AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
Source: own study based on empirical findings.
The initial question used in the survey took the form of an open
question to employers: ‘What are the most important barriers to
employee development activities in your company?”. Only a
section of the respondents chose to provide their answer to this
query, with 57 responses collected for Poland and 110 – for
Finland. The responses were analysed and segmented into
categories (cf. Tab. 4).
For both respondent groups, the most frequent response was the
financial barriers to development (this answer was provided by
24.6% of Polish and 30.9% of Finnish entrepreneurs. Factors
related to employees themselves were the next largest group of
responses in Poland (29.8% of total responses) – this group
included such factors as the lack of employee involvement,
motivation, loyalty or personal potential for development. In
striking contrast to the above, only 3.6% of Finnish
entrepreneurs seemed to perceive their employees as barriers to
development, but the Finns were decidedly more willing to
admit to not seeing the need for employee development as such
or to attribute their lack of involvement to time constraints
(including the difficulties in finding replacement for employees
delegated to training activities).
Table 4 Barriers to employee development in Poland and in
Finland
Poland
Barriers:
Finland
24,6%
Financial constraints
30,9%
19,3%
Lack of employee involvement, motivation,
initiative
3,6%
10,5%
Other factors related to employees
0,0%
15,8%
Trade specificity
0,9%
7,0%
Time constraints (including the difficulties in
finding replacement for employees delegated to
training activities)
20,9%
0,0%
No need for employee development
20,9%
5,3%
Excessive employee rotation
0,0%
3,5%
No barriers
0,0%
1,8%
Employee age (with dominant population of
older employees)
1,8%
Source: own study based on empirical findings.
Respondents were also asked to evaluate the significance of
specific preselected barriers to
employee
development listed
under two categories: factors related to management and those
related to rank-and-file employees. Each factor was evaluated on
a 5-point scale, with 1 representing the opinion that a given
factor is not considered a barrier at all, and 5 – to denote factors
of great significance as barriers to development of employees.
Figure 2 presents barriers to employee development attributed to
the managerial cadres. The respondent entrepreneurs, both Polish
and Finnish, were found to subscribe to the view that steep cost
was the most important barrier to employee development in their
companies, although it must be noted that the decided majority
of responses in this respect received evaluations between 2 (low
barrier) and 3 (moderate barrier).
According to Finnish respondents, the remaining three factors
(of the preselected set) posed a similar impediment to
development activities (with average score of 2.5. Polish
entrepreneurs, on the other hand, were more reluctant to admit to
their own lack of knowledge, and they were more likely to
expect unethical behaviour on the part of their employees (e.g.
employees switching jobs after having exploiting the full range
of development opportunities sponsored by the company).
Figure 2 Barriers to employee development (attributed to
managerial cadres)
Source: own study based on empirical findings.
Both respondent groups were similar in their opinion that cost
and time constraints were the two most important of the
employee-attributed barriers to employee development (cf. Fig.
3). In addition, Polish entrepreneurs were decidedly more in
favour of the opinion that employee development is hampered
by the employees’ reluctance to make any effort.
Figure 3 Barriers to employee development (attributed to
employees)
Source: own study based on empirical findings.
4 Conclusions
The results of empirical studies conform with the structure of the
most important barriers to employee development in the SAME
sector presented in professional literature, such as the steep cost
of employee development and time constraints (mostly related to
the difficulties in finding temporary replacement for persons
delegated to training). However, the study revealed an
interesting aspect worth pursuing in future research, namely that
the most important barrier to employee development, in the
opinion of Polish entrepreneurs, is the employees themselves.
Our Polish respondents were fairly consistent in their view that
employees lacked the will and the predisposition to improve.
They were also more wary of the potential unethical behaviour
on the part of their employees.
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