Top trends in employee development

Employees often leave organizations due to a lack of development opportunities, according to McLean & Co., but when budgets are tight, employers can consider learning opportunities outside the traditional L&D structure, the company said in a report.

One option? Job shadowing.

In a typical job shadowing program, employees observe what McLean referred to as “job hosts” as they perform their duties. Shadowers may also practice the tasks themselves. The challenge, the report noted, is ensuring job shadowing brings value to both the shadower and the host.

“Achieving mutual benefits requires that the program be designed to facilitate learning and engage the right participants,” Rachel Stewart, associate vice president of HR Research & Advisory Services at McLean & Company, said in a statement. “As observation doesn't always lead to knowledge or skill transfer, hosts must be carefully selected to ensure they are competent in their roles and have a desire to build mentoring, coaching, and leadership skills."

Job shadowing programs may traditionally be thought of as programs geared toward high school students to interest them in career paths — and while certain industries have found a place for that, McLean’s report indicated that may not be the only use for shadowing.

A job shadowing program may improve internal mobility and organizational awareness, at a lower cost than other training methods, the report said. It can also serve as a way for employees to preview certain career paths and practice new skills while hosts gain mentorship abilities and networking opportunities.

Job shadowing also can improve company processes by obtaining an outsider’s perspective, the report added. However, such programs may incidentally pass on negative habits and impede productivity as job hosts adjust to new expectations on their time, the firm cautioned; that means HR may need to provide ongoing coordination to ensure success.

Work-based learning overall has garnered new attention, especially as employers push toward skills-based hiring.

Businesses can build bridges between education and industry by offering work-based learning programs, while boosting their talent development strategies as well, according to a report by American Student Assistance.

In a survey of 500 U.S. businesses, 86% of those with high school interns said their program aimed to strengthen their industry pipeline as a whole, and 81% said they filled their employment pipeline with diverse candidates due to internships.

“With a better understanding of the benefits realized by providing access to the workplace for those younger than 18, as well as how to overcome common challenges, the business sector will be well-positioned to play an equal role alongside education in preparing today’s youth for tomorrow’s jobs,” ASA said in a statement.

Although the number of businesses that offer high school internships has increased during the past five years, few students actually take part in one, the report found. Survey respondents said they’d be more likely to start an internship program if they had an increase in funding for intern pay and the ability to identify a suitable workload for interns.

Businesses with high school internships reported additional benefits to their talent development strategies. About 78% said they enhanced their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; 77% said they used interns to build the pipeline for entry-level positions; and 65% said interns reduced the workload of their full-time employees.

However, internship programs can pose challenges, survey respondents said, such as determining the work to give interns, attracting qualified candidates and scheduling around interns’ availability. Employers also pointed to concerns related to many interns’ lack of transportation to the workplace, a lack of staff resources to manage interns and a lack of funding for an internship program.

At the same time, many businesses are finding solutions such as using state funding to subsidize intern pay, according to the report. Companies are also participating in or launching other work-based learning activities, such as career fairs, mentorships, job shadowing, apprenticeships, informational interviews, field trips, open house days, classroom presentations and career-related competitions.

Some industries are leading the way. For instance, as labor constraints continue, the U.S. manufacturing industry is collaborating with high schools, community colleges and economic development groups to build awareness and interest. Companies offer facility tours, day-long workshops and courses in high-demand areas such as welding and machine technologies.

Although U.S. middle school and high school students display an aptitude for in-demand careers, they’re often not inclined to pursue those occupations due to a lack of exposure, according to a YouScience report. College-to-career pathways, internship programs and on-the-job shadowing could close the gap in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, technology and finance, the report concluded.

Internship programs can also boost company reputation among future job seekers and prescreen candidates for future openings, Mariel Smith, partner at Hall Booth Smith, P.C., previously wrote for HR Dive; employers can create an effective program by planning ahead for onboarding, focusing on training and finding ways to help their interns feel like part of the team.

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By Capella University

In today's tight labor market with many hiring managers bemoaning the war for talent, organizations must be extremely competitive in the employee benefits they offer.

With pressure on workers to be continually honing their skills and competencies to remain relevant, tuition assistance is proving to be among the most essential benefits organizations can provide.

Roy Skillicorn, senior director of learning and development for Cisco, and a Capella University School of Business and Technology Advisory Board member, shares his thoughts on trends in tuition assistance, how organizations benefit by offering such programs, and the risks they face if they don't.

Q. From your perspective, are tuition assistance programs growing in popularity as a benefit offered by employers?

A. Absolutely. Employers today can't afford not to offer tuition assistance programs. According to a LinkedIn survey, 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. To recruit and help retain employees in this labor market, every employer that is more than a small, independently owned operation needs to offer a meaningful tuition assistance program. Results from LinkedIn's 2018 Workplace Learning Report show that talent developers, executives and people managers agree that providing resources to enable talent is crucial to the business. There is a consensus that learning and development programs are a necessary benefit to employees.

When you are competing for key talent that is hard find, tuition assistance can make the difference. It is a benefit that prospective employees are not only hoping for, but they expect. This is more than a nice to have. It's a must have.

Q. How are tuition assistance programs different than they were 10 or 20 years ago? How have they evolved and to whose benefit?

A. Organizations are becoming much more strategic as to how they design and leverage tuition assistance programs. Everyone benefits from that. They are being much more thoughtful and specific in identifying the objective of a tuition assistance program, and asking questions such as, "What is the desired outcome for the organization, as well as the employee?" They are also being more diligent in ensuring the specific skills that employees want to learn align with where the business is headed in the future, not just where it is today.

While tuition assistance for bachelor's degrees and graduate degrees at accredited institutions remains at the core of these programs, there is a renewed focus on credentialing for very specific skills. Increasingly those highly specialized skills, which used to be taught primarily by trade or technical institutions, are now being offered by the same accredited colleges and universities that offer bachelor's and graduate degrees. They’ve seen the opportunity for expanding their portfolio of offerings and are capitalizing on it.

Q. Why is tuition assistance an employee benefit employers can't ignore? What is the risk if they do?

A. The risk is huge for employers that don't offer tuition assistance. Not only do they face fewer desirable candidates applying for key positions, but also increased turnover, decreased productivity, and a negative impact on employee culture. According to the 2018 Capella University Tuition Assistance State of the Industry survey, nearly three-quarters of respondents (73.71%) define their organization's TA programs as either critical or important to the strategy.

Every employer needs to face the new reality in which the traditional, static organization where an employee works the same job for years using the same skills essentially no longer exists. What we have today are more dynamic teams, more collaboration, more people moving from one team to another. To have that highly mobile, agile workforce, you have to invest in professional development.

Simply put, you won't keep up as an organization if you don't have some sort of a tuition assistance program in place. You will fall further and further behind if you don't invest in your employees.

Q. Beyond employee recruitment and retention, what are the other benefits of having an employee tuition program?

A. It goes way beyond just recruiting and retaining. Tuition assistance needs to be part of an overall talent development strategy. In a hyper-competitive workforce environment, organizations need to do everything they can to demonstrate a genuine interest and willingness to support and nurture employees.

Progressive organizations will not only provide adequate dollars for tuition assistance, but also carve out the space and time employees need to engage with professional development during the work day. People are busy. They have families and personal lives that eat up much if not all of their remaining time when the workday ends. Employers need to recognize that and make allowances for employees to learn new skills and competencies while at work.

And while most organizations still directly align the tuition reimbursement they are willing to offer with the specific skills needed at the company, there is a trend toward supporting more agnostic learning opportunities. For example, right now if someone who works at a semiconductor manufacturer wants to train to be a yoga teacher, that company likely won't fund that training. But maybe in the future they will. The thinking is that organizations benefit when they help develop curious people who expand their knowledge of the world around them. Supporting that curiosity can pay back dividends in ways an organization may not anticipate.

The bottom line is that organizations can reap significant rewards by offering robust tuition assistance programs, not only in terms in recruiting and retaining employees, but also in having employees that are highly knowledgeable, nimble, satisfied, and loyal.

Employee resource groups can provide some of the most powerful tools for addressing the challenges defining the next decade, such as talent development; cohesion and connection; and innovation and performance; according to an analysis by Great Place to Work, a workplace culture research and consulting firm. 

“The best ERGs will evolve to meet the moment, empowering their leaders, building wide bridges throughout the organization and nesting subgroups to meet the unique needs of an incredibly diverse workforce,” the report noted.

However, ERGs face barriers to fully reaching this potential, Great Place to Work’s research found.

For example, ERGs may boast a robust membership but still struggle to have an impact on the organization, with members perceiving poor support from leaders and getting frustrated with a lack of accountability to them and their diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging goals, according to the report.

It outlined five steps organizational leaders can take to remove these barriers:

• Add ERG responsibilities to job descriptions and formalize ERG leadership with clear expectations and incentives that align with measurable business outcomes;
• Increase recognition and rewards for ERG service, such as factoring it into performance reviews and promotion decisions;
• Set goals for ERG members to grow their networks and provide them with opportunities to build ties across the company;
• Outline a nesting structure for ERGs by using focus groups to discover what connections they’ve built, what subgroups would offer value, and what groups are feeling left out; and
• Recognize the work of ERG members across the organization, such as through company town hall meetings, and give ERG members face time with key business leaders.

ERGs aren’t new to corporate culture; in fact, they’ve been around for more than 40 years, according to the report. Aimed at fostering DEIB in the workplace, they are known for broadening the professional networks of underrepresented employees and providing a psychologically safe place for connection, experts have noted.

Moving forward, ERGs can also be a catalyst for innovation, the Great Place to Work report found: Its research showed that opportunities for innovation are much higher for ERG members than for non-members.

“By bringing together an otherwise disconnected group of roles within the organization, ERGs will create serendipitous collisions that lead to bold new ideas for the business,” the report said.

Additionally, to position ERGs as talent centers, organizations should tap them to manage systems for tracking internal talent and for connecting employees with opportunities, the report suggested.

As ERGs evolve, HR professionals will play a key, but delicate role in the process, previous McLean & Co. research emphasized.

In particular, while providing support, HR must be careful not to overtake an ERG’s efforts, McLean said. To skillfully balance these priorities, HR should first understand an ERG’s needs and goals and then create pathways for it to receive formal support (such as through funding, recruiting and the ability to run initiatives) and to grow and be sustained, the advisory firm recommended.

Notably, the number of HR departments using third-party D&I consultants has been inching down since 2021, with only 10% of respondents telling HR Dive last year they were outsourcing the investment, a decrease from 12% two years earlier, according to HR Dive’s 2023 Identity of HR Survey. ERGs were touted by experts as one way employers could continue to invest in DEI without breaking the bank.

Although women leaders support a more inclusive company culture and work environment, they’re less likely to receive career development opportunities, such as mentorship, leadership training or key executive responsibilities, according to a report from DDI, a global leadership company.

When women don’t receive the development support they need, they turn elsewhere and are 1.5 times more likely than men to leave their companies to advance in their careers.

“Our research shows the business case for developing, advancing and retaining women leaders couldn’t be stronger,” Tacy Byham, CEO of DDI, said in a statement. “Women leaders are driving more inclusive cultures and stronger financial performance for their organizations — yet the problem of women’s disproportionately low representation at the top persists.”

In a global survey of 1,800 HR professionals and 14,000 leaders, including more than 4,000 women leaders, organizations with an above-average proportion of women leaders (having 30% or more women in senior roles and 40% or more women in leadership roles at lower levels) were nearly twice as likely to be rated as having an inclusive culture than those with fewer women.

However, fewer women receive formal mentors, according to the report. On average, 24% of women leaders have a formal mentor, as compared to 30% of men. At the senior leadership level, the gap grows wider, where 27% of women have a formal mentor, as compared to 38% of men.

Women leaders also miss out on opportunities for key executive responsibilities. For instance, they’re less likely to be given profit-and-loss responsibility, which is a crucial step for advancement into C-suite roles, according to the report. About 67% of women in senior executive and C-suite roles reported having P&L responsibility, as compared with 79% of men in these top roles.

Women lack development support as well. In their current roles, women were 12% less likely than men to receive leadership skills training and 15% less likely to be assessed on leadership strengths and development gaps. This can threaten leaders’ long-term engagement and success, particularly in critical moments such as leadership transition, according to the report.

Double-marginalized workers — such as women of color, women with disabilities and LGBTQ+ women — face additional barriers to career progress and remain underrepresented in leadership, according to a report from McKinsey and Co. With a “broken rung” on the career ladder, marginalized women often face the biggest hurdle at the first step up to manager and can’t catch up during their careers, McKinsey researchers said.

To better support women leaders, employers must address concerns around gender discrimination, toxic workplaces and strategic leadership development, one speaker said at the Society of Human Resource Management’s annual inclusion conference in 2022. Even in spaces meant to develop professional women, programs often focus on molding talent into ideal leaders rather than addressing the distinct hardships of working womanhood, she said.

For instance, women are trying to address numerous pressures, such as burnout, mental health concerns, microaggressions, unsupportive work environments, less flexible work arrangements and an unequal share of domestic responsibilities, according to a Deloitte report. In response, many women are looking for another job, switching to part-time work or leaving the workforce entirely.

Investing in employee development during key moments — such as when an employee advances or during layoffs — can build the employer-employee relationship and lead to a more engaged, loyal, healthy and resilient workforce, according to a report from organizational consulting firm Keystone Partners.

According to survey data, 87% of employees who received both career development and career transition services from their employer felt their relationships with their employers were reciprocal.

“Employers today are dealing with more transient workforces than ever, and we’ve found companies are judged by employees less by the length of tenure than by the quality of the employee-employer relationship during that tenure,” Tim Baldwin, CEO of Keystone Partners, said in a statement.

“Employees now expect companies to invest in their growth,” he said. “When employees feel invested in, our research shows they’re more likely to view the relationship as positive.”

In addition, when employers invest in employees during major career milestones — even moments that are usually seen as negative, such as layoffs — they can still lead to positive business outcomes. 

For instance, the survey found that 77% of employees who received career transition assistance from their employer felt losing their job was ultimately a positive experience. In addition, 65% of employees who survived a layoff but knew others received career transition services viewed their employer in a positive light.

The current business environment requires employee development, according to a separate report from The Josh Bersin Co., a human capital advisory firm. To keep up, companies need to adopt cross-functional career pathways, create a dynamic organization and focus on reskilling and retention, Bersin said.

In fact, most working professionals say continuing education and upskilling would benefit their careers, according to a report from Emeritus, a professional education company. About 80% said upskilling would help them stand out, and 74% said they would choose a job at a company that invests in their education over one that doesn’t.

Middle managers could also be key for talent development, according to a survey from Beamery, a talent management platform. Managers can support employee growth, progression and productivity, Beamery found, and investing in managers can help companies overcome talent challenges across the organizations.

With a title like chief transformation officer, Janice Burns spends her days thinking about change. 

In her nearly four years at learning platform Degreed, she has served as chief career experience officer and chief people officer before taking on her current role last year. Prior to that, she spent 28 years at Mastercard in various roles, including chief learning officer and chief diversity officer. 

Her own transformation from public school teacher to top HR executive, with a period as a marketer, was guided by various mentors.

“Mentors are so important, because they play a role in people’s careers, in helping to shape their careers. They’re usually the people, if you have a good mentor, who you remember throughout your career,” Burns told HR Dive.

This conversation was edited for clarity and length.

HR DIVE: What role have mentors played in your life? 

JANICE BURNS: In almost all of my jobs and definitely in each of my major career transitions, I’ve had a mentor who I have leveraged to help me think through the decisions. These are mentors who understand both my strengths and my developmental needs, mentors who usually understand me not just on a professional level, but to some degree on a personal level, and who I could talk to about what my passions were and what my challenges were in a job and ask for their advice and counsel. 

It’s not that you’re looking for a mentor to tell you what to do but to really offer you a perspective. You can take that perspective and decide: Is that something that applies to me in my situation, or is it just nice information that I don’t need to use? 

Oftentimes, people think a mentor is supposed to fix them or fix their problem, and that’s not it. You need to be clear when you’re deciding to be a mentor if the person who’s asking for a mentor needs a mentor or if they need an intervention, because they are two different things.

If they’re having a performance issue and they want someone to help fix their performance issue, that’s an intervention. That’s a short-term type of solution. A mentor is going to help someone over a period of time really move towards a goal, usually a career goal, and help them to navigate those waters of how to get there.

How did you find the mentors who have helped you?

In some cases, the mentors found me, and in other cases, I found the mentors. Early in my career, the mentors found me; they saw something in me that they thought was unique and needed to be developed, and they kind of adopted me as their mentee. Part of that is because I joined a management training program, and that was the nature of that process. But even after I got out of the management training program, I usually had an executive who saw something in me that I didn’t necessarily see myself, and they took me under their wing. 

As I got more towards the middle of my career, I actively decided to seek out mentors. Sometimes I’d look for someone whose leadership style I admired, and I really wanted to connect with them to help me to develop my own leadership skills. Sometimes I connected with a mentor because I was thinking about making a transition, and that person was already in that field. Sometimes it was about going outside of the organization.

I think you should have a mentor who is in talent acquisition or is an executive recruiter, because they know what skill sets and experiences people are looking for. They know what behaviors they expect people to demonstrate in a particular role. They can be extremely helpful to you. I always try to have mentors internally and externally. Those mentors stay with me for years; it’s not a short-term type of relationship.

What advice would you give to someone looking to find their own mentor?

If it’s someone inside of the company who you think you want to be your mentor, you need to do some research. You can go on LinkedIn and understand what their background is. Ask other people in the company what they’re like as a leader if they’re in a leadership position, what they’re like as a professional and how open they are to working with people or mentoring people. You can gauge if this is the type of person you want to have a relationship with or just observe from afar, because everyone isn’t built to be a mentor. 

Then, you need to have a conversation with that person and formally ask them to mentor you. Tell them why you want them to mentor you and what you hope to achieve from the mentorship relationship and how much time you would like to spend with them. You really do have to have rapport with the person, because the person has to feel comfortable sometimes telling you things that you may not want to hear. And you have to feel comfortable knowing that if you’re hearing something that stings a little bit, that it’s coming from a place of wanting you to be better. 

Do you have any advice for people who might feel uncomfortable asking someone to be their mentor? 

A lot of people don’t want to feel like they’re putting someone out. I don’t know any other way of doing it except being honest and having the conversation. It takes a little bit of courage to do it. You need to be very clear about what your objectives are, what you’re looking to get out of it and how much time you want to spend with the person. 

If you’re saying I want to spend an hour with you every week, that’s probably a little bit too much. If you want to have a monthly check-in or a quarterly check-in, that’s a reasonable amount of time to expect someone to give to you. Be prepared when you go to meet with the mentor, so you’re not wasting their time. 

What do you see as the value in mentorship?

I think the value is when you’re trying to learn or grow. Part of the learning process is acquiring knowledge. You can do that by yourself; you don’t necessarily need someone else to help you acquire knowledge. 

But part of the learning process is then taking that knowledge and applying it through practice. If you really want to develop a skill or change a behavior, you need to get perspective from people who have traveled along a similar path. That’s where that mentorship relationship becomes really invaluable. The mentor can provide you with perspective. The mentor can give you advice about the pitfalls that you may experience along the way and how to handle those pitfalls. They can give you advice on opportunities that you can take advantage of that you may not be able to see. 

They can connect you to other people who can also help guide you along that journey. It is rounding out that learning experience by having a relationship with someone who can give you perspectives and share their experiences with you to help you to continue to grow and develop.

If you’re considering asking someone to be a mentor, be very thoughtful about it. I think it is one of the best things you can do for your career. But you need to go into it prepared and be willing to have someone say it no. 

If you’re considering being a mentor, it is probably one of the most rewarding things that you can do because you can really help to shape the future of someone else’s life. It’s about not only the advice you give, but how you make people feel. Mentors can help people feel more confident in themselves and more capable about achieving a goal. That’s priceless.

The C-suite doesn’t realize the role middle managers play in talent development, according to the results of a recent survey by Beamery, a talent management platform. After surveying members of the C-suite and people managers, the organization concluded that 58% of the C-suite believes HR is primarily responsible for retaining talent, while only 9% point to front-line managers. Yet, the C-suite identified helping workers find their next career opportunity and connecting teams to upskilling opportunities as the most important parts of managers’ roles.

Managers, for their part, overwhelmingly (80%) said they have skills gaps on their teams, but 27% reported not having a full understanding of what strengths and skills their team members have, the survey found. 

“What separates great companies from average companies? Often it’s an understanding that growth, progression and productivity are not the sole remit of HR, but the responsibility of middle managers,” Abakar Saidov, co-founder and CEO of Beamery, said in a statement. “Investing in and empowering managers is a crucial strategy for businesses looking to overcome talent challenges, not just at the top but everywhere in the organization.”

Skills development is becoming increasingly important not only for talent retention but to prevent talent shortages, especially as AI’s presence in the workplace grows, reports show. 

Minus an investment in development, employers could see a shortfall of 85 million skilled workers by 2030, according to a report by Korn Ferry, an organizational consulting firm. Udemy, a skills development platform, recorded a 60% increase in AI-related training in the past year, according to a report released earlier this month. And courses tied to ChatGPT rose 4,000% during the first quarter. 

The Josh Bersin Co. said companies will be forced to rely on reskilling, retention and AI to manage ongoing shortages of workers.