The 70, 20, 10 Rule for Employee Development

Promoting Skill Development of Your Human Resources

Employee development is a hot topic in today’s human resource and executive management circles, and rightly so.  Companies are investing more and more time and energy into building organizational strength through the capabilities of their employees.  It’s been said for some time that a company’s greatest asset is its people.  And now, firms have finally woken up to the fact that when their individual employees perform better, the organization can perform better as a whole.

While there are certainly numerous ways to approach employee development, one of the most popular and easiest frameworks to apply is known as the 70, 20, 10 Rule.  In short, this principle identifies three sources of learning and the corresponding percentage of time an employee should devote to each: 70% on-the-job training (OJT), 20% mentoring, and 10% training.  The reason why the 70, 20, 10 Rule is so effective is because it suggests that everything that our employees do as part of his or her job should offer some level of professional learning and skill growth.

Are You Doing Enough To Develop Your Staff?

Plenty of literature exists these days about the importance of hiring the best talent and establishing superiority through human capital.  But if you’re hiring such great talent, why is employee development so important?  You already have the talent!  Before digging into the 70, 20, 10 Rule, let’s take a step back to highlight why employee development is such a critical component of managing and leading an organization.

Comprehensive development activities that support the growth of your employees lead to the lasting success of an organization, and can even help a company build a competitive advantage.  To illustrate why this is the case, here are three things that will result from a strong emphasis on employee development:

1.  The Ability to Create a Sustainable Organization

Unlike the decades of the past, today’s workforce seeks fulfillment, opportunity and personal growth.  They want careers, not jobs.  For most working professionals, it’s not just a job anymore.  If you as a manager are not providing learning opportunities, diversity of work and avenues for advancement, your employees will take notice.

Lack of development opportunities can increase your turnover rate – the frequency with which employees leave a company – because someone out there is willing to offer more, and invest in your employee more than you do.  Offering opportunities for growth, advancement and professional development goes a long way towards keeping employees happy and prevents them from looking for jobs elsewhere.

2.  The Ability to Achieve Better Results

I mentioned competitive advantage above.  To expand on this notion, when your employees are able to do more through the bettering of their skills and capabilities, the entire organization can function at a higher level.

Think about it.  Imagine you have an employee who is really good at in-depth data analysis but struggles with communicating to non-scientific minds.  Next, imagine you have another staffer who isn’t the best a computing statistics, but is really skilled at taking complex information and boiling it down.  Now, ask yourself what it would be like to have one employee with both sets of skills.  All packaged up in the same cubicle, at half the cost.  By actively encouraging and supporting the skill development of your human resources, employees will be able to produce more, at a faster pace and more efficiently.

I often ask our clients a simple question: how can you groom a fresh college graduate into an experienced 10-year employee after only 5 years?  The answer, of course, is that you must give employees challenging assignments and a chance to learn and apply newly acquired skills.  Everyone talks about the learning curve.  An emphasis on employee development is the vehicle for accelerating employees down that experience curve.

3.  The Ability to Attract Higher Caliber Talent

Just as little kids aspire to become the next LeBron James, or the next Katy Perry, we all want to be on a winning team and be among the best at something.  And for this reason, when your company earns the reputation of being full of talented workers, people-focused and best-in-class, you will have the best applicants looking to join your team.  Imagine what it’s like to screen resumes and job applications at places like Google, Amazon or Apple.

Talented employees know their worth, and will be selective in their search for employment.  You want to make the short list of their optimal employers.

Breaking Down the 70, 20, 10 Rule

Now that we’ve covered why employee development is so important to a company or organization, let’s look at how you can set up a system that makes it come to life – the 70, 20, 10 principle.

The 70% of Employee Development

The largest and most significant piece of the 70, 20, 10 Rule is known as “On the Job Training.”  Simply put, the 70% is learning by doing and gaining knowledge through experience.  While this portion of development and growth is strictly rooted in the employee’s tasks and own self-learning, managers actually play a significant role in maximizing an employee’s ability to learn by doing.

RELATED: How to Choose Development Assignments for Employees

How?  Managers are in a position to actively and consistently assign responsibilities to each employee to help him or her grow.  And, given that on-the-job skill advancement represents 70% of an employee’s development, the tasks a supervisor gives to employees should be as ripe for learning as possible.

Let’s consider a simple example.  Imagine you have a junior employee who has been in a supporting role for more experienced team members.  To develop this junior staffer, you can offer the employee a more prominent role on the next project.

Similarly, if you happen to work in a long-cycle industry where projects can take several years from start to finish, ask one of your recent hires to help you with a new project proposal.  Doing so can give the employee insight into the whole project life cycle instead of waiting 5 years for one to evolve.

Here are some examples of what on-the-job training really means:

• Learning through task diversity
• Learning from peers
• Teaching others
• Skills learned through progressive increases in responsibility over time
• Learning new skills through different assignments and challenges

The best way to make the assignments valuable for the employee is to be very open and inform them upfront that the activity is intended for them to learn.  If an employee goes into the assignment knowing it’s OK to ask questions and learn as they go, the whole experience will dramatically increase in value for both the manager and the employee.

The 20% of Employee Development

The next component of the 70, 20, 10 Rule is employee development through mentoring, coaching and feedback.  Teaching.  Mentoring and coaching employees is a fantastic and effective way to help you team members learn.  After all, as the manager and team leader, it’s your job to help them learn from mistakes, to share any observations and feedback you may have on their performance, and to help them learn from your knowledge and experience.  That’s why you’re the manager!

Effective coaching and mentoring should come naturally to the relationship, but does require that the manager spend some time not talking about tasks and projects.  Instead, deliberately focus some conversations on things like the goals, career paths and the ever-changing interests of the employee.

Other examples of development through mentoring and feedback include:

• One on one meetings / coaching
• Regular performance reviews
• Formal mentoring programs
• 360-Degree feedback programs

Mentoring and coaching should not be limited to prescheduled and highly structured employee-manager meetings, but really be the norm for all interactions you have with your employees.  For example, when an employee asks a question or for your opinion on a matter, before offering your thoughts, ask your employee for their opinion and their reasoning first.  Guide them through their thoughts and help them arrive at a conclusion.  Then respond with your own opinion and rationale, which will help the employee gain a different perspective on the matter.

FREE DOWNLOAD: Employee Coaching Guide

The 10% of Employee Development

The last component of the 70, 20, 10 Rule is formal training.  Many managers frown on sending employees to formal training or seminars, as such activities are often seen as unproductive and unnecessary.  Further, when budgets are tight, spending money slated for training and development is often the first thing to go.  However, formal training – in the right context – is still an excellent way to foster skill development of employees.

There are an abundance of topics and courses out there where employees can spend a few days or a week learning something completely new, in an environment away from office distractions like email and meetings.  Such courses and training offer less commitment (both financially and in terms of time) than advanced degree programs. Yet these programs can still offer the employee a chance to sharpen their leadership skills, to explore an interest they rarely get exposure to in the office, or to simply learn a new software package.

Examples of development through training:

• Formal coursework
• Certifications
• Webinars
• In-person seminars
• Industry conferences or tradeshows

Plan a portion of your annual budget to go towards external training for each employee, whether or not he or she chooses to pursue it. 

RELATED: How to Justify a Training Class

For my employees, I request they alternate years between “hard skills” and “soft skills,” that is, if last year they went to a training class to help improve their skills with a certain piece of software, I would ask that this year they take the time to attend a seminar on project management, communication skills, or something along those lines.

The 70, 20, 10 Framework for Development

While there are a variety of models and examples out there,  the 70, 20, 10 framework is very useful and practical for managing teams.  Regardless of which model you prefer, the underlying key is that employee development is one of the most important responsibilities you have as a manager, and one that should remain at the forefront of your mind as you interact with your staff.  Doing so will help you create a winning team time and time again.

Looking for More on Employee Development?  You Might Like…

• Giving Feedback Do’s and Don’ts
• How to Make a Team Skills Matrix
• The Art of Mentoring