The study examined how different dimensions of personnel development affect employees and the company’s success.
Content of the Study
Existing studies on the impact of personnel development on corporate success show different results. In order to investigate this in more detail, the authors distinguish between a quantitative or qualitative perspective and an employee or manager perspective. This leads to four different dimensions of personnel development (Figure 1). The effect of these four dimensions on employee engagement, their competence and the financial success of the company is examined.
More than 12,000 managers and employees from over 200 companies were surveyed. The survey took place in two waves with an interval of two years. In addition, for the two years after the second wave, the financial success of the companies was surveyed.
The resources invested, the support of managers and the perceived benefits have an indirect impact on the company’s success via employee engagement. The support of managers and the perceived benefits have an indirect influence on the company’s success via the skills of the employees. The connection between skills and corporate success is more pronounced than between employee engagement and corporate success.
Only if the perceived benefit is high is the correlation between the scope of the offer and employee engagement or skills positive.
Practical Advice
- Personnel development has a positive effect on the financial success of the company.
- The support of managers and the perceived benefit of the participants have a greater influence than the amount of investment or the mere number of hours.
- A watering can principle can even have a negative effect on the employee if he or she does not see any benefit in the measure.
- The benefits of a measure should therefore be clearly communicated to the employee and the measure should be actively supported by the manager. This can also directly promote the development of the employee’s skills.
- Dimensions for the assessment of personnel development
Quick Facts:
Source: Sung, S. Y. & Choi, J. N. (2014). Multiple dimensions of human resource development and organizational performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior 35(6), pp. 851-870.
Link to the original (subject to charge)
Methods: Panel survey over a 5-year period
This article comes from the Xing group Science meets HRD
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