Modern businesses operate in an extremely competitive environment. To survive, it is necessary to develop and maintain a competitive advantage over your rivals. This is one of the aims of a learning organisation (LO), which is an organisation that has developed the ability to adapt continuously by looking for and sharing new ideas, solutions and approaches. This includes the idea of continuous or life-long learning, i.e. the idea that employees should keep learning at every stage in their careers.

Employee development is the process of allowing employees to reach their full potential and become of greater value to the organisation. It consists of three elements: training, management development & career management.

The word has a few common synonyms in English: If an employee to a very high standard, then we say he or she has . A skill which can be used in many different companies or branches is called a .