Development is a Partnership

Remember that thing called “development”? It seems companies have lost sight of it and employees have become brats about the situation. It is pretty much essential for today’s businesses to be able to quickly identify their top and even average performers. It is even more essential that once these individuals have been identified that a plan of sorts is created to guide the development strategy for each of those employees.

While managing multiple development plans may seem insurmountable- it must be done. The question becomes who is ultimately responsible for monitoring and seeing it out to completion?

The answer is…

Development is a partnership. I don’t know when employees became so entitled that they completely removed themselves from this process, but let the madness cease. Yes, it is ideal and reasonable to expect that your employer have strategies to develop their talent. It is equally impressive if they develop the plan, execute and follow-up with each person on their progress without any reminders or nudges from the employees.

The reality is most of us our functioning in our businesses in less than ideal or reasonable conditions. The workloads are never-ending and the best intentions are never realized because of time constraints and diminishing resources. With this premise as our reality, it is both unfair and unreasonable to believe that the responsibility for development of employees lies solely with the employer.

Employees more than ever have to become their own strongest advocates both in the office and out. Waiting for recognition, kudos or new opportunities within your company are no longer commonplace. If you want more responsibility, you have to come to the table with why you should be given more as well as the plan to move your potential promotion ahead. If your immediate supervisor is astute and dedicated enough to address development at all, you, the employee needs to be prepared to hold him or her to task by being an active participant in your own development.

Is it reasonable for today’s managers to manage individual development plans?

The answer is it depends on your organization and circumstances. Looking at development from the lens of an employer-employee partnership alleviates a lot of the pressure off your managers and puts the employee in the driver seat of their development. When both the employee and employer are excited, dedicated and willing to partner to meet development milestones you have a win-win situation for everyone.