-the-job opportunities. On-the-job training gives employees a chance to contextually apply new skills, which creates a basis of experience they can build on for future circumstances.
• Evaluate and adjust. Most of the benefits from employee development are long-term, so it’s important to have metrics against which you can evaluate success or use to determine adjustments.

 
Whether you have a plan in place or you’re only just starting to design one, these 5 key tips can improve your offering and reap short-term benefits: 

• Train from day one. Employees need the tools and resources to do their job well from the day they start. Remember: Onboarding sets the tone for the rest of their careers with you.
• Train your managers. Part of effective training is to ensure you have managers who lead by example and champion employee development in their teams.
• Encourage collaboration. Implement cross-departmental collaboration to encourage employees to learn about different pain points that could affect their work, other parts of the business, and how to create healthier dynamics.
• Strengthen soft skills. Soft skills are those that can take someone from an average worker to a future leader. In this age of automation, the critical skills of the future are not technical, but behavioural.
• Invest in personal development. Positivity inspires productivity, and this is the kind of environment where employees want to come to work. If employees don’t feel their best, they certainly won’t perform their best.

 
For a more in-depth look at employee development, have a read of the full article.