The Workplace Coach

Most employers will provide some form of training or professional development for staff.  This can often be a real challenge for organisations for a variety of reasons.  The workforce might be very diverse with a wide range of roles, specialists and generalists, with a broad age demographic and differing levels of maturity, education and personal circumstances.  The key to solving the dilemma of providing development options for all needs to start with understanding that there are three very distinct development mindsets in your workforce. 

These three groups of employees have very different views on personal and professional development, and individuals can transition from one group to another during their careers.  Positioning at any point in time will vary according to an individual’s career aspirations, prior training or qualifications, levels of engagement with their current role, and can be summarised as follows: 

1. I’m looking for something – Self-motivated – these employees are keen to learn in order to become better at their current roles and be more prepared for future roles.  These employees will seek out development opportunities in their own time, and welcome any attempt by the employer to assist their development through relevant and meaningful learning or stretch opportunities.  These people are often very interested in on the job development options but would also welcome the more formal classroom training options resulting in a qualification.  
2. I’m not looking for anything – Unmotivated – these employees either do not feel that they need development or perhaps may be no longer be fully engaged with their work.  Development opportunities are often wasted on these employees, they will attend and participate if directed to do so but are not really interested in learning or developing new skills.  These employees may or may not have performance issues, some will simply have reached as far as they want to in their career and are not seeking further advancement or development. 
3. It’s your job to develop me – Entitled – these people are not self-motivated to pursue learning activities, and are unlikely to participate in learning and development outside of work hours in their own time.  They feel that it is an obligation of the employer to develop staff.  They are unlikely to seek out development opportunities at work unless there is a financial incentive attached, are a far more interested in employer funded formal development that will add to their resume/qualifications. 

The Learning Contract 

Daniel Tobin, author and expert on organisational development, recommends that employees need to take responsibility for their own learning.  He proposes that employees who are interested in development need to negotiate a ‘learning contract’, which is a plan for ongoing and continuous development, with their immediate supervisor. “Nobody in the company knows better what the employee needs to learn than the employee and his or her immediate manager.” 

There is further work for here for Human Resource professionals to ensure that managers are having these conversations with their employees, that managers understand what the employee’s development mindset is, and then that they work with the employee to develop an appropriate learning contract for professional development over the coming year. 

Let these Learning Contracts then inform the development options that the employer might make available to employees. There will rarely be a one size fits all approach, and in fact tailoring professional development for those self-motivated employees will likely be a more strategic and cost effective option for employers. 

If you found this article useful and would like to talk more about how you might look to develop your people, get in touch with our experts at The Workplace Coach. We are here to help.