In the last two blog posts, we noted that often the question, “Who needs development activity?” is easily answered due to substandard performance, internal or external customer complaints, poor performance ratings, etc. We also noted that by contrast, development activity may be necessary due to a promotion that involves gaining additional skills, adhering to new laws, transitioning from peer to leader, etc.

Regardless, ongoing employee analysis enhances an employer’s ability to move an organization’s business strategy forward while ensuring the right people get the right development activity at the right time.

In the previous post we processed Step One – Evaluating employee knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes.

In this post we turn our attention to Step Two in the process – Evaluating Inputs.

According to Raymond Noe, “An input relates to the instructions that tell employees what, how, and when to perform. Input also refers to the resources that the employees are given to help them perform.” (Noe, 2010, Employee Training and Development)

In this step, supervisors and mentors and/or coaches can utilize the following questions to work with employees to assess criteria such as:

• Is the employee receiving adequate instruction related to how, what, when, and where to perform his or her job?
• Do employees have the proper resources, i.e., tools, personnel, devices, budget, etc., to do their jobs?
• Are other employees in the same division exhibiting similar poor performance?
• If so, do we have a resource void or leadership void?

The answers to these questions will help supervisors, mentors, and coaches identify various types of needs, gaps, communication processes (or lack thereof), etc., related to inputs.

We will review Step Three – Evaluating Outputs in our next blog post.

Until then – Happy Training!

Written by:
Greg Anderson
Chief Learning Officer, Strategic Government Resources
governmentresource.com
@SGRGreg