@margotmontgomery
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The Link Between Professional Development and Employee Satisfaction
The Truth About Professional Development No One Wants to Admit
Just recently, I witnessed another CEO in Melbourne trying to understand why their top talent walked out. "Look at all the training we provided," he insisted, scratching his head. "Leadership courses, communication workshops, the whole lot.""
This conversation plays out in boardrooms across Australia every bloody day. Business spends huge amounts on professional development. Employee leaves anyway. Executives are left wondering what they could have done differently.
Through eighteen years of helping Australian businesses with their people development, I've seen the same pattern repeat itself like a scratched record. We've reduced professional development to a bureaucratic process that serves everyone except the employees it claims to develop.
The awkward truth? Most professional development programs are designed to make companies feel good about themselves, not to really develop their people.
Here's what actually grinds my gears: we're treating professional development like it's some kind of employee perk. A token gesture that appears magically when someone asks about career progression.
Wrong. Dead wrong.
Development should be essential to how every organisation operates. But it's turned into something that happens after everything else is sorted.
There was this Adelaide construction firm I consulted with where the supervisors could build anything but couldn't lead teams. Rather than tackling the actual issue, they enrolled everyone in some cookie-cutter leadership course that set them back close to fifty grand. Half a year later, the same managers were still struggling with the same people problems.
The problem isn't with development itself. The problem is our backwards approach to implementing it.
Companies guess at what their staff should learn rather than discovering what employees are desperate to master. There's a massive difference between those two things, and it's costing Australian businesses millions every year.
Effective development begins by asking: what barriers prevent you from doing your best work?
Not what your boss thinks you need. Not what the training menu suggests. What you understand to be the real barriers to your success.
I think about Sarah, a marketing professional I coached at a Brisbane business. The organisation continuously enrolled her in online marketing programs because management assumed that was the gap. The actual issue Sarah faced was navigating an erratic CEO who could not stick to decisions.
Digital marketing workshops had zilch relevance to her actual workplace obstacle. A single discussion with someone who'd managed similar executive relationships? Breakthrough moment.
This is where nearly all organisations get it spectacularly wrong. They obsess over technical capabilities while the real obstacles are interpersonal. And when they do address soft skills, they do it through workshops and seminars instead of hands-on coaching and mentoring.
You cannot learn to manage difficult conversations by watching a PowerPoint presentation. You build these capabilities through real practice with experienced support.
The best professional development I've ever seen happens on the job, in real time, with immediate feedback and support. The rest is just expensive corporate theatre.
Something else that makes me furious: the fixation on degrees and professional credentials. Look, I understand some jobs demand particular formal training. Most positions demand abilities that formal programs can't measure.
I've met marketing leaders without marketing degrees who grasp customer behaviour better than business school graduates. There are project leaders who developed their skills in the field and deliver better results than accredited specialists.
Still, we favour formal training because it's more convenient to report and defend to leadership. It's like assessing a builder by their certificates instead of examining the houses they've built.
Organisations that excel at development understand it's not about training schedules or qualification frameworks. It's about establishing cultures where people can discover, test ideas, and advance while contributing to important outcomes.
Companies like Google does this well with their 20% time policy. Atlassian supports creative sessions where employees explore opportunities outside their typical role. These companies understand that the best learning happens when people are solving genuine problems they care about.
But you do not need to be a tech giant to create these opportunities. I've witnessed outstanding professional growth in smaller companies where people tackle diverse roles and develop through practical needs.
The vital element is approaching it with clear purpose. Rather than hoping development happens naturally, intelligent companies design challenging projects, collaborative opportunities, and coaching relationships that push people appropriately.
This is what delivers results: combining people with varied backgrounds on genuine business initiatives. The newer team member learns about different problems and how decisions get made. The veteran staff member enhances their guidance and people management abilities. Everyone learns something valuable.
This method is uncomplicated, affordable, and linked to actual company performance. But it requires managers who can coach rather than just assign tasks. And that's where nearly all organisations fall down.
We promote people to management positions based on their technical skills, then expect them to magically know how to develop others. It's like advancing your strongest accountant to accounting supervisor and being shocked when they struggle with team management.
To create development that genuinely grows people, you must first invest in growing your supervisors. Not using leadership courses, but through regular guidance and help that enhances their team development skills.
The contradiction is that successful development frequently does not appear like formal learning. It manifests as compelling assignments, stretch opportunities, and leaders who authentically support their team's growth.
There's this Canberra accounting practice where the managing partner committed to giving everyone at least one challenging assignment annually. No structured curriculum, no qualifications, simply engaging projects that pushed people beyond their usual limits.
Their retention rate was amazing. Staff continued because they were advancing, exploring, and being stretched in ways they valued.
This is the magic formula: growth connected to purposeful activities and individual passions instead of generic skill models.
Professional development usually fails because it aims to address everyone's needs with the same solution. Smarter to target particular vital elements that matter to your individual team members in your distinct environment.
This leads to my greatest frustration: universal development solutions that supposedly work for everyone. These generic methods disregard the fact that individuals learn uniquely, possess different drivers, and encounter different obstacles.
Certain individuals learn through action. Others like to watch and contemplate. Some thrive on public recognition. Others prefer quiet feedback. Still we funnel everyone through identical training sessions and question why outcomes vary.
Wise businesses tailor development similarly to how they tailor customer relationships. They understand that what works for one person might be totally wrong for another.
This doesn't involve establishing countless distinct programs. It means being flexible about how people access learning opportunities and what those opportunities look like.
Maybe it's job rotation for someone who learns by doing. It might be a study circle for someone who understands concepts better through dialogue. Perhaps it's a public speaking opportunity for someone who requires outside recognition to develop self-assurance.
The objective is aligning the development method with the individual, not making the individual conform to the method.
I predict that in five years, businesses with the strongest people will be those that discovered how to make development personalised, relevant, and directly tied to important activities.
Everyone else will continue dispatching staff to standard training sessions and questioning why their top talent joins competitors who know that excellent people want to develop, not merely accumulate qualifications.
Professional development isn't about checking boxes or fulfilling training quotas. It's about creating workplaces where people can become the best versions of themselves while contributing to something meaningful.
Master that approach, and all other factors – staff loyalty, involvement, results – fall into place naturally.
Mess it up, and you'll continue those executive discussions about why your top talent leaves despite your significant development investments.
Your choice.
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