36 Examples of Employee Development

John Spacey, May 17, 2021

Employee development is the process of providing employees with learning and experience to support their career aspirations and the labor needs of an organization. This is typically tied into performance management such that continued learning and improvement is part of the basic expectations for a role. The following are common types of employee development.

Accreditations	Awards & Recognition
Career Planning	Certifications
Coaching	Committee Memberships
Competency Management	Cross-training
Education Support	Individual Development Plans
Industry Conferences	Internal Events (e.g. Career Development Workshops)
Internal Presentations (e.g. Lunch & Learn)	Internal Training
Internal Workshops	Job Enlargement
Job Enrichment	Job Rotation
Job Shadowing	Leadership Development
Lectures	Mentoring
On-the-job Training	Online Training
Performance Assessments	Performance Feedback
Performance Goals	Presentations (e.g. at industry conference)
Professional Conferences & Workshops	Professional Organizations
Promotions & Advancement	Self-Study
Stretch Assignments	Stretch Targets
Succession Planning	Training

Competency management is the process of identifying what capabilities are important to an organization and role. These are documented with details of what it means to be competent in each area. It is common for organizations to certify or self-certify employees in competencies and track these across an organization.

Job enlargement entails giving employees more responsibility on the path to a promotion or job change. Job enrichment targets employee satisfaction by tailoring a role to an employee's interests and life.

Stretch targets are performance objectives that are difficult for an employee to achieve. Stretch assignments are actual opportunities to try difficult things.