Hiring and retaining great employees is a key factor in the success of your business. Without the right people with the right skills, your business can’t consistently fulfill your customer’s needs. Great employees support your business success and also allow you, the business owner, to fulfill your role as the entrepreneurial leader. Without effective managers to lead and organize the work of the business, and technicians to do the work, you wouldn’t have the time to focus on the critical strategy that drives your business.

Imagine what kind of workplace your business would be if you successfully implemented a positive, defined system, so that your employees could think to themselves:

• "I’m excited about my work.”
• “This is a place where I can achieve my goals.”
• “I feel safe. It’s okay to make a mistake, and I will learn from it.”
• “I have some great ideas on how to improve things. I can’t wait to share them with my manager.”

To make that happen, you have to create a work environment where your people can evolve with you as they help your business grow. “People development” has everything to do with creating a workplace where people motivate themselves to do better, feel valued for doing well, and are constantly looking for ways to move beyond their limitations and do better.

The Employee Development Meeting

The Employee Development Meeting is the best system for creating true growth for each and every employee, as well as better results for the business. It is a regularly-scheduled meeting between an employee and their direct supervisor that creates true growth for each and every employee, as well as better results for the business.

The Employee Development Meeting is:

• A forum for discussion, problem-solving, conflict resolution, and planning that leaves your employees feeling listened to and empowered to take action

• A time to discuss current work in order to: make agreements for work to be accomplished, prioritize and discuss any exceptions, exchange substantive information, clarify procedures and results, and conduct other follow-up related to current work
• A coaching session that helps people stay on a productive track and focused on their Primary Aims and their personal and professional objectives, so their experience in your business becomes more positive and meaningful

Managers are likely the busiest people within an organization. When you take into account their performance objectives, meetings, project work and employee management responsibilities, it’s quite understandable why they are always the ones rushing about the office. At a typical 10-50 person company, the CEO and the staff employees are actually able to focus on one or two top priorities, while the managers are constantly balancing their responsibilities to both the CEO and their reporting employees, while still trying to get their work done.

Using the Employee Development Meeting (EDM) allows managers to keep in touch with their employees and stay on top of their accountabilities. While you might be thinking that the last thing you need is to add another meeting to your schedule, the EDM system is designed to condense many meetings into one highly focused session, reducing the need for random drop ins, frequent email exchanges, and other interruptions that burden managers.

Setting the Stage For Successful Employee Retention

If the EDM system makes sense for your organization, set up a meeting with all your managers to go over the EDM rules, and have them do the same with their reporting employees. Managers should set up EDMs for at least three months. Once these meetings are on the schedule, look for opportunities to eliminate other non-essential meetings—after all, this is also about saving time and increasing efficiency.

The Managers Role:

1. Be consistent: Set the frequency, regular time, and basic agenda for EDM’s and stick to it.  Promptly reschedule any missed meeting.
2. Be present: Conduct EDM’s in a quite place free of interruptions and distractions to allow a real dialogue to occur.
3. Be Committed: Inquire, listen, and secure commitments.  Find out what is going on with the employee (good and bad), address key work related issues, announce new projects and tasks, answer or clarify any questions and set and secure agreement regarding responsibilities.

The Employees Role:

1. Provide updates, not excuses: Be prepared to report on project status, and inform managers in advance when projects are not going to be delivered on time.
2. Ask questions, ask for help when needed: EDM’s are open two-way exchanges, both parties share responsibility in bringing up topics, communicating their needs, and discussing issues. 
3. Show your commitment: Employees are assigned projects and must make commitments to deliver, additionally they must commit to improving their skills and performance when problems arise.

The Result

The EDM is a straight forward communication opportunity that is consistent, focused, and highly accountable. When both parties are on the same page in regards to projects, responsibilities, work related and interpersonal issues, there is less need for email and hallway meetings that rarely resolve issues and often lead to more frustration and confusion. By creating a safe place for direct communication to occur, employees and managers can connect with a high degree of confidence that they are working on the right work and will have it completed without last minute surprises and potential melt downs.

Whatever result you’re pursuing, the Employee Development Meeting moves you and your employees one step closer to the satisfying, motivating work environment that most people dream of, but few ever experience.

Need Help?

If you’re serious about implementing systems like the Employee Development Meeting, we invite you to explore E-Myth’s Coaching Programs. There’s no better way to create a world-class organization than with the help and guidance of an expert E-Myth Business Coach.

Further Reading

The E-Myth Revisited in particular, Chapter 16 “Your People Strategy”
Creating Your Training System
Ensuring Employee Effectiveness
Delegation vs. Abdication