Employee Development in Patagonia - Research Paper Example

It is not without doubt that Patagonia is one of the most dynamic clothing and textile outlets and business ventures. For the most part, Patagonia has attributed its growth and success to a four-pronged approach which consists of formal education, (performance) assessment, job experience and interpersonal relations.

The practice and strengthening of formal education by Patagonia has involved the use of workshop drives and training programs, as a way of sharpening employees’ skills. Closely related to this is the practice of performance assessment. This involves measuring an individual employee’s performance against previously-determined goals or targets at the end of every fiscal year. The close relation between the two is underscored by the fact that it is by closely monitoring performance that the attainment of performance targets or the incurring of performance gaps can be realized. From then on, it is so that formal education should be applied.

Patagonia also factors job experience as a strategy for the attainment of organizational goals. This is because; Patagonia believes that job experience is commensurate to the realization of skills necessary for the improvement of an organization. Patagonia also considers interpersonal skills and relations as being indispensable to the attainment of organizational goals. This is because good interpersonal relations foster intra-organizational communication. To this effect, Patagonia arranges for meetings, parties, recreations and get-togethers to closely knit itself.

With the harnessing of interpersonal relations, employees forge team spirit better and foster cooperation at the intra-organizational level. Likewise, a sense of accountability is inculcated in employees as they are subjected to performance/job assessment regularly. Likewise, Patagonia’s employees acquire more and newer skills from formal education and as they continue to gain longer job experience, thereby helping them build and strengthen intellectual capital. With the heightened and newly-acquired intellectual capital, Patagonia can enjoy production efficiency. Efficiency ensures that resources and organizational synergies are minimally used, for optimal results. This eventually ushers in surplus capital. In this surplus capital, Patagonia has a source of plough-back profit to further stimulate and propound business growth.