The Developmental Contract

Within any employment setting employee and management have at least two major objectives to accomplish. One of these is the continued functioning of the organization. The other is the personal and professional development of the employee. Sometimes these two concerns are in conflict with each other.

Supervision by management of any employee to be effective and both of these two objectives into consideration, must consist of a three-part procedure. All three are important and must be utilized in order to insure that both of these objectives are achieved. The three parts are:

• Freedom and Responsibility
• Assistance
• Follow-Up

Freedom and Responsibility:

This step in the supervision procedure consists of outlining:

• what is to be done
• ways that it can be done
• a clear definition of responsibility

In this process it is the responsibility of the supervisor or representative of management to clearly state what his or her expectations are and to give appropriate authority and freedom to the employee to perform.

Assistance:

Many times supervisors have difficulty giving assistance without restricting the freedom of the employee. Yet assistance is often needed. How to assist is a major problem. One of the very worst things that any supervisor can do to destroy an employee’s ability to perform their assigned task is to constantly micromanage. This will not only be detrimental to the employee but to the organization as well because employees will simply not want to remain with the organization.

The supervisor in the process should:

• Ask the employee what help will be needed.
• Ask “What can I do.” “How can I best assist you.” Or “I can do ____________ if you need me to.”
• Negotiate a development contract or agreement to assist.
• During regular conferences focus first on what the employee thinks is happening.

Follow-up:

It should be built in from the beginning. Identification of goals, providing ways to give assistance and giving it are ways to follow up. There is, however, a final follow-up that occurs.

The supervisor should:

• Ask the employee how he or she would evaluate their own performance and experience, including whether or not they feel you have been helpful to them.
• Share his or her own assessment of progress to date from a management point of view and engage in a discussion of both points of view.
• Clarify any details yet remaining.
• Together establish a clear description of future goals for employee development.

If these steps are followed the end result will be the establishment of a “Developmental Contract,” between management and the employee. The essence of such a contract is that it is binding upon both parties and each party has specified responsibilities. The employee commits to perform, to the best of their ability. Unfortunately we very seldom specify the commitment that the supervisor and the organization make to the employee. We leave this to supervisors to decide on their own how to and whether or not to give assistance. Assistance and follow-up are not usually built in from the beginning.

In order to create an effective developmental contract we must first be able to assume that we want some kind of a relationship to exist between the supervisor and the employee and that there is a firm commitment to create a positive developmental process. If we can make this commitment then the process should look something like this:

1. The supervisor specifies clearly what is expected of the employee. A clear job description is made available in writing and the meanings and implications of this job description are fully discussed.
2. The employee expressed his or her reaction to this job description.
   • How do they feel about the situation.
   • Is there anything which might interfere with satisfactory performance.

If these two issues are discussed openly, then the supervisor should be able to move from what is to this point a contract to perform to a contract to develop as well.

3. The employee is encouraged to specify how the supervisor and the employee might know when the employee is having difficulty keeping their side of the commitment.
4. The employee and the supervisor discuss what help would be desirable and acceptable to the employee, especially at those times when the employee is having difficulty.

In the last two steps the basis for later help by the supervisor is established on terms acceptable to the employee and explicit recognition is made of two very important things:

• One of the purposes of the employment setting is to provide an opportunity for the growth and development of the employee.
• The supervisor as a representative of the organization has a responsibility to the employee which is as great as that of the employee to perform their assigned tasks.

One of the long term benefits of this approach to management/employee relationships is that it will over time create an effective and loyal core of employees and more then compensate the organization for any time and effort made to establish this process.

Clyde Parker, Ph.D.
T. Lee Burnham, Ph.D.
University of Minnesota