Creating a Development Culture
Access this expert-led webinar instantly, available anytime on-demand.
Included in All-Access Membership Live Webinar
On-Demand Webinar Available
Customer Satisfaction Guarantee Learn with confidence. If you're not happy, we'll make it right. That's our guarantee.
Employee engagement research has demonstrated that having skill development and career opportunities are some of the most highly valued job factors, especially for the new Millennial workers. However, managers can be resistant to providing employees with training. This webinar demonstrates how organizations can create a culture where development is a regular occurrence on the job, on a day-to-day basis for employees at work.
Many organizations are now putting effective skill and career development programs in place to engage and retain key talent and develop talent resources for the future.
In this session, you will learn how to embed employee development practices in your organization’s cultural ‘DNA’. Join us to learn how to ensure that employee development becomes an ongoing organizational priority that supports business strategy.
Employees frequently leave organizations for career advancement opportunities. They can also get bored or become stagnant in their jobs without a feeling of growth and getting ahead.
Organizations that succeed at creating a development culture enjoy profound competitive advantages by attracting, retaining and engaging talented employees. Many organizations emphatically state their commitment to employee development and set goals for building talent and promoting from within. Yet, short-term pressures often drain the development effort and drive external recruiting as the solution, undercutting employee growth and sending a message to the organization that commitment to employee development is weak.
Avoid unwanted turnover, increase performance, and improve employee engagement by creating both development programs and consistent habits within your company.
Learning Objectives:
- On the job development experiences
- Mentoring
- Self-paced learning technology
- Use of mobile learning applications
- The manager’s role in employee development
- Getting resources and support for employee development
-
Dr. B. Lynn Ware
Dr. Ware is an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist and has practiced for over 25 years in the talent management field. She is the CEO of Integral Talent Systems, Inc., a technology-enabled global talent management consulting firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. ITS’s mission is to optimize the [...]
HRCI Credit
SHRM Credit
ATAHR Credit
Aurora Training Advantage is offering continuing education points designed to recognize dedication to training and excellence in human resources.
Invest in your future with confidence! Our Customer Satisfaction Guarantee eliminates all risk, letting you focus purely on mastering new skills and advancing your career. If you're not completely satisfied, we'll ensure you are. Your satisfaction is not just a promise; it's our guarantee.
This webinar received a total of 2 survey responses. Attendees have given an average rating of 3.5 stars out of a possible 5, reflecting the quality and value of the content presented.
Webinar Presentation
How many of the objectives of the event were met?
4.0 Stars
How useful was the information presented at this event?
3.5 Stars
Overall, how satisfied were you with this event?
4.0 Stars
Speaker Performance
Overall, how satisfied were you with this presenter?
3.5 Stars
How closely did the presenter follow the schedule?
2.5 Stars
Reviews From Webinar Survey
Our webinars are crafted to deliver exceptional value and insight to business professionals. Below, you'll find genuine feedback from attendees.
Nicholas S.
May 9, 2023
3.8 / 5
Webinar Rating:
4.0 Stars
Speaker Rating:
3.5 Stars
Do you have any other comments, questions or concerns?
There was some technical difficulties but other than that everything was good
Hannah L.
May 9, 2023
3.2 / 5
Webinar Rating:
3.7 Stars
Speaker Rating:
2.5 Stars
Do you have any other comments, questions or concerns?
Technology issues delayed the start of this training and I had to drop for another call at 1 pm missing the end of the presentation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Creating a development culture requires moving beyond periodic training events to embed learning and growth into the everyday rhythm of organizational life. The most effective approach integrates development into the work itself rather than treating it as a separate activity. On-the-job development experiences—stretch assignments, cross-functional projects, job rotations, and increasing levels of responsibility—provide the real-world practice that accelerates capability growth faster than any classroom training. Mentoring programs connect employees with experienced colleagues who can provide guidance, perspective, and advocacy, creating development relationships that persist beyond any single training event. Self-paced learning technology and mobile learning applications make development accessible in small doses throughout the workday, removing the 'I don't have time' barrier that derails most formal programs. The manager's role is pivotal: managers who regularly discuss development in one-on-ones, create opportunities for skill building, and recognize growth signal to their teams that development is a genuine organizational priority. Embedding development language into performance review processes, succession planning discussions, and career conversations institutionalizes the expectation. Dr. B. Lynn Ware, Industrial/Organizational Psychologist and CEO of Integral Talent Systems, provides evidence-based frameworks for embedding development into organizational DNA in Aurora Training Advantage's Creating a Development Culture webinar.
Career advancement opportunity is consistently cited as one of the top reasons employees voluntarily leave their organizations—and it is also one of the most preventable forms of turnover when organizations invest proactively in development. Employees leave when they feel stagnant, see limited growth ahead, or perceive that advancement requires moving to a different employer rather than progressing within their current organization. The underlying dynamic is often invisible to managers: high-potential employees who feel underutilized or underdeveloped rarely announce their dissatisfaction before accepting a competing offer. Exit interviews frequently reveal that the employee had been considering leaving for 6-12 months before finding a new role. HR can prevent this departure pattern by creating visible internal mobility pathways, ensuring that open positions are actively promoted internally before external recruiting, developing managers' skills for having meaningful career conversations, and making skill development resources easily accessible and actively encouraged. Recognition of internal advancement success stories reinforces the message that careers can be built within the organization. Proactive stay conversations—asking high performers about their career aspirations and development needs before they become flight risks—enable timely intervention. Dr. B. Lynn Ware addresses these dynamics with evidence-based retention strategies in Aurora Training Advantage's Creating a Development Culture webinar, drawing on 25 years of talent management research.
The manager is the single most important variable in whether employees experience a development culture or a stagnant one—far more influential than any HR program, training platform, or organizational policy. Managers who actively develop their people create team environments where learning is valued, mistakes are tolerated as growth opportunities, and employees receive regular coaching, feedback, and stretch opportunities. Conversely, managers who hoard talent, resist sending employees to training, never discuss career aspirations, or fail to give real feedback—regardless of what the organization's development programs say on paper—create environments where development withers. Developing managers' capability and motivation to support employee development is therefore a primary HR responsibility. This requires equipping managers with the skills to have effective development conversations, providing them with tools and resources to support their team members' growth, and—critically—making development of people an explicit expectation in managers' own performance evaluations. When managers are measured and rewarded for the talent they develop and promote, not just for keeping their best people on their own teams, the incentive structure aligns with the development culture goal. Short-term performance pressures that crowd out development require senior leadership intervention to maintain development as an organizational priority. Aurora Training Advantage's Creating a Development Culture webinar, taught by Dr. B. Lynn Ware, provides actionable frameworks for HR professionals to build and sustain manager development capability.
Building a compelling business case for employee development investment requires translating HR outcomes into financial and strategic terms that resonate with senior leadership and finance. The most powerful ROI argument for development investment starts with the cost of turnover: replacing a mid-level employee typically costs 50-200% of their annual salary when recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity, and knowledge loss are fully accounted for. If a development program reduces voluntary turnover even modestly—and research consistently shows that development opportunity is a top driver of retention—the financial return can be substantial and calculable. Development also accelerates time-to-performance for both new hires and employees in new roles, reducing the productivity ramp time that represents a significant but often unmeasured cost. Higher-performing employees—those who are continuously developing their skills—produce measurably better outputs, and development investment is a primary driver of high-performance maintenance. Succession planning and internal promotion rates (versus costly external hiring) represent additional quantifiable benefits. Competitive talent attraction advantages are harder to quantify but increasingly significant in tight labor markets where development culture is a differentiating employer value proposition. Dr. B. Lynn Ware brings 25 years of talent management research to Aurora Training Advantage's Creating a Development Culture webinar, providing HR professionals with the evidence base and business case frameworks needed to secure organizational support for development programs.
Mentoring is one of the most impactful and scalable components of a workplace development culture, providing personalized guidance, perspective, and advocacy that formal training programs cannot replicate. In a mentoring relationship, a more experienced professional shares knowledge, career insights, organizational context, and professional networks with a less experienced colleague—creating development that is immediately applicable to real situations the mentee is navigating. For mentees, the benefits include accelerated skill development, broader organizational perspective, increased confidence, and access to networks and sponsorship that might otherwise take years to develop independently. For mentors, the relationships often increase their own leadership skills, reinforce their knowledge through teaching, and improve their understanding of the concerns and perspectives of earlier-career employees. For organizations, mentoring programs support succession planning, increase retention of high-potential employees, facilitate knowledge transfer, and build the cross-functional relationships that improve collaboration. Effective mentoring programs provide structure—including matching processes, orientation, goal-setting frameworks, and check-in cadences—rather than leaving relationships to form organically, which tends to replicate existing networks and miss the employees who most need development support. Dr. B. Lynn Ware covers mentoring program design as part of her comprehensive development culture framework in Aurora Training Advantage's HR professional development webinar series.