The bitter taste of squeezing on development

Julia Middleton, founder and chief executive of international leadership development organisation Common Purpose, urges leadership and development professionals not to fall foul of a false economy

Talent is an organisation’s gold, its future, its ideas, its greatest source of innovation. We will need our talent to get through the recession and to accelerate out of it at the optimal time.

Worryingly, UK organisations are failing to help their talent develop and innovate during this economic downturn. The result? It may not be there when it is needed. Some may stay because it is not easy out there, but a bulk of the talent will realise that talk during the good times of a company being a ‘people organisation’ was nothing but spin.

We are seeing an increase in the number of participants on our programmes who have chosen to go on the programme themselves and not even spoken to their employers, paying the fee themselves and using their annual leave to attend programme days. Great we might say – but is it really? When you speak to them you feel this deep rumbling of resentment and disappointment that their organisation just doesn’t get it. 

Recent research by Common Purpose has found widespread concern among training and development professionals that, in the wake of the economic downturn, staff development budgets will be cut and reprioritised, and this will make talent retention harder than ever. The logic is ‘they won’t move now’, but maybe, just maybe, the best might.
There is a danger that we underestimate the value of the talent and the cost of rebuilding them. Not maintaining staff development leaves organisations vulnerable to losing their key staff and destabilises their ability to spring forward when the time is right. It is a pretty clear message to high performers that the commitment to their development is wafer thin if we retreat at the first skirmish.

The research also tells us that organisations need to focus on the importance of a healthy ‘leadership pipeline’, and not, as predicted, refocus training too exclusively on technical skills. Talent is expensive to recruit and cutting the training budgets for graduates and junior managers will not equip an organisation’s next generation of leaders with the skills they need for the future, either in two or 10 years time. 

Organisations need to give this leadership potential the opportunity to grow and expand their horizons instead of closing down the shutters and retreating until the recession is over. This means encouraging their talent to network with a view to providing new openings and ideas for the organisation. This will give them the chance to broaden their perspective and reset their radar, giving them a vantage point to spot new opportunities for the organisation during and after the recession.

This doesn’t need to involve expensive training courses. Organisations can look outside the box for new ways to allow their staff to broaden as well as focus. They need to be given the chance to see the bigger picture for the organisation, not just their department or section. They need to have their ideas heard on the strategic direction for the organisation and be given scope to test novel ideas and trial original projects.

The research also highlights concerns about cuts in training and development still being made despite HR and staff development professionals making a strong case against it. They need to fight hard and clever, and have support at the most senior level, to ensure that staff continue to grow and develop over the next few years.