When it comes to employee development are you a great, good or everyone else investor?

How successful is your organization going to be when the economy turns?

I truly believe there is a window that continues to close more and more each day to organizations when it comes to investing in employee development as well as preparing our next generation of leaders. Our current economic climate has forced all organizations to put their cards on the table about how truly important they feel learning and development is to the future success of their own business. I look at the situation much like an investor. Great investors see opportunity before everyone else and are also the one's that reap the greatest rewards. Good investors follow the great investors and are still able to reap above average returns. Then you have those at the tail end who follow the good investors and usually see average to below average returns or maybe no return at all. Lastly you have everyone else who continually says, "man I wish I had..."

As I meet with organizations I see the same type of investor scenario above, when it comes to developing employees. Some organizations see this as an unbelievable opportunity to invest in their employees, these are the great investors. They see investing in employee development now is going to pay great dividends later. These types of companies I believe are at the forefront and truly will see unbelievable returns for their investment. The returns they are going to realize as the economy begins to turn are employees that are not looking to leave the organization, because they will feel incredibly loyal to the company who continued to invest in them "in the not so great times"! They are going to have a more engaged workforce who is better prepared to understand how to be ready to compete in the new global economy that is being created right now. They are also going to be an organization that is ready to hand over the reigns of their company from the Babyboom generation leaders to a well prepared GenX and GenY employee population. If this describes your organization, I am extremely confident that you will be one of the leading organizations we are reading about 20-30 years from now.

If you do not yet fit into the above category, not to worry you still have time to follow the great investors and become a good investor. However the window continues to get smaller everyday. More and more signs are pointing to an economy that is finally beginning to stabilize. You may be asking the question, wouldn't that be better for us all if the economy stabilizes? The answer is absolutely, the only problem is it also will create that much more of an equal footing for every organization when it comes to having resources allocated for employee development. At that point as an investor you have lost the opportunity to leverage the bad economy as a strategic advantage to your company, when it comes to investing in and developing employees. It is at this point the great investors have already found the next big opportunity.

If you are the organization that waits for the economy to completely stabilize and rebound, I truly believe you will be saying what all of us have said at least at one point in our life, "man I wish I had..."

Three cost effective ways to grow and develop your talent in the down economy!

With the significantly increased focus on measuring talent management within organizations today; is your company also implementing and executing on cost effective strategies and tools to actually develop and grow your talent?

We all regularly read and hear how talent is the most significant differentiating factor for those companies who lead their individual market spaces. At the same time organizationally we are also all challenged with limited resources being allocated to properly develop up and coming talent. Below are three simple ideas that you can bring to the table at your company, to leverage in today’s unstable economic climate to ensure both short and long term success for your organization.

1. Be certain you are offering your talent the developmental tools they need on a just-in-time basis. This can include both off the shelf and internally created on-demand tools that are scalable and directed specifically for your talent and allows them to get to the information when, how and where they need it. Most organizations provide these types of solutions to the overall employee base in some capacity. However many times organizations overlook providing their talent with these same types of solutions that specifically are targeted to this audience. The moment that the talent in your organization feels that the on-demand solutions that you have purchased or created is focused on the masses is the minute that your elite is turned off by the majority of opportunities being provided by your Learning and Development organization for them in the future.
2. Create a corporate friendly mentoring environment. Employees investing in each other will be one of the key differentiators for those organizations who are successful moving forward. We all need to take a more active role in our organizations, to help each other grow. For further ideas on this I highly recommend the book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi.
3. Use the talent you already have to develop your future talent through regularly posting internal podcasts and bite size online video interviews with your Executive and Senior Leadership. Very often your current up and coming talent is dispersed in a myriad of locations and departments throughout your company. When first entering your organization this group rarely gets regular face time opportunities to speak or even listen to the Senior Leadership and Executive staff. With the ever increasing emerging technologies of podcasts and online videos you now have scalable tools to easily allow you to get your current talent in front of your future talent.

Three Ways to Leverage the Benefits of E-Learning In Today's Current Business Climate!

1.Market to your learners the ability to consume your on-demand learning tools and assets in snack sizes rather than the entire cafeteria menu or 5 course meal options.

In today’s work environment every employee is being asked to do more in less time. Therefore as learning professionals you need to be that much more sensitive to this need and also leverage this need to your marketing advantage. Almost all e-learning now offers the capability to consume courses in 10-15 minute segments. This way learners feel as if they are able to accomplish and complete something and not overwhelmed by hour and half to 3 hour course durations.

Marketing Campaign Theme Idea : What can you learn in 15 minutes?

2. Continually refresh and tie your e-learning tools back to monthly/quarterly internal business drivers and initiatives.

We are facing one of the most challenging business climates in our nation’s history. With challenge comes opportunity! I imagine each of your organization’s will be ensuring a clear and concise focus is placed out on a more regular basis to the organization as a whole as well as at the departmental level. Take advantage of this increased communication from your Executive offices to market and increase awareness of the internal learning and development tools each employee has at their disposal that tie back to these key initiatives and business drivers being laid out.

3. Create ways of putting your on-demand learning solutions at the fingertips of your learners rather than having them search for them.

The minute that on-demand learning solutions become difficult to get to is the minute that learning does not get accessed. With the time crunch mentioned above this becomes that much more critical. We must find ways to pump learning to employees in their daily workflows rather than trying to drive employees to these on-demand solutions.

Potential Solutions: Single Sign-On Solutions, Portal Environments, Mobile Technology