Why is it important for employees to understand process? How can employers best counsel, teach and coach people they manage? Moreover, what special professional development do younger employees need?
Managers interested in sharpening their employee development skills will find the answers to these, and many more questions in IEEE-USA’s new, free audio book, Developing Your People: Commonsense Leadership in the Workplace – Volume 2: Employee Development Strategies.
Veteran engineering professional and educator Harry T. Roman strongly believes managers charged with developing their employees have the greatest workplace responsibilities. To help these managers effectively chart their course in producing the best employees possible, he provides dozens of approaches they can use to evoke their employees’ best talents, while also developing their business knowledge.
Roman explains that how you do something is often as important as what you gain by doing it. “In the Information Age, process has become as important as product, he says, and “the first emphasis must be on quality in the process.” Roman notes that getting to market quickly, with inferior products and services is, at best, a waste of time and resources.
Further, Roman maintains teaching process to employees is vital – underlying other basic skills to hone workplace success. The author emphasizes that developing employee process is an invaluable discipline that will yield real dividends repeatedly – for employers and employees – because it affects the way people approach and solve both basic and complicated problems.
In a chapter on how managers can support employee development, Roman discusses four areas: coaching and counseling; reward and recognition; encouraging computer skills; and emphasizing effective teamwork. In a special discussion about reward and recognition, he offers many interesting tactics.
The author does not refute the importance of annual merit increases and special achievement awards, but he alternately provides a list of non-monetary ways to recognize employees. Roman writes that most employees rank individual recognition for accomplishments much higher than monetary rewards.
Among Roman’s suggestions:
- Invite good performers to fill in for the boss at upper-level manager staff meetings and/or other corporate functions
- Let them substitute for the vacationing boss and experience running the office
- Give them staff to develop, and resources to use, on their projects and works in progress
- Increase their budget allocation and authority
- Allow them to present a paper, give a talk, or attend a conference of their choice.
Among many other valuable chapters and tips, Roman finally discusses young employees’ special development needs. He emphasizes this special group has a “particularly acute need for mentoring and development” during their first two years of training. He highlights oral and written communication skills; project management; supervision; estimates and budgets; and understanding the marketplace, as five special areas where young employees need help to grow.
Beginning 1 November, IEEE-USA E-BOOKS is offering this award winning, new audio book free. Click here to download now.
The companion e-book of this audio book is also available for purchase here. The member price is $7.99. Non-members pay $9.99)
Volumes 1 and 3 of this three-part book series are also available for purchase as companion e-books via the IEEE-USA shop. Prices are $7.99 for members; non-members pay $9.99.
Georgia C. Stelluto is IEEE-USA’s Publishing Manager; Manager/Editor of IEEE-USA E-BOOKS; InFocus Department Editor for IEEE-USA InSight; and Co-Editor of the IEEE-USA Conference Brief.
