Using the best of both worlds

The world of work is in a high dynamic of change and the complexity of many work situations is increasing. This is sufficiently well known. It is also well known that the required competencies of employees are changing at a rapid pace and that the demand for continuous learning has risen sharply. Personnel development - understood as the systematic advancement of employees with regard to the goals of the company - has thus become a critical control instrument for success. It is a matter of continuously working towards the best possible match between the competencies of the employees and the current and future requirements of the jobs.

Personnel development is thus something other than a short-term correction of deficits and much more than an "internal approval procedure" for further training that individual employees would like to undertake. Personnel development must rather be intertwined with the strategy of the company and accordingly take a comprehensive and longer-term perspective.

Take time for analysis
How can this be achieved and which instruments are suitable to reach this goal? How can it be decided where in-house training is suitable and where it is better to finance external training for individual employees?

First of all, it is important to take time at regular intervals to analyse the competences required in the future and those currently available in an area of work and to try to answer the following questions:

• What challenges exist in the respective industry or in individual fields of work, and which competencies will become particularly important for which groups of employees in the future as a result?
• What are the goals of our company or department, and what are the resulting competence needs?
• Which competencies do we as a company or department already possess to a sufficient extent at the moment? Where are there deficits?
• What is the situation of individual employees? Who has what potential, and for whom is there a specific need for qualification?
• Who is motivated to develop in new areas? What emerges from the answers to these questions is a "map" of company-specific development needs as well as individual development ideas and requirements, which can be responded to with personnel development.

Choosing the best starting point
First of all: Essential processes of professional qualification do not take place in further education, but directly in the work activity. When we are faced with (adequate) challenges and have our own room for manoeuvre, then we learn, and usually much more than in a special training event. But the other way round: If we (have to) do the same things for a long time, are under- or overchallenged and have little room for manoeuvre, our own development stagnates or we even lose competence. Thus, the first focus of personnel development is always on the question of what the everyday work situation of an employee looks like. Beyond that, however, it is also clear that internal and external training is important in order to be able to keep up with the dynamics of change, and they each have their own meaning and their own strengths.

A general rule can be applied: In-company training is particularly appropriate when certain competencies are currently or in the future important for a whole group of employees. External further training, on the other hand, makes sense if the aim is to develop certain competences in an individual employee, to acquire specific expert knowledge, or if the aim is to acquire a qualification with a certificate in order to maintain employability.

Leveraging the strengths of in-house training
In-company training unfolds its potential above all when it is a question of the immediate transfer of what has been learned into everyday working life. The fact that all participants come from the same company or even from the same department means that a training programme can be developed that is tailored to the specific challenges of the company and the learning needs of the group, and in which the implementation issues and changes that arise in the work are jointly developed and reflected upon. The result is an intersection of personnel development and organisational development.

It is important to develop the programme together with the person carrying out the internal training and to agree clearly on the competences that the participants should have at the end. For quality assurance purposes, it may be useful to draw up a corresponding agreement. The client should make sure that he is not sold a "canned product" as internal training that could just as well take place in another company.

Benefit from the strengths of external training courses
External training courses allow you to "look beyond the end of your nose" and provide impetus from outside. Since the continuing education market has become widely differentiated, however, it is a challenge to find a suitable offer. In order for further education to lead to the desired individual competence development, it must not only offer the desired content at an adequate level. It must also fit the learning style and life circumstances of the employee. Here it is a question of the didactic model and the temporal structure in which the further training is offered. If a training course does not fit, then it is a pity for time and money, and the benefit is likely to be limited.

External training is particularly effective when it can be successfully transferred into everyday working life. It is interesting to note that research has shown that employees who have been encouraged by their managers to participate in further training see a greater benefit in it and achieve better transfer performance. It is also important for the transfer that employees are given the opportunity to bring the newly gained knowledge and competences into the team or to support their colleagues in the new specialist area.

Combining the strengths of the different forms of continuing education
There are also forms of continuing education in which the strengths of the internal and external form can be combined. In recent years, various models have been developed for this purpose at the Lucerne School of Business.

One variant is to conduct a course of study that is established on the market, for example a Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS), in-house, i.e. solely with employees from a company. In this case, it is possible to adapt the practical examples worked on directly to local conditions or to combine general scientific models with the concepts of the company.

Another variant is the implementation of a study programme in a "dual" form. In this case, external learning sequences at the university are combined with individual, supervised learning sequences at the workplace, thus optimising the transfer of what has been learned.

Both forms combine individual competence acquisition in formal form and with a recognised qualification with a focus on specific situations in companies and increased support in transferring what has been learned.

Understanding personnel development as a long-term development strategy and using further training in a "precisely fitting" way is demanding. However, taking a close look here is likely to pay off in any case.
worth it!