Brilliant Answers

chapter SEVEN Creating the Right Development Experiences

Executing business strategies requires having the right people doing the right things in the right way. Maintaining business execution over time requires developing employees to meet changing business demands. This chapter discusses concepts associated with employee development. Emphasis is placed on integrating development 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 transfer of training to help people use skills acquired in one setting to address business 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 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 communication 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.

Figure 7.1 How Development Works

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 provides 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 programs. Section 7.5 describes five levels of development process maturity and discusses methods for achieving each level.

THE 360 SURVEY FAD: A LESSON IN MISGUIDED DEVELOPMENT

Companies often implement development methods like training, 360 surveys, 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 matter 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 manager, 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 development 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 development method is effective all the time. These surveys can be very effective 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.

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

7.1 THE BASIC COMPONENTS OF A DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

The discussion in this chapter is built around understanding four basic components 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 responsibilities. The purpose of development is ultimately to address talent requirements. 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 employees 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: succession management, career planning, training resources, social learning, assessment measures, and transition management (see table 7.1). All development 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.

Table 7.1 Common Development Methods

*Nine box talent reviews are a method commonly used in succession management to evaluate employees 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 management activities to achieve learning objectives that address a specific set of talent requirements. Companies typically implement development methods 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 identified 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 experience working on the line in specific types of challenging environments (e.g., during storms or large-scale power outages). The company designed a development program that integrated four development methods: succession management 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-potential employees map out the actions and experiences they needed to be qualified for more specialized jobs working on the line, training resources to teach specialized 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 methods, 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 qualified talent for critical job roles. Historically succession management focused on figuring out who would replace top executives. Organizations now use succession management for roles across the company, including key individual contributor positions. Succession management in some companies extends all the way to frontline employees. Many tools have been created specifically to support succession management (e.g., nine box talent reviews), but much of succession management is actually about coordinating other talent processes such as 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 competencies 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 systems (LMS), which are technology platforms that coordinate, deliver, and manage 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 interaction. Social learning methods tend to fall into two categories: methods focused on creating one-to-one development, such as mentoring and coaching relationships, 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

• 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 demonstrate 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 categories: 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 providing 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 different 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 companies 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 development methods so they support one another in a coherent fashion. For example, 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 tendency for companies to treat the six methods listed in table 7.1 as separate programs managed by separate groups. For example, training resources, succession 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 different development methods in these companies are the employees who have to use them.

One can argue that companies need separate departments for these methods since each one requires attending to a variety of unique details and logistics. 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 development methods in as a short a time as possible rather than taking time to coordinate 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 methods 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 development methods because they cannot be sustained as isolated activities. The history of human resources is littered with defunct development methods that were launched with great fanfare, only to be dropped because they were never effectively linked into the broader talent management strategy.

Understanding common threads and interdependencies across development methods allows companies to leverage development resources for multiple purposes and avoid duplication of effort. Creating integrated development programs also allows managers and employees to experience development as a coherent 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 company's succession management needs.

Adopting the following perspectives helps to ensure that development programs 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 interrelate. Every development method provides information or tools that can be used to support each of the other five methods. For example, succession management 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 isolation. 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 inherently more valuable or important than another. The method that is most important 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 succession. The value of development methods depends on the talent requirements facing the organization.

(Hunt 249-260)

Hunt, Steven T. Commonsense Talent Management. Pfeiffer, 2014-02-10. VitalBook file.