Employee Development on A Shoestring

It has been estimated that 70 percent of employee development takes place through informal learning, rather than through formal learning events. Employee Development on a Shoestring offers insights and lessons for leveraging non-training activities for on-the-job employee development. This hands-on resource delivers specific implementation techniques for developing motivated, engaged employees in today’s “do more with less” business environment. A handy tool kit for any employee developer, this book provides templates and detailed guidelines to help busy managers develop their workforce in a way that is tailored to each employee’s strengths, development needs, and constraints without breaking the bank.

Employee Development on a Shoestring provides general employee development best practices as well as in-depth descriptions of the how-to specifics of 11 different employee development methods, including:

• Step-by-step guidance for initial goal-setting and preparation for effective development planning for every employee and development method.
• Templates, worksheets, checklists, and guidelines to make your employee development efforts effective and sustainable.
• A modular, customized approach to developing employees by tailoring the development method to each employee’s unique needs and each organization’s budget and constraints.
• Ways to capitalize on development ideas that are easy to implement immediately and cheaply such as self-directed learning, volunteering, sabbaticals, and mentoring.
• The hidden value of job rotation, stretch assignments, and special teams for addressing your employees’ development needs while enhancing organizational results.
• The benefits of peer teaching and how to turn development into fun games and contests.
• Tools and techniques for developing employees by letting them turn stories from the frontlines into digital content for everyone’s benefit and why developing “innovation zones” within your organization may bring huge learning and development rewards.
• An examination of social learning and the use of multiple collaborative online tools for real time, on-the-job employee development.

Employee Development on a Shoestring is a comprehensive tutorial for all managers, supervisors, trainers, human resources (HR) personnel, coaches, and other professionals who are involved in developing employee competence efficiently and cost-effectively.

About the Author

Halelly Azulay is a workplace learning professional specializing in guiding people and organizations of all types and sizes to peak performance. She brings 20 years of professional experience in the fields of workplace learning and communication to corporate, government, regulatory, nonprofit, and academic clients. Halelly is the president of TalentGrow, a consulting company focused on developing leaders and teams to improve the human side of work. TalentGrow specializes in leadership, communication skills, team building, facilitation, coaching, and emotional intelligence. Halelly works with all organizational levels including C-level leaders, frontline managers, and individual contributors. Halelly works with organizations such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Booz Allen Hamilton, the Food and Drug Administration, Office of Naval Research, FINRA (formerly NASD), and the University of Maryland among others. She is past president of the board of the award-winning metro D.C. chapter of the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), where she served in various leadership roles from 2005 to 2010. Halelly was selected to judge the 2009 and 2010 Apollo Awards for excellence in employee development and is a sought after speaker at conferences and meetings for various organizations about leadership, employee development, and communication.