Personal Development Interventions
Responsibility for personal professional development in the workplace is the duty of the individual (see Table 5-9). The demand for new knowledge, new skills, tolerant attitudes, and new ways of doing things is constant. Moving beyond short-term fixes and solutions to long-term goals helps position people for future success. (Short- term fixes are sometimes appropriate.)
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One way to approach personal development interventions is to help the employee develop an action plan.
Reasonable long- and short-term goals are set, guideposts for achieving them are determined, and measures of success are noted. An action plan should focus on:
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Where am I going? (Long-term career plans)
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Where am I now? (Current position)
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How am I going to get there? (Effective strategies and tactics to achieve goal)
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How will I know when I have arrived? (Personal assessment and satisfaction)
Four personal development interventions are suggested here: mentoring and coaching, career development, career assessment, and feedback. These are considered personal interventions because individuals assume ownership. Each intervention is determined by how it fits into the employee's personal action plan.
Mentoring and Coaching
There is a difference between mentoring and coaching. In Homer's Odyssey a character named Mentor is a friend of the hero Odysseus who undertakes the education of the hero's son, Telemachus. Today mentoring is offering emotional support and guidance by an experienced person to a less experienced one. Mentors offer a wealth of experience to their students. It's a relationship of mutual trust and respect between two people with a common goal of professional development and learning. Mentors know their organization, have exemplary managerial and leadership skills, can give and share credit, have good common sense, and, above all, are generally patient people.
Coaching is the help that managers give to employees by examining and guiding on-the-job performance. It's teaching the " ropes " of the organization by providing relevant positive and negative feedback to improve both performance and potential. The coach is usually a manager of a unit or a team leader. Coaching allows for rehearsing and practicing. In job performance, coaches help people set goals, provide support, analyze barriers, and plan for the future. They are people who set good examples, inspire loyalty, celebrate successes, and empower by saying "we" instead of "I."
Organizations that support mentoring and coaching programs allow employees to grow. Both the organization and the employees win. [49]
Career Development
Career development concerns the match of a person's abilities , interests, etc., to the person's position and career plan with the focus on professional growth and enhancement of the work role. The process is continuous. The individual and the organization share an interest in an individual's career, and both parties to influence that career. As technology and rapid change drive continuous skill development and lifelong learning and job market skills continue to change, people are increasingly taking responsibility for their own career development. The workplace is becoming more globally oriented and far more diverse than ever before.
Organizations also need to manage the career development process by analyzing what will increase the value of the individual and his or her position. The knowledge, skills, attitudes, aptitudes, interests, and values of individuals must be periodically assessed to ensure a fit with the mission, goals, and business of the organization. Through career development, both parties contribute to the value-added chain.
Career Assessment
Career assessment can be considered an employee selection tool and an opportunity for advancement. In both cases employees are engaged in simulations, role playing, group discussions, and various self-assessment inventories. These are assessment and processes during which feedback is provided to the employee for increased self-awareness . This information helps the employee develop career goals, strategies, instructional support modalities, and a personal evaluation plan. The process of career assessment will help align individual career goals with institutional goals. And because most people will hold numerous jobs during their careers, continuous assessment for development may make them more marketable.
Three popular career assessment instruments are frequently used by companies to assist individuals along their career journey: self-directed search, career ability placement survey, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Table 5-10 below examines each.
| Career Assessment Instruments [a] | ||
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| Self-directed Search (SDS) | Career Ability Placement Survey (CAPS) | Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) |
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| [a] Career Assessment Instruments , 1998, December 16 [Online] (http:/careers.Valencia.cc.fl.us/instruments.htm) | ||
Feedback
Everyone appreciates constructive feedback whether it is positive or negative. A cook wants to know how the white sauce tastes. At the end of a semester a teacher asks for impressions of the course. The facilitator during a week's training frequently solicits thoughts and builds them into the training sessions. Similarly, people look for feedback in a work setting. Feedback about on-the-job performance strengthens learning and transfer. It also increases self-efficacy, and people with high self-efficacy tend to be more motivated and, in the long run, achieve more. [50] Feedback performs three functions: (1) It tells employees whether or not their responses are correct, allowing for adjustments in behavior; (2) it makes an activity more interesting, encouraging people to continue; and (3) it can lead to specific goals for maintaining or improving performance. [51]
Frequent feedback opportunities should be part of any work- related function. With new or inexperienced employees, reinforcing feedback should immediately follow successful performance to remove ambiguity or uncertainty about work acceptability. [52]
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The Simonini Company, located in the metropolitan area of greater Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, produced baskets of all sizes, shapes , and colors, for all occasions and functions. Baskets produced for special holidays and at seasonal times were big sellers for this small company of 1,275 employees. The people were proud of their jobs and prouder of their exemplary work record and stellar job performance. Rewards and incentives were not uncommon to these folks. A banner in their workplace read: "If we cannot find you a basket , we'll make one for you."The training manager was studying protocol and applications for International Standards Organization (ISO) certification later in the year.
Situation
Basket sales were declining over the previous year's receipts. All indications pointed to a 35 percent decrease in sales. There were increasing complaints from customers that the product was not what it used to be. The baskets were looking cheap and lopsided, not sturdy; in general, they represented poor craftsmanship. Concurrent with the product concern was an employee concern. Workers were asking to transfer out of the work unit to other units of the organization. The former manager, a benevolent , firm-but-fair fatherly figure, had recently retired . A new, freshly scrubbed college graduate was hired to replace him. She was clothed in creative genius but lacked experience. In fact, she had no previous work experience. Where the previous manager had offered feedback, she complained. Where the previous manager's feedback had been frequent and performance-related, hers was infrequent, neither timely nor helpful, personal and, sometimes, unfair. Enter Beth Zoloft, a trusted, seasoned employee who had worked in various capacities in the company for the past I I years . Zoloft was asked by the company's president to devote three months' time to examining the unit's work performance and account for employee turnover and product quality concerns.
Intervention
Beth Zoloft took the bull by the horns. She first observed people in the unit; then she interviewed each of them. She went out to the stores that carried her product in the greater Pittsburgh area to discover their concerns about the product's quality. All in all, she spent more time with employees and clients than anyone else had spent. People inside the plant perceived her as one of them. Those outside the plant saw her as customer-driven and devoted to total quality.
Results
Zoloft began to coach the newly hired manager. She gave the young woman job and people-handling advice. Zoloft helped the manager set goals, analyze barriers, and plan future activities for the unit. She taught her how to give feedback that was timely, constructive, and work-related. It wasn't long before workers began to feel appreciated and took a more active interest in the quality of their work. Complaints began to decrease and people began to smile again. Customer service and product quality were once again becoming familiar themes at Simonini's. At the manager's request, Zoloft helped the young woman with career development and career assessment concerns. As this effort drew to a close, the young manager was preparing to leave the company to use her psychology degree in a recruiting capacity for the Joseph Horne Company.
Lessons Learned
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Feedback, if properly given, is a valuable intervention to increase performance.
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Coaching (and mentoring) are based on relationships of trust.
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Coaches provide relevant positive and negative feedback to improve performance and potential.
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Quality and customer service are PT issues and everybody's concerns.
The Simonini Company case study was contributed by Ms. Elizabeth A. McQuiston, B.S., R.N., Nurse Specialist for Administrative Network, Inc. Used with permission.
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Directions: For each statement, check ( ¼ ) the appropriate response to describe how consistently you use the described behavior in the workplace.
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ISPI 2000 Permission granted for unlimited duplication for noncommercial use.
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Directions: Answer the following questions.
| What criteria should be used by the employee when choosing a mentor for guidance through the organizational channels? For what reasons is an employee likely to choose a same-sex mentor or one of the opposite sex? How does an employee ask a person for mentorship? Why is mentorship a valuable intervention? How does an organization track and evaluate the results of a mentoring process? |
ISPI 2000 Permission granted for unlimited duplication for noncommercial use.
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[49] Rothwell, Sullivan, and McLean, 1995
[50] Bandura, 1991
[51] Locke and Latham, 1990
[52] Deterline, 1992
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 98