This past month has been an amazing time. We have facilitated planning sessions and have provided management training programs to several clients on topics ranging from Strategic Planning to Enhancing Communications. Each group, without exception, voiced their concern over their organization's current inadequate training for new staff to those in management positions. Each group, of their own accord, acknowledged inadequate knowledge sharing from "veteran" employees to less-experienced staff. Each group independently stated their most important management role now was to focus on developing their employees and thereby ensuring the future of their organizations. In order to help themselves, they need to develop others.

What I find interesting about this is that each group understands this need and believes in it completely. Each group has made this a primary goal for their respective organizations. Developing others and providing consistent, focused training is not just a feel-good idea they're putting on paper and then filing away. Each client group has determined without a concerted effort to provide better training, career growth opportunities, and an environment employees want to be a part of, their ability to attract, hire, and retain good employees will become virtually impossible.

Recent studies have highlighted the deep dissatisfaction many long-term employees in lower to mid-level management positions have stems from being over-looked and underutilized. New global studies are also showing that workers, at all staff levels, are most satisfied with their jobs when they see opportunities for growth and career development.

If employees are most satisfied with their jobs when they see future career opportunities for themselves and have opportunities to learn, grow and do more, what has held so many organizations back from focusing on and providing training and career development programs before? A long-held belief has been that training and career development were the responsibilities of the Human Resources Department (HR) and not of every member of the management team. The Human Resources Department hasn't been able to do this successfully alone. HR should orchestrate the effort, but every manager and supervisor needs to be a key player in the overall training design, planning, and employee development process.

With the dedicated support of all managers and supervisors, how could a focused employee training and development program fail? With all managers and supervisors intently focused on enhancing the skills and career opportunities of their employees, how could employees not feel supported? With an organization focused on developing its entire employee population, how could it not help itself? If your organization needs help, consider developing your staff; they are your organization's future.

Copyright 2008,2006 - Liz Weber, CMC - Weber Business Services, LLC.
WBS is a team of Strategic Planning and Leadership Development Consultants, Trainers, and Speakers. Liz can be reached at liz@wbsllc.com or (717)597-8890.
Additional FREE articles can be found at http://www.wbsllc.com/leadership.shtml
Liz can be reached at mailto:liz@liz-weber.com

Permission to reprint this article is granted as long as you use the complete attribution above - including live website link and e-mail address - and you send me an email at liz@wbsllc.com to let me know where the article will be published.

Author's Bio: 

In the words of one client, "Liz Weber will help you see opportunities you never knew existed."

A sought-after consultant, speaker, and seminar/workshop presenter, Liz is known for her candor, insights, and her ability to make the complex "easy." She creates clarity for her audiences during her results-oriented presentations and training sessions.

Participants walk away from her sessions knowing how to implement the ideas she's shared not just once, but over and over to ensure continuous improvement and management growth and development.

This former Dragon Lady has been there, done it, and learned from it. Whether speaking to corporate executives or government agency personnel, Liz's comments and insights ring true.

As the President of Weber Business Services, LLC, a management consulting, training, and speaking firm headquartered near Harrisburg, PA, Liz and her team of consultants provide strategic and succession planning, management policy & systems development, employee training, as well as marketing and media outreach services.

Liz has supervised business activities in 139 countries and has consulted with organizations in over 20 countries. She has designed and facilitated conferences from Bangkok to Bonn and Tokyo to Tunis. Liz has taught for the Johns Hopkins University's Graduate School of Continuing Studies and currently teaches with the Georgetown University's Senior Executive Leadership Program.

Liz is the author of 'Leading From the Manager's Corner', and 'Don't Let 'Em Treat You Like a Girl - A Woman's Guide to Leadership Success (Tips from the Guys)'. Her 'Manager's Corner' column appears monthly in several trade publications and association newsletters.