Welcome to our blog post recapping the insightful webinar, “Transforming Employee Development: A Manager’s Guide,” featuring David Berke. With a live audience of over 200 participants, the webinar sparked engaging discussions on how effective employee development starts with managers, including discussions on motivation and the significance of SMARTESST goals.
This blog will highlight key takeaways from the webinar, capturing the participants’ positive feedback and sharing valuable insights to empower managers to pursue effective employee development.
Transforming Employee Development: A Manager’s Guide
Comments from the webinar participants
- “Great webinar- Good ideas that I can implement immediately!”
- “Nice job. Thanks for making this very easy as well as informative.”
- “Nice that we can have our questions answered on the spot. The presenter seemed friendly and knowledgeable.”
Webinar Recap
Basic Project Management
This can be broken down into four steps which are shown in the webinar: “Every project manager does whether the project is preventing a massive technology change in an organization or doing something a little less massive in a department or for the organization as a whole.” – Berke.
Applying Project Management to Development
There are six steps to this approach. In the webinar, Berke said, “The first thing anybody does when starting a project is figure out who will do what. You translate that here to agreeing on mutual expectations. Next, they figure out what they will work on and then define a goal. The translation to development is identifying what people need to develop and then putting together the development goal. The next step with the project is to figure out how you will accomplish that goal. Then if we’re looking at employee development, the next step ought to be, but often isn’t, designing a development assignment because a development assignment will tell you what you need to do to accomplish the development goal.” There are many layers involved with development and management as a whole!
The two main benefits of this approach:
- It begins with what many managers already know.
- It focuses on business processes, not psychological processes.
Motivating your managers to manage
Berke said, “One of the things that I noticed, what a lot of employees want, they want the managers to manage. They’re looking for something other than a teacher. They’re looking for a manager. They’re looking for someone who can take care of things so the employee has the time, space, and support for the learning needed.
“The other thing I see is lots of opportunities for managers to act in ways that will help the employee to stay motivated. Now I am one of those people who think that motivation comes from within. I can’t motivate you. You can’t motivate me, but I also know from experience that there are things managers do that will make it more likely that people will get motivated and stay that way or make it more likely that they will lose motivation. So when you look here, one of the things that I see employees asking the managers is that they do those things that will help them to stay motivated.”
SMART VS. SMARTESST – Goals for employee development
In the course of the 60-minute session, Berke also talked about behavioral language as well as writing development goals. A key topic was making goals more than SMART.
Many of us already use SMART goals. They are:
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Actionable
R – Realistic
T – Time Sensitive
Burke suggests making the goals SMARTESST. Adding the following letters:
E – Engagement
ST – Support Structure
Think about if that is something that will work for you!
Poll for Participants
Next, a quick poll to participants asked,
“What is usually the next step after establishing the development goal?”
- Prepare a plan (21% of participants)
- Determine how to accomplish the goal and then prepare a plan (76% of participants)
- Send employees to HR to figure out what to do (3% of participants).
The correct answer is number 2. Many of the participants had it right. Did you?
Effective employee development starts with managers
As the webinar concluded, participants expressed their appreciation for the practical ideas and strategies shared by David Berke. The webinar shed light on valuable approaches that managers can readily implement by emphasizing the importance of project management principles and providing actionable steps for applying them to employee development. Proving the point that effective employee development starts with managers. From engaging employees to creating robust support structures, the webinar’s insights resonate with the challenges faced in today’s dynamic workplace. We invite you to watch the recorded webinar to understand these concepts in a deeper way. We encourage you to sign up for our future webinars, where we continue to bring you valuable resources and expertise to enhance your management journey.
Are you interested in discovering ways to improve employee development?
Watch this webinar that can help you in transforming and motivating your team.
David Berke is a principal at Lorsch, Berke & Associates, LLC. David has more than 25 years of experience as a manager, individual contributor, and consultant in the fields of management, leadership, employee, and organization development. He was a senior faculty member at the Center for Creative Leadership for over a decade and has worked with global organizations across the United States, Europe, and Asia. An author and co-author of several books on succession planning and leadership development, his most recent publication is titled Supported Self-Development: How Managers Can Use the Skills They Already Have to Develop Their Employees.
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