What is Employee Development Software and 3 Reasons Why it Matters

Employee development software can help your organization invest in, build loyalty and trust with, and retain high-value employees, keeping knowledge in your organization, improving morale, and significantly reducing recruitment costs.

Implementing employee development software is a way to prioritize your employees’ long-term success and career growth. Corporate investment in career development programs is at an all-time high, and more than 50% of HR teams are expecting to increase their budget for internal L&D in the next year. 

What is Employee Development?

For context, development can mean any or all of the following: improving an employee’s skills or approach, expanding their skill set to achieve a certain aim, or equipping them with specific knowledge, certifications, or tools that can help them do more or do what they already do better.

In most cases, the end goal for the employee is ownership over a project, a lateral move, or a promotion. For employers, the goal is a more productive and valuable employee, who may be able to fill an existing or anticipated skills gap and who will be more likely to resist the temptation to leave the company. 

Employee development should start in the recruitment phase by making the best possible matches between candidates and open roles using skills-based hiring, then continue into onboarding and fueling a positive employee experience.

Why Employee Development Matters

Investing in growth is both the embodiment of a “people-first” culture and a way to improve a company’s bottom line. 

First, employers who invest in employees and promote from within can enjoy significant cost savings and retention over organizations that hire externally for each new open role. (In fact, more than nine out of ten of employees say they’d stay at their companies longer if the employer invested in their growth.)

Second, companies that invest in L&D can see a staggering return on investment (ROI) - in one study, organizations offering comprehensive training programs to their employees were shown to have an over 200% higher income per employee and their profit margins were as much as 24% higher than companies that didn’t offer extra employee training or only offered minimal development programs.  

Third, internally developed and promoted employees have a significant edge over external hires when it comes to performance. One study revealed that external hires scored an average of 61% lower on performance reviews compared to individuals who had been promoted from within. 

Related: Find out What are the Top Ten Employee Development Tips You Need To Implement Today

Employee Development Software Features

Employee development software helps automate and expedite multiple processes and makes it easier to collaborate around the task of employee development. The employer, employee, and HR department can all participate in helping drive the team forward towards shared goals.

Here are eight features you need in both recruitment and employee development software:

Employee Development Software Feature #1: Skills detection

A holistic, 360 view of all employees in your organization can help you identify where skills gaps may exist and let you know where critical skills may be concentrated in a single department, leaving other areas of your organization deprived. Your software should help you generate an overview of your skill landscape and deliver proficiency gaps insights. 

Employee Development Software Feature #2: Skills analytics

Employee development software should also be capable of digging deeper into “people analytics.” Knowing who your employees are, what skills they already possess, and at which tasks they excel can help you determine where strengths and weaknesses lie, and identify employees with the potential to be upskilled or reskilled to improve their value. 

Employee Development Software Feature #3: Internal talent discovery

Internal talent mobility is a critical part of talent management and workforce planning. Keep employees excited about their careers within the company by continually presenting jobs or project roles that may be a good match for their skills and interests. By leveraging skill-matching functionality you can support internal talent mobility and reduce employee attrition. Make internal talent spotting a routine exercise to reveal existing employees’ hidden strengths and potential.

Employee Development Software Feature #4: Integrations

Ideally, your employee development software will integrate with other platforms and tools your team is already using. These can include single-sign-on integration, learning management system (LMS) integrations, API integrations for data access and sharing, and external integrations to expand datasets and draw in market insights to help predict future skill needs and gaps.

Crosschq integrates smoothly with your chosen CMS and other tools to create a robust talent management stack that fully supports employee development.

Employee Development Software Feature #5: Skills recommendations

Your chosen software should provide skill recommendations based on employees’ existing skill profiles, paving the way for expanded skill sets and attributes that can not only pave the path to their career development but bolster their trajectory within your company. Investing in employees should always be done with an eye on the prize of futureproofing their career and your organization.

Related: See Why Training and Mentoring Battles Employee Retention

Employee Development Software Feature #6: Training recommendations

The software you select should also be capable of delivering automatic learning recommendations. As you define training types and learning sources available, you can match each employee with the best options and help them get educational benefits and certifications that have been tailored to their unique skill profiles. Try Lattice Career Planning which empowers employees to take ownership of their career trajectories, while supporting both short-term and long-term goals.

Employee Development Software Feature #7: Trackability

You also need the functionality to track the development progress of each employee to see where they are in their growth plan. Managers should be able to support and coach employees at every step of the process.

Employee Development Software Feature #8: Accessibility 

Finally, your employee development software must be easy to access and use for everyone within the organization. This dovetails with initiatives within your company focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging; if your development opportunities aren't available to everyone, you aren’t showing a full commitment to DEIB.

Crosschq 360 strips away unconscious bias during the candidate checking process, helping create a level playing ground that extends into employee development.

Ready to take your employee development to the next level? Contact us to request a demonstration of Crosschq today.