An outline of an employee development plan using technology

In this blog post, I provide an outline of an employee development plan that is relevant to my professional context. I have chosen to focus on the marketing unit of the “eat-out” restaurant business unit of the organization I founded. Although this unit is relatively new, I realized that the sales revenue in the last six months is somewhat stable. Recently, we allowed customers who opt to eat inside the restaurant, do so. Although this has visibly increased the number of visiting customers, it has not added significant improvements to our sales revenue. Evidence supporting this, suggests that only a few of the regular eat-out customers have actually opted to eat in, a majority still place their orders and await delivery at home or in their offices. In retrospect, I realized that about eighty percent of the founding personnel are still actively working in the restaurant. This makes a strong case in favor of implementing an employee development plan using technology, to better engage existing customers and also possibly, attract new ones.

Kandampully, J., Bilgihan, A., & Zhang, T. (2016), in their study about developing a people-technology hybrid model to unleash innovation and creativity, suggests that applying technology alone, would not achieve innovation for any organization. Hence, it is important that an organization engages personnel who can adopt technology as a leverage for identifying customer needs through insights gleaned from the feedback received from customers (Kandampully, et. al., 2016). Lastly, Kandampully, et. al. (2016) suggests that employees remain an invaluable resource for applying technology towards unleashing creativity and innovation by actively engaging customers in a more social context. As such, it is imperative that the proposed employee development plan is people-centric and also effective for enhancing organizational citizenship behaviors among employees and customers alike.

Sequel to the above, I hereby describe the outline of the employee development based on the five steps for creating employee development plans (EDP) that truly work, as proposed by Miller (2012). Summarized in a logical order for implementation, the outline of the EDP are:

 

  1. Identify business objectives which the EDP should achieve

    For my professional context, which has already been described, the business objective is to improve the sales revenue in the eat-out restaurant by fifty percent within six months.

 

  1. Engage the employees
    Employee engagements would be aimed at better appreciating their current skills, career aspirations, challenges faced in their current roles and which mode of training would best support them, among others.
  2. Assess their potentials or readiness
    It is one thing for employees to show growth potentials but another for them to be ready for the challenges which a new job role or new performance targets, could bring upon them. It is also important to ascertain their actual interest or lack of interest. This information would be derived from the outcomes of their prior engagement. The bigger picture is to establish what could be necessary for their individual growth and also how they might impact on the objectives of the EDP.
  3. Determine what additional training or technology might be needed
    The purpose of additional training is for the employees to acquire new skills which would enhance their personal and professional development, and also contribute to the objectives of the EDP. Asides training, based on the feedback from steps 2 and 3, it might be necessary to consider additional technological tools.
  4. Create an implementation plan

    Considering that our customers place their orders by contacting the restaurant via phone calls, send proxies or come in person, I see huge potentials to leverage technology by first creating a channel for customer registration, allowing registered customers place orders via chatting platforms or through an online booking platform which we could be created. These platforms could be linked to our social media accounts and in collaboration with our employees, we could design sales promotions, special discounts or other incentives that would encourage them to share feedback, interact with us and do a lot more. These platforms could also help us with improving customer service and support. I believe this could be effective for enhancing organizational citizenship behaviors and also set the stage for co-creation and innovation as proposed by Kandampully, et. al. (2016).
  5. Provide support for helping employees with further developing in their current job roles, or in their new job roles

    This step is very crucial for ensuring that the objectives of the EDP are actualized. Support mechanisms like mentoring could also serve as a means for providing additional training and organizational support.

 

References

Kandampully, J., Bilgihan, A., and Zhang, T. (2016). Developing a people-technology hybrids model to unleash innovation and creativity: The new hospitality frontier. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 29(1), 154-164. doi:10.1016/j.jhtm.2016.07.003

Miller, J. (2012). 5 steps to creating employee development plans that truly work. Retrieved from https://www.insperity.com/blog/5-steps-to-creating-employee-development-plans-that-truly-work/