Capitulo 6 - Employee Development

Question 1

What is employee development?

Answer 1

Combination of formal education, job experiences, relationships, and assessment of personality and abilities to help employees prepare for the future of their careers.
Development is bout preparing for change in the form of new jobs, new responsibilities, or new requirements.

Question 2

What is developing for careers?

Answer 2

Protean Carrer: A career that frequently changes based on changes in the person’s interests, abilities, and values in the work environment.
To remain marketable, employees must continually develop new skills.

Question 3

What is the difference between training and development?

Answer 3

Focus
Training: Current
Development: Future
Use of work experiences
Training: Low
Development: High
Goal
Training: Preparition for current job
Development: Preparation for changes
Participation
Training: Required
Development: Voluntary

Question 4

What are the four approaches to employee development?

Answer 4

(1) Interpersonal relationships
(2) Formal education
(3) Job experiences
(4) Assessment.

Question 5

Approaches to Employee Development (1)

What is formal education about?

Answer 5

It includes:
- Workshops
- Short courses
- Lectures
- Simulations
- Business games
- Experiential programs
Many companies operate training and development centers.

Question 6

Approaches to Employee Development (2)

What is assessment about?

Answer 6

• Collecting information and providing feedback to employees about their behavior, communication style, or skills.
• Information for assessment may come from the employees, their peers, managers, and customers.

Question 7

Approaches to Employee Development (2)

What are the assessment tools?

Answer 7

(2.1) Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI)
(2.2) Assessment centers
(2.3) Benchmarks assessment
(2.4) Performance appraisal
(2.5) 360-degree feedback

Question 8

Assessment Tools: Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI) (2.1)

What is MBTI?

Answer 8

• Psychological test that identifies individual’s preferences for source energy, means of information gathering, way of decision making, and lifestyle, providing information for team building and leadership development.
• Most popular test for employee development.
• Assessment consists of 100 + questions about how the person feels or prefers to behave in different situations
  Poor psychometric qualities (e.g., low reliability). Test should not be used in practice.

Question 9

Assessment Tools (2.2)

What are assessment centres?

Answer 9

An assessment process in which multiple raters or evaluators (assessors) evaluate employees’ performance on a number of exercises, usually as they work in a group at an offsite location.

Question 10

Assessment Tools (2.3)

What are benchmarks?

Answer 10

A measurement tool that gathers ratings of a manager’s use of skills associated with success in managing.

Question 11

Assessment Tools (2.4)

What are performance appraisals?

Answer 11

1. Appraisal system must tell employees specifically about their performance problems and ways to improve their performance.
2. Employees must gain a clear understanding of differences between current and expected performance.
3. Appraisal process must identify causes of performance discrepancy and develop plans for improving performance.

Question 12

Assessment Tools (2.5)

What is 360-degree feedback?

Answer 12

1. Raters identify an area of behavior as a strength of the employee or an area requiring further development.
2. Results presented to employee show how rating on each item and how self- evaluations differ from other raters’ evaluations.
3. Individual reviews results, seeks clarification from raters, and sets specific development goals based on strengths and weaknesses identified.

Question 13

Approaches to Employee Development (3)

What are job experiences?

Answer 13

Combination of tasks, relationships, problems, demands and other features of an employee’s jobs.
Most employee development occurs through job experiences.
Key job experience events include:
- Job assignments
- Interpersonal relationships
- Types of transitions
Through these experiences, managers learn how to handle common challenges, and prove themselves.

Question 14

Approaches to Employee Development (3)

How Job Experiences Are Used for Employee Development?

Answer 14

Enlargement of current job creates:
- Promotion
- Transfer
- Donward move
- Job rotation
Output: Temporary assignment to another organization

Question 15

Approaches to Employee Development (4)

What does Interpersonal Relationships?

Answer 15

Employees can also develop skills and increase their knowledge about the organization and its customers by interacting with a more experienced member:
- Mentoring
- Coaching

Question 16

What are the steps in the Career Management Process?

Answer 16

Data gathering
Criteria for success: Focus on competencies needed for career success.
Feedback
Criteria for success: Maintain confidentiality. Focus on specific success factors, strenghs, and improvement areas.
Goal setting
Criteria for success: Involve management and coaches/mentors. Specific competencies and knowledge to be developed.
Specific developmnet methods.
Action planning & follow-up
Criteria for success: Involve management and coaches/mentors.
Measure success and adjust plans as needed.
Verify that pace of development is realistic.

Question 17

Career Management Process - Data gathering: Self-Assessment

What is data gathering?

Answer 17

Use of information by employees to determine career interests, values, aptitudes, behavioral tendencies, and development needs.
- MBTI
- Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory
- Self-Directed Search

Question 18

Career Management Process - Feedback

What is feedback?

Answer 18

Information employers give employees about their skills and knowledge and where these assets fit into the organization’s plans.

Question 19

Career Management Process - Goal Setting

What is goal setting?

Answer 19

Based on information from self-assessment and reality check, employee sets short and long-term career objectives:
- Desired positions
- Level of skill to apply
- Work setting
- Skill acquisition

Question 20

Career Management Process - Action Planning & Follow-up

What is action planning & follow up?

Answer 20

• Employees prepare an action plan for how they will achieve their short and long-term career goals.
• Any one or a combination of development methods may be used, depending on development need and career objectives.

Question 21

What are the development-related challenges?

Answer 21

Glass ceiling
Succession planning
Dysfunctional managers.

Question 22

Development-Related Challenges

What is glass ceiling?

Answer 22

Circumstances resembling an invisible barrier that keep most women and minorities from attaining the top jobs in organizations.

Question 23

Development-Related Challenges

What are dysfunctional managers?

Answer 23

Manager who is otherwise competent may engage in some behaviors that make him or her ineffective or even “toxic” – stifles ideas and drives away good employees.

These dysfunctional behaviors include:
- insensitivity to others
- inability to be a team player
- arrogance
- poor conflict management skills
- inability to meet business objectives
- inability to adapt to change

When a manager is an otherwise valuable employee and is willing to improve, the organization may try to help him or her change the dysfunctional behavior:
- Assessment
- Training
- Counseling

Question 24

List the process for developing a Succession Plan

Answer 24

1. Identify Positions to Plan for
2. Identify Employees to include
3. Define Jobe Requirements
4. Measure Employee Potential
5. Review and Plan to Meet Development Needs
6. Link Succession Planing with other HR systems
7. Provide Feedback to employees
8. Measure the Plan’s Effectiveness