Given that this second model is best understood from an appreciative perspective, I offer several suggestions in this essay and the next two concerning the ways in which employee development can be approached in an appreciative manner. In this essay I describe four modes in which to design and implement employee development programs. In the next essay I consider five sources of training and educational expertise that can be found in any organization. I conclude this survey in the third essay by identifying ten basic strategies for effective, and appreciative, human resource development. In each instance, I link developmental program ideas and strategies to the appreciative strategies I have described in other essays in this series, thereby enabling an appreciative consultant to help their client liberate the human resource potentials in his or her organization in an even more effective manner.
Employee Development:: Four Modes of Training and Education
Employee development in an organization comes in many different forms and occurs at many different times during the career of an employee. Developmental activities during the 20th Century were provided primarily at the start of an employee’s employment in the organization or at the point when the employee assumed a new position in the organization. A quite different assumption is made in many contemporary organizations. Training and education are assumed to be of great value as an ongoing part of the developmental processes of the organization.
The emerging emphasis on organizational learning further suggests that the most important set aptitudes an employee should possess relate directly to their abiding interest in and capacity to learn over their lifetime. It is not so much what an employee brings to her first job that will determine her success in the organization. Career success is based much more on her interest in acquiring and ability to acquire the skills and knowledge needed for the second, third and fourth job she performs in the organization. Even if she remains in her current job for many years, the contemporary knowledge worker must be a skillful and willing learner. Inevitably, she will need new skills and knowledge to cope effectively with the changes that are going to occur in her job.
