Assessing Your Current Approach to People Development
This short checklist is a simple tool to help you determine your organisation’s current approach to people development. All you have to do is work through the statements under each section and score them on a scale of 1 to 4 where 1 = totally agree and 4 = totally disagree.
Once completed, add up your total score and use the table at the bottom of the page to interpret your results. There is no wrong place to be on this spectrum but the output from your checklist may help you identify the main areas you need to focus on if you wish to move to a different level.
To score yourself download and print the self assessment:
 |
Self Assessment |
Score |
| Development Objectives |
Development objectives are regularly reviewed and set in consultation with line managers | |
| Line managers are clear about the specific capabilities needed in their teams | ||
| Capability improvement objectives are closely aligned to bottom-line performance goals | ||
| Organisational Culture |
Learning & development is viewed as an investment rather than a cost | |
| People development is recognised as a business critical process rather than a short-term fix | ||
| Developing our people is considered to be a business responsibility rather than one for the L&D team | ||
| Line Manager Engagement |
Our line managers have the capability and resource to fully develop their team members | |
| Our business leaders willingly invest their own time in developing their people | ||
| Our line managers have the coaching skills needed to fully support and get the best from their people | ||
| Our People | Skills development is recognised as my own responsibility rather than something that HR does to me | |
| Learning is seen as a positive career step rather than a response to a perceived weakness | ||
| Our people are keen to self-nominate for learning rather than be pushed from above | ||
| Current Development Activities |
We offer a full range of development opportunities rather than just regular training courses | |
| Development activities consistently lead to measurable improvement in individual performance | ||
| Our L&D investment makes a measurable improvement to our organisational performance | ||
| TOTAL SCORE |
Your overall score suggests your approach is in line with the following levels:
| TOTAL SCORE | LEVEL |
| 0 – 15 | A real embedding culture exists. This indicates a very positive environment for converting your investment in developing your people into measurable business benefits. Your challenge will be to sustain this by continuing to drive activity from close partnership with your business leaders |
| 16 – 30 | Strong focus on learning. Suggests an appetite and opportunities exist for closer alignment with the business but further work needed to close some specific gaps. |
| 31 – 45 | A development based approach focused on improving individual skills although not necessarily ensuring this translates into measurable benefits for the business |
| 46 – 60 | L&D investment centred on providing portfolio of training opportunities seen as necessary rather than as a real lever to deliver benefit to the business or the individual. |
