Evaluate a range of employee development methods and barriers to Essay

Evaluate a range of employee development methods and barriers to effective learning within organisations - Essay Example â€Å"Development is a continuous improvement process that occurs at both the organizational and individual level. At the organizational level, leaders must actively manage the overall talent mix. Effective leaders recognize the need to fill key positions with individuals who have a competitive advantage in performing their roles when compared with their peers across the industry.† (Koch 2007) This competitive advantage stems from the organizational efforts to train and develop its individuals in a way so as to add value to their expertise as well to the overall organization. History is filled with examples where companies have placed immense emphasis on its employee development programs. Organizations come up with new and novel ways to train and motivate their employees and build their career for the benefit of both the employee and the organization. The learning based interactive system developed by IBM in the 1980s lead to marked improvement in the work quality of its emplo yee. Although when this system was developed IBM was losing from its competitors and incurring loses, but the company in its difficult time did not let do of its employee development and the new and innovative learning system helped the firm come back in business. The employee development methods form the basis of improving employees’ skill and technical expertise. â€Å"Employee Development methods fall under two general categories: on-the-job and off-the-job methods. The on-the-job methods consist job rotation, assistant-to positions, mentoring, special projects, and committee assignments, while off-the-job methods consist of formal education and outdoor training.† (Medina 2006) Talking of the on-the-job training, the most common method is the job rotation which is the systematic movement of an employee from one position to the other in the same or different departments. This method claims to develop employee understanding of the overall organization by moving the em ployee and making him actually do what is required in each unit of the organization. â€Å"Numerous firms have used job rotation, including American Cyanamid Baker Hughes, Ford and Prudential Insurance,† (Griffin & Moorhead 2011) The proponents of this method argue that this type of development is required by the organization in order to familiarize the employee with all the departments and technologies and methodology that the firm uses. But the opponents argue that it makes the employee jack of all trade and master of none. According to them when employees move from one department to the other, the shorter time span adds to the confusion resulting in errors that decreases the productivity of the employee. Another off shoot of the job rotation is the job enlargement which is also known as the horizontal loading of work. It involves the increasing of number of tasks in the same job as performed by previous employees. The rationale behind the inclusion of increasing number of tasks is to reduce monotony of the worker. But this kind of loading takes a toll on the time required to complete the job thus resulting in a decrease in the efficiency. However firms have gained some advantage such as employee motivation due to