The modern Development Center as a trend-setting compass and effective instrument for employee retention and personnel development
One of the most common reasons for qualified specialists and managers to leave a company is a lack of development opportunities (in line with their own interests) and thus the absence of attractive long-term prospects for the future. Too many companies still fail to counteract employee churn in good time and by using the right means. Not out of negligence or ignorance of the subject, but rather because there are too many unanswered questions. Answers must be found to these questions, and tailor-made solutions must be developed afterwards. The constant transformation in society, politics and the economy makes this task even more difficult. As a result, it can become a debilitating and never-ending challenge. However, in order to secure the future viability of one’s own company, it is urgently necessary to face up to this challenge. To master them – at best with the help of professional support and precisely coordinated service offerings.
A modern Development Center set up by Strametz [&] Associates provides orientation in the jungle of questions. It also acts as a guiding compass for future-oriented personnel development.
Development centers must adapt to the current development
In the context of selection and development diagnostics, the Development Center is a proven method for identifying future leaders within a company. Now, in view of the constant changes in the world of work, you may be wondering whether this procedure, as you know it, is still up to date. And rightly so, because clear trends are emerging that we should not close our eyes to.
Today, development and career paths are less and less linked to predefined career paths, but are increasingly based on employees’ strengths and talents. On the one hand, this is due to the increasing proportion of project-oriented forms of work. On the other hand, it has to do with the increasing desire for life-oriented career planning. In addition, high-potential employees are increasingly becoming a scarce commodity. A modern development center must ensure that employees and companies exchange information about potential, career interests, goals and opportunities on an equal footing. To ensure that this dialog is successful and that the development center can serve as a compass for forward-looking HR development, we have summarized further factors that we believe are important in our white paper This is how development centers work today.
Always on the lookout for new professionals? Find the best talent within your own company and promote personnel development
The effort required to find future leaders within the company is no less than that required to develop them. But failing to recognize talent within the company’s own ranks, or failing to do so in good time, can mean that valuable potential of individual employees is not exploited and ultimately wasted. As a result, they are forced to keep looking for new skilled workers because there are supposedly not enough new recruits in their own company. In the worst case, you may even have to hire candidates whose qualifications do not adequately match the requirements of the positions to be filled.
As part of our modern Development Center, we work together to find out what individual strengths and development opportunities your employees have. We also find out which careers they are suited for. In this way, we develop a talent pool from which you can draw in the future. This puts you in the comfortable position of being able to plan the staffing of important key positions with foresight. You can also develop your existing talents in a targeted manner.
How to avoid bad investments with up-to-date potential diagnostics
When it comes to developing employees, it is not enough to focus on their competencies alone. But often in a development center, that’s exactly what happens. Instead of the results of a potential analysis, the results of a competence analysis are used as the basis for development measures. This may result in investing in individuals who have little or no aptitude for a position.
If an employee performs well, this is undoubtedly evidence of existing competencies. However, this does not necessarily mean that he or she will always react confidently in unfamiliar, critical or challenging situations in the workplace and continue to perform well in the future. Nor does it indicate which direction his or her development will or could take. For this reason, we at Strametz [&] Associates place particular emphasis on taking a differentiated view of potentials and competencies and analyzing them in relation to one another. Only through this can one assess whether a person will be able to successfully fill a more responsible position in the future.
To this end, we examine in particular how high individual potential factors are, which competencies result from them and how strong their expression already is. In addition, we include employees’ personal motives and values in our analysis. Because it is not only “ability” but also “will” that determines how much commitment a person shows.
Further information on our approach as well as interesting facts about the topic of potential diagnostics are available here.
The most effective way to sustainably retain specialists and managers today
In many companies, there is a justified concern about losing specialists and managers to the competition. Since they are not offered any or not the appropriate development opportunities. By paying sufficient attention to the potential of your employees, identifying it accurately and developing it while taking into account the personal interests and motives of each and every one of them, you can effectively counteract the threat of loss.
With the Development Center Matrix, we provide orientation as to which of our formats is suitable to meet your current challenges. In five steps, and taking your target group into account, we design a development center that is tailored to your company’s goals:
Our experienced, value-oriented consultants can respond to the individual needs of your candidates on a situational basis. In this way, they provide the necessary gain in knowledge already in the Development Center itself.
Participants receive appreciative feedback immediately or as a follow-up to the Development Center. This can be used to proactively monitor the further development of high-potential employees.
A site survey is boring? Not with our Development Centers!
Perhaps you are also familiar with the problem of employees refusing to undergo a location assessment. In very few cases is this due to a lack of interest in developing further. But simply out of the fear or experience that the offered methods offer too little added value or do not sufficiently consider professional objectives. To make matters worse, the classic approach of simply stringing together proven exercises within the framework of a development center seems too far removed from reality for many and creates a kind of testing situation that is perceived as unpleasant.
Development centers designed by Strametz [&] Associates achieve a 98 percent satisfaction rate among participants due to high feedback and reflection components, realistic conditions, and dynamic and agility-promoting elements, and ensure special learning experiences.
Together we develop the right path for your talent management
Strametz [&] Associates has many years of experience in setting up needs-oriented development centers and in individual talent pool development for medium-sized companies as well as for major international corporations. Take a look at one of our best practice examples to see for yourself the benefits and effectiveness of a Multifunctional Development Center.
Our Development Centers can, of course, be conducted remotely upon request. Your advantages are clear: you benefit from savings on travel and accommodation costs. We also protect our climate by avoiding CO2 emissions. All participants can enjoy independence of location and flexibility of time, which provides relief especially in times of increased home office activity. In addition, the topics of “virtual collaboration” and “leadership” can also be mapped and observed well in this way.
If you have any questions about our Development Centers or would like to take the opportunity to work with us to find the right path for your company towards targeted, effective and future-oriented personnel development, please contact us now. We look forward to receiving your email or phone call.
