Developmental Styles

Development Styles

Companies that create developmental plans for their employees must keep the focus on how can they improve the quality of their employees. Employees that participate in developmental programs are helping them to grow in their chosen career path with providing leadership skills that will prepare an employee for the future. (Laureate, 2011)

In creating a developmental plan for my company, Eckerd Kids, there a few areas that can benefit in preparing our employees for the future of our non-profit.

Mentoring - Mentoring is a feature that can add to preparing Eckerd employees for our role in preparing youth for the workforce. Allowing seasoned employees that are more experienced and have more knowledge to mentor and coach new hires can increase the collaboration with employees. (Noe, 2011) Learning best practices from a colleague may be better received than from a manager. Mentoring allows employees to share experiences and knowledge that can promote growth in a career path.

Onboarding- Onboarding is the described as a process for new staff to adjust to all the aspects of their new position. (Noe, 2011) Currently, our company does not have this process. It may be due to low turnover rates. Still, this could be beneficial to employees. According to Noe (2011), effective onboarding can increase job satisfaction, lower turnover outcomes, promote high performance and reduce workplace stress. Noe also suggests these four characteristics presented in a useful orientation:

·         Compliance-  understanding basic legal and policy information

·         Clarification- understanding job performance

·         Culture- company history, traditions, and values

·         Connection- understanding formal and informal relations

Job Rotation- Job rotation allows employees to work in other areas of the company to gain a holistic view of the business. Job rotation can be a great benefit because employees can improve critical thinking and decision making skills. (Noe, 2011)  Job rotation can help all employees and can allow managers to address developmental needs for job assignments. (Noe, 2011)

360-Degree Feedback System- this system allow themselves, colleagues, customers, and managers to evaluate their workplace performance. This can allow feedback from several views as to the employee’s performance. For example, an employee may be very useful for their customer, but not a team player, never wanting to lend a hand to help others. Managers may not be aware of these behaviors. This type of evaluation can also place the accountability on the employee to self-reflect and improve their work ethics.

References:

Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Employee development [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Noe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.