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Employee development boosts skills, improves performance, increases engagement, and enhances career growth. Behind every successful business stand fulfilled, well-rounded, and skilled professionals who practice continuous employee development. Employee development doesn’t develop overnight—it’s nurtured long-term through intentional investments in widespread and essential learning.
Professional development plays a crucial role in expanding employee skills and knowledge, allowing businesses to fill key roles, meet objectives, and ensure long-term continuity. Additionally, sending digital certifications to validate that knowledge can drastically impact employee motivation, satisfaction, and performance.
Quality employee development programs not only drive retention and business excellence but also cultivate an engaged, eager-to-continue workforce.
So, how can organizations create a development program that truly makes a difference? Keep reading to explore the key benefits, different approaches, and essential steps to build an effective development strategy.
What is Employee Development?
Employee development is a designated process of enhancing employee skills and knowledge to meet organizational goals while supporting personal and professional growth. Unlike employee training, which builds specific job-related skills, employee development encompasses broader initiatives like mentorship, leadership, and career planning.
Both managers and HR professionals spearhead employee development programs, through methods like workshops, eLearning, job rotations, and feedback sessions. The main goal is to create and retain a highly skilled workforce, elevate engagement, and align employee growth with business objectives.
For example, a company might introduce a leadership development program, pairing employees with mentors and providing workshops on emotional intelligence. This approach not only strengthens the leadership pipeline but also does wonders for employee satisfaction and career advancement.
Why is Employee Development Important? Key Benefits
Employee development is a win-win for professionals and employers. It’s a necessary, strategic move that helps meet long-term goals and drive personal and professional growth. But that’s the bigger picture—let’s zoom in on the key benefits employee development delivers.
1. Attracting and retaining top talent
Nowadays, employees don’t just need a job—they need to know they can grow within their organization. To attract talent and ensure loyalty, employers need to think outside the box, offering various ways to support employee growth.
7 in 10 employees report that learning helps them better connect to their organization, making employee development key for attracting quality workforce, and retaining it. Businesses must highlight how they can support employee development, demonstrating a clear commitment to investing in employee career advancement.
With resignations at an all-time high, companies cannot afford to overlook the value of employee development. A strong learning culture is the secret ingredient to appealing to potential candidates and ensuring a retention rate of 57%.
2. Higher employee engagement
For 80% of employees, ongoing learning gives them purpose in their professional roles. Safe to say, developing employee development programs results in greater employee engagement.
Engaged employees are not just more purposeful, but also more motivated and inspired to contribute to their organization. By leveraging learned skills and continuously upgrading their expertise, they become creative and productive, even during high-pressure days. This helps organizations optimize business outcomes while actively supporting long-term development.
3. Elevates performance
Employee development doesn’t just boost professional performance. It also makes sure businesses can meet their long-term goals by making precise development investments.
Professional development allows employees to keep pace with industry trends, new technologies, and best processes. As a result, companies can increase operational efficiency, drive innovation, and enforce high-level success strategies.
In a competitive market landscape, employee development programs help leaders stay ahead, improve revenue flows, and strengthen customer relationships. Companies that aim to remain competitive have to first invest from the inside, ensuring their staff can continuously evolve and deliver top performance.
4. Stronger professional relationships
Investing in employee development helps forge strong relationships on an organizational level. It allows employees to expand their professional network by attending courses and events where they can share valuable knowledge with peers and industry experts.
Professional development programs also enhance the bonding experience during learning. This ensures professionals collaborate exceptionally between teams and perform on a more connected level. On the other hand, companies can enjoy higher customer satisfaction, better decision-making, and efficient problem-solving.
5. Certified accomplishments
One of the best things about employee development is certifying the knowledge professionals have acquired. Many employee development programs offer digital certifications and badges to verify professional knowledge and make hires stand out.
The true benefit lies in recognizing employee progress, elevating their professional confidence, and investing in their careers with each learned skill. Satisfied employees, with lots of career options ahead of them, prefer staying at their companies. There, they can expand their professional journeys, and demonstrate verified competence in handling critical tasks.
Investing in certifiable employee development goes hand in hand with high retention. Plus, it saves organizations from wasting resources on re-hires and onboarding.
7 Types of Employee Development: Best Methods to Employ
Employee development programs aren’t a unified solution. Based on the company size, the number of employees to invest in, and their learning preferences, organizations might opt for different approaches. Here are 7 top methods of employee development to consider.
1. In-person training
Face-to-face employee development still has its charm. It’s the most common form of training using traditional methods like teamwork and live workshops to spark engagement and boost learning.
In-person activities are great for employee bonding, brainstorming, problem-solving, and firsthand skill honing. Organizations should create various employee development programs to meet diverse learning and scheduling needs and ensure program success.
Best for: Teaching hard and soft skills, or developing sales and customer care teams.
Downsides: Unfit for remote teams or those keen on digital learning.
2. Peer learning and coaching
Mentors and peers are superb knowledge resources. Packed with the expertise, experience, and current skills, they can carry out targeted employee development plans to ensure learners succeed at their roles. Learning sessions might take place on-site or remotely, however, active effort will be required on both ends to ensure successful development.
Peer learning and mentorship can be quite gratifying for professional development. It ensures learners get direct tips, strategies, and feedback to elevate their skills and gain specific expertise.
Best for: Newly hired talent. or employees transitioning into new roles.
Downsides: Not ideal for self-paced learned or busy professionals with limited time available.
3. On-the-job-learning
On-the-job learning is the most streamlined form of employee development. Professionals learn as they go, through work projects, active reviews, and constructive feedback. Learning within a known workplace almost comes naturally to professionals, allowing them to collaborate with teams, ask targeted questions, and keep up with their role expectations.
On-the-job learning may occur remotely or in person, depending on specific needs. Either way, employees will be able to work on real tasks, partake in current processes, and elevate their workflows with hands-on training.
Best for: Employees performing practical, skill-centric roles at the organization
Downsides: Might be overwhelming for remote employees or slow-pace learners
4. Cross-training
In cross-training, employees can develop their knowledge and skills by performing tasks—in and outside their current roles. This makes for successful employee development, ensuring professionals are more well-rounded and able to perform various roles and responsibilities.
Similar to mentoring, cross-training typically pairs the learner with another employee, from a different team or sector. This employee then teaches the learner about different job processes and practices, helping them build their skills and gain experience in specific roles.
Best for: Employees who prefer learning under supervision or transitioning roles.
Downsides: This can be challenging for remote employees or those who prefer group learning.
5. eLearning
In 2024, the eLearning education market was expected to reach $185.20 billion—a figure expected to rise to $279.30 billion by 2029. This makes it the most common, popular, and in-demand approach to employee development.
Online learning features anything from interactive quizzes to online workshops and digital courses. With trends like AI and gamification, it’s more engaging than ever, allowing employees and organizations to easily track progress, elevate engagement, and target skill building.
E-learning is a key element of modern Learning and Development (L&D) strategies. What’s more, it can be swiftly integrated with digital certification platforms to streamline employee verification and highlight employee progress and achievements.
Best for: All-around organizations and teams with diverse learning and development needs.
Downsides: Limited interactions during learning.
6. Microlearning
Microlearning has a great chance of becoming the next big trend in employee development. It’s a specific professional development method offering bite-sized learning lessons and exercises to employees, reducing information overload while boosting material retention.
With short sessions, online or on-site, it helps employees build skills and knowledge incrementally, through educational videos, articles, and other interactive content. It’s a flexible approach to developing employees, with lots of room for tailoring the program to meet different learning paces and business needs.
Best for: Quiwkc-paced learners; employees needing continuous, flexible development.
Downsides: Not as comprehensive as other employee development programs.
7. Leadership development programs
Many employee development programs are specifically focused on leaders. Leadership development programs are essential for preparing valuable employees for leadership roles using tailored, skill-centric learning.
Professional leadership development plans are implemented long-term, allowing employees to constantly build their knowledge and seize higher-up opportunities at the workplace. Partaking in leadership development also helped employees improve their leadership abilities by 25% and their overall performance by 20%.
How to Ensure Successful Employee Development: Key Steps
Successful employee development depends on specific business needs, employee preferences, and overall growth and retention goals. Here are 5 key steps to get started and ensure the development program you create works in everyone’s favor.
Understand Organizational Goals
Before launching an employee development program, organizations need to define their goals. Are you trying to reduce turnover, close skill gaps or prepare future leaders? These answers will help you create a program that ticks all the boxes of success, aligning it with your long-term strategies. Businesses should evaluate how their teams currently operate and what needs to be achieved, then focus on improving these areas.
Align Program Goals with Employee Needs
Defining developmental goals is the first step, but organizations also need to align them with employee requirements. Employee development is a two-way street, so businesses need to listen to what employees want to learn, and how they want to gain or certify these skills. This helps leaders and HR teams devise the best development approach for everyone, creating realistic timeframes to meet outlined goals.
Personalize Development Plans
Unified employee development sounds ideal, but rarely happens in practice. Rather than generalizing staff development, organizations need to personalize it. Tailoring development plans to each team or individual is essential to meeting different needs and ensuring successful outcomes. Some employees want to become leaders, while others prefer digital over on-site learning. Noticing where your business goals and employee needs overlap can help companies better personalize development programs.
Use a Powerful LMS
Unlike lengthy in-person development, a Learning Management System (LMS) can streamline employee development. It delivers anything from online courses to actionable insights to help track progress and optimize development efforts. LMS platforms also support mobile learning and microlearning, enabling professionals to master skills and acquire knowledge at their own pace. On top, with personalized learning paths at a glance, LMS makes employee development relevant, flexible, and more impactful,
Ongoing Feedback and Program Adjustments
Once organizations establish a strong employee development program, they need to track its success and share feedback with employees to improve it. Ongoing reviews, team evaluations, and progress tracking help reinforce learning, boost motivation, and align investments in employee development with overall business goals. Moreover, regularly adjusting the programs makes it scalable, ensuring it evolve with employee, market, and organizational needs.
Investing Where It Counts: The Future of Employee Development
Nearly 74% of workers feel stuck in their roles without development opportunities—a reminder of why organizations need to invest in employee development.
Professional development programs do more than just upskill workers; they drive retention and elevate performance across roles and processes.
Investing in employee growth is investing in a scalable future. Personalized, targeted, and aligned development programs streamline budgets, align goals with employee needs, and foster long-term success. On top, certifiable employee adds value by building stronger, more satisfied teams, ultimately elevating retention, collaboration, and exceptional performance.
Manage employee development certification effortlessly with Sertifier. Our digital badges and certifications help track skill growth, engage employees, and streamline verified learning. Empower your top talent with verifiable achievements and foster a thriving culture—start for free today!
Effective Employee Development — FAQ
How do you create an employee development program?
To create a successful employee development program, first define your business needs. Tailor the program so it’s aligned with employee training preferences. Offer various learning and development formats and approaches, like eLearning, cross-training, or digital courses to meet diverse learning needs. Finally, regularly review and adjust programs based on feedback and ongoing trends to maintain it long-term.
What’s the difference between employee development vs. employee training vs. career development?
Employee development mainly focuses on enhancing skills in their current role to prepare them for future roles, improving performance, motivation, and retention. Employee training, on the other hand, is skill-specific, offering centralized knowledge needed to handle particular tasks. Finally, career development focuses on long-term employee growth, helping employees map career paths and realize their professional goals over time.
