Employee Development: HRM's Vital Role in Talent Management - Essay Sample

Introduction

Employee development is one of the primary functions of Human Resource Management (HRM) that has become a crucial part of talent management in most organizations. According to Fajcíková et al. (2016), employee development is now a vital concept of HRM in the 21st century owing to its role in building talents, competencies, and competitive advantages among the workers. Research has also demonstrated that pressure on talent management is increasing, a situation that has led to great emphasis on the essence of the ongoing employee development (Fajcíková et al., 2016). The ever-changing business environment and competition for skilled workers are the main factors driving the need for employee development strategies. Large Technology Corporation (LTC) should, therefore, have comprehensive employee development plans as it allows its professionals to acquire new skills and competencies.

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Training Needs of LTC’s Customer Service Employees

The assessment of training needs is the process of identifying and prioritizing training requirements to boost knowledge and skills (Pradhan & Kumar, 2011). The performance evaluation report for LTC provides valuable information that acts as the basis of identifying training needs. Based on this information, Jay Charnek should focus on the following training needs: interpersonal skills training, management skills training, professionalism, leadership development, and teamwork. Other elements are problem-solving, creativity, and innovation.

These areas of employee development will help the staff to develop customer service skills that are not limited to active listening, effective communication, timeliness, creativity, and attentiveness. Jerry lacks effective verbal communication skills, and this situation may lower customer satisfaction. Arick lacks active listening and timeliness skills, while Carlo’s weakness is inadequate professionalism. Other skill gaps that Jay will address by focusing on these training needs are creativity, empathy, knowledge of LTC's products, patience, and open-mindedness.

Three important learning objectives will help guide employee development plans and, more importantly, address specific employee needs. First, it aims at providing job-related knowledge to enable the workers to have a proper understanding of LTC and its products. Secondly, it aims at changing the attitudes of employees towards career goals and development to prepare them to take more responsibilities. The third one is to impart the necessary skills among members of the department to enable them to attend to customer needs effectively.

Training and Development Opportunities

Peer-to-peer training is one of the strategies that Jay should implement to address training needs among his members of staff. Through this approach, customer service employees will learn new skills from each other. The justification for this training opportunity is based on the idea that some of LTC’s members of staff have essential customer service skills that are also a source of weakness among other employees. As such, collaboration through peer-to-peer learning will help address skill gaps in some of the workers. As an example, Frank is motivated and is interested in taking bigger roles at LTC while Arick does not want to learn new tasks as he is interested in maintaining the status quo. Through peer-learning as well as interaction, Frank can help Arick change his attitudes about additional responsibilities.

This training opportunity is also justifiable since employees such as Frank have vast experience in customer service, while others like Jerry and Carlos are new in the profession. Frank has been at LTC for five years while Sarah joined the company three months ago. These elements suggest that solutions to the skills gap at LTC do not require expert training (external training) but rather peer-peer learning strategies within LTC (internal training). Jay can implement this training program by adopting work schedules and programs that allow junior employees to work with their experienced counterparts. Another delivery method is the adoption of a rotational program to enable remote and office workers to develop a sense of community.

The skills gap in Carlos emanates from his position as a remote worker. However, this internal training initiative will address training needs about teamwork, professionalism, creativity, and problem-solving. The reason is that it encourages collaboration and besides enhancing skills development through interaction between junior and senior employees.

Besides peer-to-peer learning, LTC should facilitate customer service seminars. This training opportunity is justifiable since seminars allow employees to know trends in the industry and the latest technologies that enable them to do their customer service duties more effectively. Through seminar training, LTC’s staff would be able to exchange essential ideas with their counterparts in other companies, a situation that will enhance their competitiveness.

This method will help address training needs about problem-solving, innovation, and leadership development. The reason is that seminars provide an opportunity for professionals to challenge one another to become creative in addressing emerging challenges. Accordingly, Arick will understand that the industry is evolving, and he should be ready to take new responsibilities to remain competitive. The most appropriate delivery method for this training program is LTC’s collaboration with other organizations in organizing customer service professional seminars. So, both internal and external, professional, and technical training is necessary at LTC.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement practices help human resource managers to improve productivity among their employees. McClelland’s Theory of Needs (MTN) best explains talent development plans at LTC. It states that people acquire specific needs over time, all of which depend on their life experiences (Arnolds & Boshoff, 2003). According to MTN, three needs, namely affiliation motivation, achievement motivation, and power or authority motivation, influence an individual’s effectiveness and motivation in specific tasks.

MTN communicates LTC’s talent development plan because its three needs are in line with employee training goals in the department. The affiliation motivation component focus on promoting friendly relationships and interactions with other people. This aspect communicates the situation at LTC, where some employees are introverts and struggle to establish friendly relations with the customers. Achievement motivation states that people should strive for advancements in their jobs by taking challenging but realistic goals. Jay can use this idea to design strategies that would motivate employees reluctant to take more responsibilities.

Jay can use Laissez-Faire Style to promote employee autonomy and also allow employees to play a leading role in their development. Under this technique, managers would play minimal oversight roles as it gives workers the freedom to make critical decisions. So, Jay needs to provide resources that would allow employees to plan how they would execute their tasks. While Jay would still guide teams, workers would be independent.

Measuring Effectiveness

Jay should measure the performance of employees after every 14 days to determine the impact of training and development programs. In this regard, he can review customer feedback and compliments from the customers to determine if employees are developing in terms of essential customer service skills. Jay may as well administer test scores after every two weeks after implementing a job rotation strategy to determine whether the company has met its employee development goals. For the seminar programs, LTC may do employee evaluation every month to know if members of staff are incorporating new ideas into their work practices. In case there would be no improvement, LTC should resort to implementing talent development plans that address the specific needs of individual employees rather than the whole group.

LTC would collect feedback from its professionals on the delivery of talent development initiatives by administering employee engagement surveys. This method provides information about the attitudes of individual employees towards talent development programs in place. Also, LTC would use the employee suggestion box to encourage workers to share honest feedback.

References

Arnolds, C. A., & Boshoff, C. (2003). The influence of McClelland's need satisfaction theory on employee job performance. Journal of African Business, 4(3), 55-81. https://doi.org/10.1300/j156v04n03_04

Fajcíková, A., Fejfarová, M., & Urbancová, H. (2016). Employee development by talent management. Scientific papers of the University of Pardubice. Series D, Faculty of Economics and Administration. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316136586

Pradhan, R. K., & Kumar, S. (2011). The necessity of training and identification of training needs. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305033478