Many organizations have started to include employee development initiatives in the workplace once it became evident that work performance and job satisfaction were closely linked. People, after all, are not robots – they have hopes and dreams and want to have a meaningful work life, particularly because the average person spends more than half their life at work. The pursuit of personal development includes a drive towards a deep understanding of one’s skills, characteristics, and goals with the aim and active efforts towards maximizing and realizing one’s potential.

“Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves.”

– E. Joseph Cossman

There are some definite stumbling blocks in getting to the gold at the end of the rainbow of potential, including employee disengagement, a fast-changing work landscape, and lacking buy-in from top management. The Harvard Business Review describes the following ways in which employee development programs can be improved:

1. Managers should be encouraged and inspired to coach their employees, to pass down their skills and insights about the industry, impart the tenets of emotionally intelligent leadership and to encourage them to set realistic goals. Nothing beats first-hand experience, but learning from someone who has been there and got the t-shirt could reduce some potential future stumbling blocks and allow newer or less experienced employees to advance at a greater pace.

2. Businesses should keep up with a fast-changing world of work by ensuring ongoing training and development, while bearing the potential for information overload in mind. And while we’re on the subject, remote employees should not be forgotten in the continuous development endeavor. This is where online learning fills the needs gap, with Coggno’s Training University serving a shining beacon of light.

3. Employees should be taught to take ownership of their career development by giving them access to learning and development opportunities that fit with their personal goals, style and pace of learning, and their interest in the field. A one-size fits all learning model is no longer viable, especially where so many different generations form part of the workforce. Ongoing development is a crucial ingredient in innovation and improved productivity.

Top Courses Recommended for Your Employee Development Program

We’ve opted to highlight a few excellent training courses that would fit perfectly in the curriculum of any personal development initiative:

• Course 1: Life Coaching

• Course 2: Get Smarter with Goals

• Course 3: Discover Emotional Intelligence

• Course 4: Mindfulness Training Course

• Course 5: How to Build Rapport

• Course 6: Purpose Driven Time Management