Step Three

Compare employee assessments to the high-performer models. The skills required to improve performance become clearly evident. Employees must clearly understand what they need to improve and be given a compelling reason to do so. Even though companies can provide employees with the opportunity to improve the employee must decide to improve and take effective actions to learn, apply, and tweak their skills. A database of effective developmental solutions for each skill must be generated. Then employees can select from those solutions (self-paced reading, online or instructor-led courses, observation of experts, etc.) and add them to a Learning Plan. Managers can also use Learning Plans to coach employees on what is required to achieve acceptable levels of performance when an unacceptable trend is identified. To aid employees in the process of real skill development (learning--> application --> feedback --> course correction) they must receive ongoing feedback from trusted sources that are affected by the use of that skill.