Executive development is the whole of activities aimed at developing the skills and competencies of those that (will) have executive positions in organisations. While "executive" and "manager" and "leader" are often used interchangeably, "executive" is commonly used to signify the top 5% to 10% of the organization. Similarly, "development" and "training" and"education" are often used as synonyms, however "development" is generally seen as the more encompassing of the three in terms of activities that build skills and competencies.
While it is typical to find organizations that have dedicated corporate training & development people and processes, it is not always the case that an organization will have a dedicated executive development set of activities. In some organizations (typically large multi-nationals), there is a separate executive development team, in other organizations executive development is handled as one of many activities by the larger corporate training group, and in yet other scenarios there is no executive development activity to speak of.
In contrast to other corporate training & development activities, which have as their core purpose to build tactical skills for employees, executive development plays a different role for the organization. Indeed some executive development is conducted for the purpose of building tactical skills (sometimes referred to as "hard skills" such as business fundamentals- finance, marketing, operations and also "soft skills" such as communication and team building), yet executive development is also used to evaluate future potential future executives as well as a mechanism for the CEO and the executive team to cascade their strategies, goals, and even elements of the culture to the rest of the management team and ultimately the organization. In the best of cases, executive development not only helps an organization execute its key strategies, it can also help provide input to the strategy creation process. In this way, executive development is much more strategic than typical corporate training & development which is used for most employees of an organization.
While executive development continues to become enriched by many approaches, one approach, adult development and its subfield Positive Adult Development is beginning to create opportunities for what has been essentially reserved for academic research to become an increasing part of executive practices.
The program of executive development aims at achieving following purposes: -
Johnson and Sorcher write, “Management development focuses on developing in a systematic manner, the knowledge base, attitudes, basic skills, interpersonal skills and technical skills of the managerial cadre.”
According to Flippo “executive development includes the process by which managers and executives acquire not only skills and competency in their present job but also capabilities for future managerial tasks of increasing difficulty and scope.”
The characteristics of executive development are as following: -
Today, it is the growth that makes one person stay at the company. The opportunity and challenges is what keeps a person satisfied and charmed with his job. Companies have understood this fact and therefore are forming policies and procedures to develop their employees.
While it is typical to find organizations that have dedicated corporate training & development people and processes, it is not always the case that an organization will have a dedicated executive development set of activities. In some organizations (typically large multi-nationals), there is a separate executive development team, in other organizations executive development is handled as one of many activities by the larger corporate training group, and in yet other scenarios there is no executive development activity to speak of.
In contrast to other corporate training & development activities, which have as their core purpose to build tactical skills for employees, executive development plays a different role for the organization. Indeed some executive development is conducted for the purpose of building tactical skills (sometimes referred to as "hard skills" such as business fundamentals- finance, marketing, operations and also "soft skills" such as communication and team building), yet executive development is also used to evaluate future potential future executives as well as a mechanism for the CEO and the executive team to cascade their strategies, goals, and even elements of the culture to the rest of the management team and ultimately the organization. In the best of cases, executive development not only helps an organization execute its key strategies, it can also help provide input to the strategy creation process. In this way, executive development is much more strategic than typical corporate training & development which is used for most employees of an organization.
While executive development continues to become enriched by many approaches, one approach, adult development and its subfield Positive Adult Development is beginning to create opportunities for what has been essentially reserved for academic research to become an increasing part of executive practices.
The program of executive development aims at achieving following purposes: -
- To sustain good performance of managers throughout their careers by exploiting their full potential.
- To understand economic, technical, and institutional forces in order to solve business problems.
- To acquire knowledge about problems of human resources.
- To think through problems this may confront the organization now or in the future.
- To develop responsible leaders.
- To inculcate knowledge of human motivation and human relationships.
- To increase proficiency in management techniques such as work study, inventory control, operations research and quality control.
Johnson and Sorcher write, “Management development focuses on developing in a systematic manner, the knowledge base, attitudes, basic skills, interpersonal skills and technical skills of the managerial cadre.”
According to Flippo “executive development includes the process by which managers and executives acquire not only skills and competency in their present job but also capabilities for future managerial tasks of increasing difficulty and scope.”
The characteristics of executive development are as following: -
- Executive development is a planned and organized process of learning.
- It is an ongoing and never ending exercise.
- Executive development is a long term process as managerial skills cannot be developed overnight.
- It aims at preparing managers for managers.
Today, it is the growth that makes one person stay at the company. The opportunity and challenges is what keeps a person satisfied and charmed with his job. Companies have understood this fact and therefore are forming policies and procedures to develop their employees.
Importance and Factors Influencing Executive Development
Executive development is more future oriented. It is more concerned with education than is employee training. In today’s competitive environment, an organization has to be concerned about the development of supervisors, middle level managers and top-level executive.
Executive development is important for the following reasons: -
- Executive development programmes are required to train and develop professional managers.
- It helps managers to develop skills to face cut throat competition.
- It enables managers to face problems related to technology and institution.
- It helps in developing better relations with the labors.
- Executives need training and education to understand and adjust to changes in socio-economic changes.
- Executive development is required to broader the outlook of managers.
Factors Influencing Executive Development
A host of factors influencing the executive development processes in organizations are as follows:-
- F ailure to train the managers will lead to ineffective and inefficient managers who negatively affect the organization’s performance.
- In the absence of training and developmental avenues, the performing managers may get de¬motivated and frustrated in leading the organizations. This would lead to severe losses for the organization in financial parameters, in terms of the cost of recruiting and training the new incumbent.
- The organizational performance may be affected by the loss of market shares, lower sales, reduced profitability, etc.
- The absence/ shortage of trained and skilled managers make it important for the organizations to have appropriate retention strategies. Training and development is being used by organizations as a part of their retention strategy.
- The competitive pressures make it necessary for organizations to continuously roll out new products and services, and also maintain the quality of the existing ones. The training and development of managers would help them in developing the competencies in these areas.
- The competitive environment is making it imperative for the organizations to continuously restructure and re-engineer, and to embark upon these processes, it is essential for the organizations to train the managers for the new scenarios.
Evaluation of Executive Development
In the competition scenario, where the focus is on efficiency and profitability and the return on investment (ROI) on all the activities of the organization, executive development cannot be an exception to the phenomenon. The evaluation of the process assumes importance from the following perspectives:
- Improving the quality of the training and development process.
- Improving the efficiency and competency of the trainers.
- Making improvements in the system to make it more responsive and realistic.
- Aligning the training activities to the organizational objectives.
- Building the cost implications of the training into the organizational budget.
- Evaluating the ROI on account of training and development to justify further investments.
- Changing the perception of the management on training as expenditure to more as an investment for the future growth of the organization.
Executive development plays a crucial role in HRM. It is the managers / executives who can determine the destiny of the organization by strategizing, implementing the strategies, and more importantly, leading the employees to higher levels of efficiency and performance. The unit begins with an introduction to the emerging scenario, explains the process of the executive development programme (EDP) in the overall organizational context and also the various stages involved. It explains the factors influencing executive development. Executive development and its inter-relationship with e-learning, and the methods and techniques involved in executive development have been discussed. The factors involved in the design and development of EDP have been discussed in brief and the EDP has been viewed in the context of organization development. The process of planning for the employee from the time of joining to the time of retirement. It also helps in understanding career management from the organization and individual prospective. It also attempts to bring out the differences between career and job, identifies the steps in career planning, and analyses the steps that need to be taken from the individual and employee’s point of view for career success.
No comments:
Post a Comment