Where can I find research information on the benefits and costs of
developing an employee development program?

Hi! Thanks for the very important question.

To start of, a UK based academic study of employee development looks
at the different forms of employee development methods employed in
different companies and industries.

Learning from Employee Development Schemes by Claire Lee
http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/pdflibrary/empdevs.pdf 

The following publication is a sponsored case study by Surround On
Line for their employee development training products. The figures on
instructor led training programs though give us figures to industry
standard costs.

A Case Study in Training Cost Savings
http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:2KLrOlnukz8C:www.tokono.com/casestudies.htm+%22Employee+Development+Programs%22+case+studies&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

The US General Accounting Office published a report wherein it cited
different case studies about human capital valuations among different
companies. Employee development was well covered in this paper.

¡§The private sector organizations in our review considered developing
and sustaining their leaders to be a critical success factor to
effective human capital management and, ultimately, to achieving
organizations¡¦ missions and goals. Each of the organizations
identified its own unique set of leadership characteristics that it
believed were essential for achieving organizational results and
long-term success, and that served as the basis for policies designed
to recruit, hire, develop, and sustain leaders who embody the
identified leadership characteristics.¡¨

¡§The organizations commonly established central training sites, or
universities, that provided training specifically targeted at
assessing, developing, and maintaining those leadership
characteristics among their current and future leaders.¡¨ (page 12
with corresponding case studies of Federal Express Corp and
Weyerhauser Co.)

¡§Given recent high employment labor markets, the private sector
organizations in our review placed particular emphasis on maintaining
a pool of employees who exhibited competencies¡Xcommonly defined in
the private sector as including knowledge, skills, abilities, and
behaviors¡Xthat they deemed essential to achieving their specific
missions and goals. After identifying these competencies, the
organizations implemented human capital policies and practices that
were designed to competitively hire, develop, and retain employees
with the desired competencies within their industry and market
locations.¡¨ (page 15 with case studies of Marriot International Inc.
and Merck and Co., Inc.)

Human Capital: Key Principles From Nine Private Sector Organizations
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/gg00028.pdf 
 
The document of Baldrigeplus.com as regards to employee development
programs provides statistics to benefits brought about by such
programs to different companies.

¡§Motorola states that for every dollar invested in employee
development, they receive $30 in return ƒ{ƒna return on investment of
30 to 1.¡¨

¡§An Office of the American Workplace study shows that a 10%
incremental investment in employee development returned an 8-11%
annual productivity gain, while the same investment in capital
equipment ¡K yielded only a 3.4% increase in productivity.¡¨

¡§Studies of Baldrige-winning companies shows that they sustain an
investment in training equal to 4 to 5% of payroll.¡¨

Employee Development (Exhibits) (page 5)
http://www.baldrigeplus.com/Exhibits/Exhibit%20-%20Anonymous%20employee%20development%20program.pdf

One positive aspect of such employee development trainings is that it
benefits employee retention programs especially in when there is a
tight job market. The following article shows the following programs
which companies could use.

Retention
http://www.sia.com/diversity/html/retention.html 

The IT sector has always been a haven for employee development because
of the continuous improvements in staff technological skills and
knowledge.

¡§Companies that are successful in IT stay that way by grooming their
employees through mentoring and formal training that are part of an
overall career development plan. In addition, they view their workers
as people who need flexibility in striking a balance between work and
home as well as between handling routine duties and pursuing pet
projects at work.¡¨

What Makes IT Workers Tick
MAY 06, 2002
By LEE COPELAND 
http://www.computerworld.com/departments/surveys/bestplaces/us_story/0,10992,70850,00.html

¡§Getting exposure to a range of technologies and projects is
important to many IT staffers. Like General Mills, the companies that
excel at retention have formal employee development programs in place
to make sure staffers remain challenged.¡¨

¡§Thanks in large part to such a formal setup at chip maker Texas
Instruments Inc. in Dallas, project manager Jim Sanders is a 24-year
veteran of the company. ¡§

¡§¡¦TI has an individual development plan under which you formally lay
out goals with your manager and figure out what you need to do to meet
them," Sanders says. "I've stayed satisfied by having a lot of
autonomy, coupled with a breadth of projects that enables me to
frequently change jobs within the company.¡¦¡¨

Opportunity Buys Loyalty 
by Joanie Wexler
JUN 11, 2001
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:faQDwXsd5-oC:www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO61218,00.html+%22Employee+Development+Programs%22+%22case+studies%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Search terms used: 
¡§employee development programs¡¨ ¡§case studies¡¨

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Answers.

Regards,
Easterangel-ga

I found the information to be very good and pertinent to answering the question.