Chapter 8

Developing Employees for Future Success

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 What Do I Need to Know?

LO 8-1 Discuss how development is related to training and careers.

LO 8-2 Identify the methods organizations use for employee development.
LO 8-3 Describe how organizations use assessment of personality type, work behaviors, and job
performance to plan employee development.
LO 8-4 Explain how job experiences can be used for developing skills.
LO 8-5 Summarize principles of successful mentoring programs.
LO 8-6 Tell how managers and peers develop employees through coaching.
LO 8-7 Identify the steps in the process of career management.
LO 8-8 Discuss how organizations are meeting the challenges of the “glass ceiling,” succession
planning, and dysfunctional managers.

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 Training, Development, and Career Management 1

Development and Training

Employee development.
• Combination of formal education, job experience, relationships, and assessment of
personality and abilities to help employees prepare for future careers.
• Prepares employees for change in new jobs and responsibilities.
• Prepares employees for changes in their current jobs.

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 Table 8.1 Training versus Development

Category Training Development

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

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 Training, Development, and Career Management 2

Development for Careers

Protean career.
• Employees take responsibility for managing their careers.
• Employees are continually developing marketable skills.

Employers and employees need to find matches between:

• Employees’ interests, skills, and weaknesses.
• Development experiences involving jobs, relationships, and formal courses.
• Career management (development planning).

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 Figure 8.1 Four Approaches to Employee Development

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 Approaches to Employee Development 1

Formal Education
• Includes workshops, short courses, lectures, simulation, business games, experiential
programs, and meetings.
• Many companies have training and development centers.
• Can occur off-site or through the Internet.

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 Approaches to Employee Development 2

Assessment
Collecting information and providing feedback to employees about behavior,
communication, or skills.
Most frequently used to assess managerial potential.
Comes from employees, peers, managers, or customers.
Methods of assessment vary:
• Psychological tests.
• Self, peer, and management ratings.
• Assessment centers.

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 Approaches to Employee Development 3

Assessment continued
Psychological profiles.
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
• Measures four areas: energy (introversion or extroversion), information-gathering (sensing
or intuitive), decision making (thinking or feeling), and lifestyle (judging or perceiving).
• Helps organizations understand the communication, motivation, teamwork, work styles,
and leadership of the people in their groups.
• Research on effectiveness is inconclusive.

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 Approaches to Employee Development 4

Assessment continued
Psychological profiles continued.
• DiSC assessment tool.
• Report describes employees’ behavioral style, preferred environment, and strategies for
effectiveness.
• Categories are dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness.

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 Approaches to Employee Development 5

Assessment Centers
Usually off-site.
Identify whether employees have the personality
characteristics, administrative skills, and
interpersonal skills for managerial jobs or for working
in teams.
Types of activities:
• Leaderless group discussions.
• Interviews.
• In-baskets.
• Role-plays.

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 Approaches to Employee Development 6

Performance Appraisals and 360-Degree Feedback

Performance appraisal is a formal process for measuring employee performance.
• Identifies causes of performance discrepancy and develops plans for improvement.

360-degree feedback is performance measurement by the employee’s

supervisor, peers, employees, and customers.

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 1
The DiSC assessment tool is an inventory of behavioral styles.
Based on the descriptions below, indicate which dimension you
POLLING QUESTION
think you would score highest in.
A. Dominance: emphasizes results and displays confidence. This person takes
on challenges, sees the big picture, and can be blunt and to the point.
B. Influence: emphasizes relationships and persuasion. This person likes to
collaborate, dislikes being ignored, and displays optimism and enthusiasm.
C. Steadiness: emphasizes cooperation, sincerity, and dependability. This
person behaves calmly and with humility, dislikes rushing, and is supportive
of others.
D. Conscientiousness: emphasizes quality and accuracy, displaying
competency. This person worries about mistakes and wants to get the
details. He or she favors objective thinking and enjoys working
independently.

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 Approaches to Employee Development 7

Job Experiences Working outside one’s home country is the

most important job experience that can develop
• Combination of relationships, problems, an employee for a career in the global economy.
demands, tasks, and other features of
an employee’s job.
• Most employee development occurs
here.

Radius Images/Alamy Stock Photo

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 Approaches to Employee Development 8

Types of Job Assignments

Job enlargement.
Job rotation.
Transfer, promotions, and downward moves.
Temporary assignments with other organizations.
• Externship.
• Sabbatical.

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 Figure 8.2 How Job Experiences Are Used for Employee Development

Access the text alternative for slide images.

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 Approaches to Employee Development 9

Interpersonal Relationships
• Employees can develop skills and increase their knowledge by interacting with
experienced members of organization.
• Mentor: experienced, productive senior employee who helps develop less
experienced employee.
• Coach: peer or manager who motivates employee, helps them develop skills, and
provides reinforcement/feedback.

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 2
Gerome starts out at a new company as a sales person. After a
few years, he becomes known as a reliable and hard-working
POLLING QUESTION
employee. His boss asks Gerome to be a mentor to new sales
representatives. What type of employee development is
Gerome experiencing?
A. Formal education
B. Job enlargement
C. Job rotation
D. Transfer

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 Systems for Career Management 1

Career Management System

Data gathering.
• Often aimed at providing individual employees with information about themselves.
• Tools for self-assessment (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory,
the Self-Directed Search).

Feedback.
• Employee’s responsibility to identify what skills she or he could realistically develop.
• Organization’s responsibility is to communicate the performance evaluation and the
opportunities available to the employee, given the organization’s long-range plans.

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 Systems for Career Management 2

Career Management System continued

Goal setting (long- and short-term).
• Desired positions.
• Level of skill to apply.
• Work setting.
• Skill acquisition.

Action planning and follow-up.

• Prepared by employee.
• Includes steps and timetable to reach goals.
• May result in a career development plan.
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 Figure 8.3 Steps in the Career Management Process

Access the text alternative for slide images.

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 Development-Related Challenges 1

The Glass Ceiling

Invisible barrier that keeps most women and minorities from attaining top jobs.
Caused by lack of access to:
• Training programs, developmental job experiences, and developmental relationships.

Developmental systems help break the glass ceiling.

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 Development-Related Challenges 2

Succession Planning
Identifying and tracking high-potential employees who can fill key positions
when they become vacant.
• Senior management regularly reviews leadership talent.
• Ensures critical talent is available.
• Provides development experience that managers must complete.
• Helps attract and retain managerial employees.

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 Figure 8.6 Process for Developing a Succession Plan

Sources: Based on B. Dowell,

“Succession Planning,” in Implementing Organizational Interventions, ed.
Access the text alternative for slide images. J. Hedge and E. Pulakos (San Francisco: Jossey- Bass, 2002), pp. 78–109;
R. Barnett and S. Davis, “Creating Greater Success in Succession Planning,
” Advances in Developing Human Resources 10 (2008), pp. 721–739.
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 Development-Related Challenges 3

Dysfunctional Managers
May engage in behaviors that make them ineffective or “toxic.”
• Insensitivity to others.
• Inability to be a team player.
• Arrogance.
• Poor conflict-management skills.
• Inability to meet business objectives.
• Inability to adapt to change.

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 End of Chapter 8

© 2022 McGraw Hill. All rights reserved. Authorized only for instructor use in the classroom. No reproduction or further distribution permitted without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill. 26