Leveraging Employee Development Planning (EDP) for performance advantage

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the changes, including those around Employee Development Planning (EDP) made by training company Options 2, to modernise performance appraisals, optimise employee performance, and enable the company to expand its skills base in order to meet current and future contractual obligations.

Design/methodology/approach

Under the guidance of outsourced HR firm, HR Solutions, Options 2 was introduced to an “always available, anywhere” cloud-based EDP and employee performance management tool, Dinamiks.

Findings

Benefits around upskilling through training, employee performance improvement, and meeting contractual specifications have accrued. The tool also helped Options 2 be accepted by the National Career Service as a provider of training.

Research limitations/implications

A need was identified to link, more effectively, input (into Dinamiks) by some employees to company objectives. This is viewed as a cultural hangover from the days of paper-based appraisals and is being addressed.

Practical implications

Options 2 makes more effective use of its employees, who are better trained; is better placed to meet current and future contractual obligations; has been accepted by the National Career Service as a provider of training.

Social implications

Options 2 encourages staff to have interests outside the business and to detail these within Dinamiks in order to build up a picture of the wider social aspects of employees, to their betterment as individuals inside and outside the company.

Originality/value

The “always available, anywhere” aspects, and the comprehensive capabilities of EDP are original for, and of lasting business value to, Options 2.

Citation

Wise, J. (2014), "Leveraging Employee Development Planning (EDP) for performance advantage", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 46 No. 4, pp. 194-200. https://doi.org/10.1108/ICT-11-2013-0075