Training Development

Why it’s important to be a Self-Developing Organization

23 February 2016|

Updated on 6 March 2019

Companies are transforming to become Self-Developing organizations and practicing a game-changing approach to attract, mobilize, develope, promote, engage and reward their workforce.

Organizations today face a number of challenges when it comes to achieving success and these challenges are shaping how we engage, develop and manage our workforce to drive business performance.

The common challenges that organizations face today when it comes to workforce include –

Declining productivity: It is no secret that employee engagement is the critical component of business performance and it has strong influence on employee contributions. But most organizations rate that their top challenge is to address employee engagement. This lack of engagement will have a profound impact on productivity and profitability.

Lack of workforce agility: Rapidly changing business domains require workforce that can develop and apply the right skills that are needed to deal with the change in business climate. Paramount to being prepared to effectively and efficiently adapt in times of change for maximum business impact is having an agile workforce.

Talent retention: Retaining high-performing talent has become a great challenge for organizations. Fulfilling career expectations among several different generations combined with more engagement is driving changes in the workforce. Job hopping is becoming more frequent forcing organizations to re-examine their talent retention strategies.

Shortage of leaders: Retention issues are leading to the shortage of qualified talent to step in to leadership roles when they become available, and the majority of existing managers aren’t entirely effective and equipped to do their job. It is a well-known fact that employees most often leave their job because of their bosses, not the workplace itself. Having high performing managers often lead to more engaged workforce, better productivity and higher profitability.

This is resulting in leaders, managers and employees often overwhelmed. So, how can we effectively address these challenges in our day to day business operations?

The right approach will transform these business challenges in to opportunities for the business to achieve success. Forward-looking companies are transforming their place of business into a Self-Developing Organization and practicing a game-changing approach to the way companies attract, mobilize, develop, promote, engage and reward their workforce.

A Self-Developing Organization leverages technology to help employees drive their own career path and facilitate meaningful, frequent incremental conversations between employees and their managers. To properly engage and retain employees, organizations need to:

Empower individuals with the tools that make it simple to identify development opportunities and deliver personalized, actionable content which allows learning to occur naturally and contextually as part of the daily flow of work.
Equip leaders with the insight they need to keep their teams involved with the mission of the organization and productive, while fostering collaboration and continuous development to drive business outcomes.
Recognize and reward employees in the most meaningful way. Providing employees with real time and relevant development and performance feedback is important. Both managers and employees need the tools to ensure they have a view of major accomplishments, goals and learning progression. This helps employees to feel invested in, engaged, improved and rewarded.

The new approach of the Self-Developing Organization will become a new workplace culture – one that simplifies the pursuit of organizational and individual objectives while empowering individuals, managers and leaders – and redefines success.

The SumTotal Talent Expansion® Suite enables the Self-Developing Organization, by addressing the holistic needs of every employee—from individuals to leaders—with simple, intelligent talent management processes. This insight helps organizations engage, retain and make informed decisions about the management and mobility of talent.

Author

Rishi Rana