Excuses

I recently had a meeting with my Director of Human Resources, and was very disappointed in the outcome. As a manager and young leader in the organization, I offered to develop a mentoring and cross-training program for our staff. Currently, our employee development solely focuses on task-based training, and doesn't include a speck of personal development.

The HR person finds value in the concept, and actually considered implementing a program several years ago. However, the excuse was that it has "never made its way to the priority list". Over the years, marketplace situations have occured that have resulted in aggressive hiring, or more recently - downsizing. As a result, HR is always in a reactive mode, and our employees are suffering.

Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to create an informal employee development group that meets every two weeks, and focuses on personal development. We are committed enough to the idea that we are meeting well before work hours, so we can strive to improve ourselves. We have already discussed our ability to positively impact morale, how to motivate others, and set long-term professional goals. This is basic material, but unfortunately we're having to take it upon ourselves to develop these skills.

I can't express how disappointing it is to see an organization spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on salaries, and not invest a fraction of that into their employees.