At a university, just as in any other company, human resource development has the aim of promoting training, professional development and continuing education of its employees. The willingness of employees to engage in lifelong learning is an important prerequisite for making HR development work, especially in view of increasing digitalization. Successful human resource development significantly contributes to increasing employee motivation and their identification with their workplace.

A human resource development concept primarily outlines already existing offers and measures in HR development as well as those that are currently being planned or implemented. Furthermore, it also contains information on how the offer is embedded into institutional structures, on standards in HR development and quality assurance/evaluation of the measures taken. The HR development measures are conceptualized in line with the aims and profile of the organization.

The human resource development plan, also called implementation plan, outlines in detail how the measures described in the HR development concept are to be implemented. It also touches upon the individual steps in the process, the time schedule and the implementing persons.

The staff structure describes the quantitative relationship between different groups of employees, for example the numerical ratio of professorships and research associates, of public servants in research staff and research support staff, or, even more general of temporary and permanent positions. Staff structure planning is the forward-looking intention to develop existing staff structures further.

For a long time, psychological science was convinced that the personality of a human being cannot change fundamentally after the age of 30. However, more recent studies have revealed that personal development never stops and that a human’s personality can also change at an advanced age. The job plays a major role in connection with personal development, as the work that we carry out and our personality mutually define each other. In particular, certain expectations connected to the job have a strong influence on the employee’s personality. Ideally, the personality of a human being matches the work profile of the position that is to be occupied. This can be illustrated using a simple example: A position that involves a lot of client contact is ideally occupied by someone who generally has a very extrovert, caring and friendly manner.

Personal development plays a key role both in the KU’s Mission Statement and in the University’s HR development concept. The KU want to offer room for personal growth – not only for its students, but also for its employees. Thus, promoting individual potential within the given possibilities is an integral part of the definition of human resource development – to the same extent as is the necessary willingness and openness of the employees.

In normal language use, terms such as “qualification”, “professional training” and “continuing education” are often used as synonyms, although they are not basically the same. A first guideline when it comes to distinguishing between the terms is provided in the Collective Bargaining Agreement for Public Service of the Länder (TV-L). The paper considers employee qualification as being part of HR development (TV-L Section 5 para. 1 sentence 3) and lists the individual qualification measures (TV-L Section 5 para. 3):

Maintaining qualification (Erhaltungsqualifizierung): In this category, it is ensured that employees can continue to perform “the tasks assigned” to them by promoting “development of their specialist, methodical and social skills”. For example: When introducing a new financial accounting system, the employer must provide corresponding training for its employees to ensure that they can continue to fulfill their tasks as accountants, controllers etc.

Professional training and continuing education (Fort- und Weiterbildung): Measures in professional development training and continuing education enable employees to gain additional qualification.

Qualification for another position/retraining: For ensuring job security, it might become necessary to implement retraining measures, for example when certain fields of work within a company are dissolved and affected employees have to be transferred to another position within the organization.

Re-entry qualification: In this category, employees who have been absent from work for a longer period (e.g. due to illness) are reintegrated into their field of work.

In the public service, which also includes universities as employers, service orientation plays a major role, especially in research support staff. This is why employees in this area need to adopt an increased willingness to adapt to a field of work that is becoming more and more diverse and demanding. This is also true for the comment on Section 5 TV-L above that introduced the term “adjustment qualification” in addition to “maintaining qualification”. Adjustment qualification means the “actual extra-occupational continuing education” that ensures “acquisition of new insights and development and specialization of skills gained during practical experience”. Furthermore, this type of training should also “impart knowledge and skills that improve application in practice, such as planning techniques, working methods and people-oriented behavior or learning new administrative management methods” (BeckOK TV-L/Behrends TV-L Section 5 recital 7). In general, “adjustment qualification” is the willingness to engage in lifelong learning at your place of work.

No matter which qualification measure an organization offers its employees, the measure is usually always based on the employees’ current field of activity or prepares them for promotion, if applicable. In general, it can be said that these types of qualification are job-related and thus fall under the category of professional development or continuing education measures.

As regards individual employees:

• Performance-related bonuses
• Assessments
• Promotions
• Flexitime
• Appraisals (if applicable with target agreements)
• Professional development and continuing education offers
• Staff surveys, e.g. on professional development programs
• Coaching (individual or team coaching)
• Mentoring

In the university sector additionally:

• Supervision agreements for doctoral projects
• Research training groups and/or other training centers
• Structured doctoral programs

As regards the organization as a whole (also applicable for the University):

• Mission Statement
• Management and leadership guidelines
• Job evaluations and job descriptions
• Organization charts

• Employees, by contributing their willingness to engage in lifelong learning
• Managers and leaders in science and academia (in particular those who supervise theses submitted towards a degree) and in the administration
• The different disciplines/faculties
• The (central) HR development by providing “accompanying” advice and support
• All other providers of continuing education offers aimed at KU employees