EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT

Traditionally, Employee development focused on management level employees while line managers received training designed to help them improve skills needed to do their jobs. However, with the increased use of work teams and employees becoming increasingly involved in all aspects of business, development is becoming more important for all employees.

Development unlike training is future oriented especially because it is related to succession. As such, it involves learning that is not necessarily related to the employee’s current job. Other differences between training and development include;

1. While training helps to prepare employees to improve performance on their current jobs, development helps to prepare them for other positions in the company and increases their ability to move into jobs that may not yet exist. Development is therefore linked up with succession planning.
2. Because training focuses on improving employees’ performance on their current job, attendance to the training programs is mandatory. Development is only mandatory for those employees who have been identified as having managerial potential.
3. Although development is sometimes enhanced through planned development programs, it often results from work experiences. As training becomes more strategic, the distinction with development becomes more blurred. Both then become focused on current and future personal and company needs