Why employee development is so important

It can be challenging to focus on facilitating the growth of individual employees when you are busy running an entire department, division or even company. As Forbes contributor Victor Lipman points out, many supervisors feel like they are too busy putting out fires to devote a lot of time and resources to employee development. This, however, is a short-sighted mistake. You will be unlikely to retain your top talent if you don’t show them that you are actively investing in their professional futures.
One Harvard Business Review study found that many talented young professionals take their abilities elsewhere when they aren’t given concrete, structured opportunities to grow. Researchers surveyed more than 1,200 young high-achievers.
“Dissatisfaction with some employee-development efforts appears to fuel many early exits,” the study said. “We asked young managers what their employers do to help them grow in their jobs and what they’d like their employers to do, and found some large gaps. Workers reported that companies generally satisfy their needs for on-the-job development and that they value these opportunities, which include high-visibility positions and significant increases in responsibility. But they’re not getting much in the way of formal development, such as training, mentoring and coaching – things they also value highly.”
In other words, while managers might not think that employee development training is important, it is a priority for workers. Many companies likely don’t pursue such initiatives because they believe that they are time-consuming and expensive. However, that doesn’t have to be the case. Mastery Technologies offers a wide variety of cost-effective and efficient online courses to help build your employees’ skills and their loyalty to you and your company. Browse our offerings today.