Personal development in today’s world.
Over the last 10-15 years, companies have become a lot less inclined to invest in the development of their employees – for a number of reasons.
The career life cycle
The life cycle of peoples career’s have changed a lot. Years ago most people work in 1-2 companies during their entire career.
This have changed significantly, which means that people are looking a lot more around on the job market and are much more willing to change jobs for higher salary’s, higher level jobs and even completely different career paths. This in itself makes it a lot less interesting for companies to invest in their people, as spending years developing someone for another company to benefit from it is not a seen as a valuable investment – or at least not as valuable as it used to be!
The financial situation
The current financial climate have put a lot more focus on cutting the baseline cost to remain competitive, and in most companies the training & development budget is one of the first places cut
The reasons for which companies are ready to cut the T&D budget are quite straight forward, often the impact is hard to asses and the potential impact is first seen at a later stage.
The exceptions!
There’s still a few companies out there, that put a lot of effort and focus in T&D, specially the “internet” companies like google & facebook that have a low baseline cost, can afford to offer their employee’s better conditions and likewise have the financial power to hold on to they high performers for a long time. These companies have realised the benefit of holding on to their people and work hard on all fronts to do so.
What do you have to do then?
In the end of the day, each individual is now responsible for their own development, your future and development is in the hands of you and you alone!
You can ask your company, you boss and your peers for help and support in terms of what area’s to developed and focus on, but ensuring that you follow through is you to you.
Good luck with you future and your career, remember it is in your hands!
