Personal Development As Part Of Your Job Personal development is the last big thing when it comes to improving yourself and becoming your best variant. There’s a lot of literature out there which teaches you how to discover your mission in life or your purpose on this planet or even how to find happiness.
Big companies discovered the motivating power of personal development programs offered to their employees, so such packages started to become part of all serious job offers, together with the business car, laptop or mobile phone. Many times, the concept of personal development is combined with interactive team building programs. When this happens, people are more willing to accept, follow and integrate into their work hard skills trainings and courses. For instance, a sales skills seminar may easily become boring, if the trainer doesn’t know how to captivate the audience. When this training happens in the middle of an interactive three-day program, it will be perceived as part of the fun, so the notions taught will be better acquired by all team members.
Employers are happy to allocate resources for the self-growth of their staff for a simple reason. The happier and more motivated people are, the better they work and the more effective and productive they are. Besides, the whole atmosphere is the office will be better, everybody will smile more and pick on others less if they are happy inside.
It is the task of human resources personnel to assess and decide which personal development programs work best for each team or for each individual. A department manager, for instance, will benefit from developing his leadership skills, not only in his private life but at work. People will more and more regard him as a leader and will behave accordingly.
Such programs are organized by companies once or twice a year and they are usually followed by periodical assessments of each participant in order to track their progress and sketch their next possible courses to attend.
Some employees will seem enthusiastic in the beginning, but their interest will fade with time. Research has shown that the effect of a training program lasts in average for six months. After this time, most people will return to their old habits. This is called the Honeymoon Effect. A small bunch of participants, though, will become interested in knowing more. They will start reading self-help books, take online quizzes and strive to improve their own person in any way they can. It is not uncommon for these people to quit their job after one or two years and start their own business or do whatever else they feel it’s their mission in life. Some of them will even fall in love with coaching and helping others develop themselves, so they will enroll in coaching classes, they will start taking certifications, joining coaching organizations, until one they when they will be able to take everything a step further and help others discover their purpose on Earth.
This is a note to employers: beware, if the personal development trainings you offer are too good, you might lose your best people.
