Employees personal and professional development

By Markey Read

Wouldn’t it be great if every person you hired came with all the professional skills needed to work for your company? Gone would be the days of training new employees in basic concepts like quality, teamwork, productivity, and customer service.

Many employers hope that only the most qualified apply for every position. Hiring managers dream of the day when they will not have to weed through hoards of untrained, unqualified candidates.

When it comes to providing employees with quality professional development, however, some of those same employers do not want to invest the time, energy, and money. Whose responsibility is it to develop people into quality employees? Does it rest with larger companies to train their people because they can “afford” it? Or can smaller companies contribute by offering professional development opportunities as a way to attract and retain highly qualified people?

Ongoing Professional Development Matters in the Long Run

There was a time when all major employers actively developed young professionals into managers, leaders, and key contributors because they took responsibility for their employees. While many employees were still excluded from those opportunities, the days of systemic professional career development are long gone and forgotten at most companies for all levels. The few companies that do still provide opportunities often fail to train their managers in how to support people in accessing the available internal and external resources.

In order to retain quality people and attract more quality people to your company, it is essential that you have a well-developed professional development process that includes formal (workshops, college classes, certifications) and informal (on-the-job, mentoring, peer-to-peer exchange, job shadowing) options. Since the average time any employee stays is about five years (less for younger professionals), investing in training may seem like a losing proposition. If, however, you consider that a bored or untrained employee can cost money in low productivity and higher turnover rates, training sounds more feasible. Most young professionals point to a lack of opportunity for personal and professional growth for their reasons to leave; and by the way, more mature professionals report the same.