Executive Development - "Playing with the Big Kids"

Does your organization have an executive development program? If not, they are representative of the 34% of organizations recently sampled in the Executive Development: Strategic and Tactical Approaches report that have no active executive development program. Only 38% of participating companies have an active executive development program, while 23% have a program that is activated as necessary.

The executive development "playground" is dominated by "the big kids" - large organizations with substantial revenues. As annual revenue increases, so does the likelihood of having an executive development program. Executive development is a costly investment, with the average amount spent on each employee participating in a program reaching $12,370. \[more\]This average amount is 1,021% higher than the overall average learning expenditure reported in the 2008 ASTD State of the Industry Report. This finding is not surprising given the intensive demands of cultivating new executives and high-level personnel required for the efforts. It highlights that organizations with an active approach to executive development tend to have large workforces and hefty annual incomes. They have sufficient funds allocated to executive learning and development, which provides employees with the learning opportunities necessary to cultivate skills for running a successful organization. Nearly half the companies that reported having an active executive development program had annual revenues of $3 billion or more.

Two approaches to active executive development programs have also been identified: "heavy" and "light". Organizations with "heavy" programs tend to operate at a global or multinational level, have large revenues, and report better-than-average organizational performance. They have a tendency to spend more on each participant in learning, have a higher percentage of the workforce in executive development and rely more on outsourcing for executive development. Conversely, organizations with "light" executive development programs tend to have national operations, generate less revenue, and report poorer organizational performance; these organizations subsequently spend less, have a lower percentage of employees in executive development, and rely more on internal resources for their executive development initiatives than on external resources.

Source: Executive Development: Strategic and Tactical Approaches (ASTD/Booz Allen Hamilton)

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