Texas AgriLife Extension Service invest a tremendous amount of time and money in developing Extension faculty and staff. This commitment to employee training and development was reiterated last year with the implementation of a revised employee on-boarding process. This updated on-boarding did not simply add more activities; it brought more purpose to the process.
When hiring new County Extension Agents, we emphasize selecting agents with the right attitudes and basic competencies to fulfill their roles. At the same time, we realize that no one is going to join our organization fully equipped to handle all aspects of their position; furthermore, we understand that most skills can be taught and that expertise can be developed on the job. The technical competencies needed by County Extension Agents are acquired over a period of time, usually within Texas AgriLife Extension Service.
Your interactive role as an Extension mid-manager is critical in the agent development process. Your attitudes and opinions regarding the value of professional development opportunities will be sensed and often adopted by agents. Lets take a moment to reflect on the value of professional development , from a couple of different perspectives:
The County Extension Agent's Perspective
People choose to work with organizations that encourage development. More importantly, employees tend to stay with us when we continue to provide meaningful opportunities for development, both formally and informally.
Extension’s Administrative and Mid-management Perspective
One important role that an Extension mid-manager has is to help CEAs become more excited about their learning opportunities through modeling a positive attitude towards those activities and explaining the significance and benefits of them. If we take the time to develop our CEA’s well, Extension will continue to improve the lives of people, businesses, and communities across Texas and beyond.
Content for this article was provided by Dr. Landry Lockett, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist-Organizational Development, Texas AgriLife Extension Service.
As leaders of County Extension Agents, a primary goal of Extension mid-managers is to have “engaged employees.” People produce their best work when they are interested and committed to what they do. If they believe in Extension’s mission and services, and they can see that Extension values their contribution by supporting their development in concrete ways, they are very likely to be “engaged.” Engaged County Extension Agents are motivated County Extension Agents. Highly skilled and motivated County Extension Agents are high performance employees. Peak performing County Extension Agents all across the state translates to a high performing Extension organization in Texas.
One important role that an Extension mid-manager has is to help CEAs become more excited about their learning opportunities through modeling a positive attitude towards those activities and explaining the significance and benefits of them. If we take the time to develop our CEA’s well, Extension will continue to improve the lives of people, businesses, and communities across Texas and beyond.
Reference
Stockley, D. (2007). The importance of training – a commitment to development. High Performance Newsletter. Retrieved from http://derekstockley.com/news-07/089-improtance-training html
Content for this article was provided by Dr. Landry Lockett, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist-Organizational Development, Texas AgriLife Extension Service.
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