Developing staff self‐awareness

Training managers frequently speak of an omission in staff development programmes. Whilst considerable sums are spent on job‐related courses and training modules little or nothing is spent on developing staff emotional well‐being, removing blocks to more effective performance. Is this, one wonders, too nebulous a concept for anyone to worry about? Of course we are sneakingly aware that the Japanese are doing this already. Their staff development programmes promote well‐being in characteristically Japanese ways: daily group meetings, integrating the individual closely with his/her primary working group and through it the corporation. The approach to staff development and staff well‐being adopted by Europeans will be different, for we have a different heritage. Our approach is through developing the individual as a unique person, as a whole person. Finding more effective ways of developing staff rests on using better ways of understanding the individual employee; what their unique problems are; what their individual ways of relating (or not relating) to the company and environment are.