Many knowledge industries today work in a project based environment. These would involve individuals with different skills coming together to work on a time bound project and then dispersing again to join some other project team. In the IT industry specially, one would find this kind of environment. As an HR person supporting employees and managers in this kind of environment I have found it a typical problem that managers usually are unequipped to deal with the challenge of balancing short term project objectives with the long term goals of employee development.

We know the direct manager for an individual is key towards engaging and retaining him/her. And of course one of the key elements of engagement is supporting the individual to grow and develop. In an environment where teams are put together for specific purposes, the manager can only control opportunities/movements, growth plans within his/her project. Once the individual is released to another team, the new manager become responsible for the development of the employee. In such a scenario, who looks at the overall opportunities that the individual is getting and ensuring objectives of the development plan of the individual are met? Is it HR? It is the resource leverage/deployment group? How can these groups actually ensure developmental goals of individuals are met?

One of the solutions I have heard of (though never seen in action) are the presence of what we can people development officers. All employees are assigned to one people development officer and he /she ensures holistic development and facilitates the career of the individual in the company. But how realistic is this model? No company can really afford to have officers doing only this as a primary job. The existing executive structure would need to pitch in for this role. Is it possible to ensure success of such a program when everyone would have their own primary responsibilities to execute? Some thing as long term and intangible as development would most probably get relegated to low priority items.

How do we then deal with this challenge?