In the wake of the recent pandemic and subsequent layoffs, organizations recognize that to provide the right support for employees to thrive, there is a fundamental need to understand employees holistically as whole, complex, and multifaceted people. On the one hand, organizations need to develop scalable and systemic approaches to facilitate thriving at work. On the other hand, they need to attend to the uniqueness of each employee to bring the best out of them. To address this challenge, we developed a conceptual framework on how employee development as a human resource management tool can facilitate thriving at work. We integrate the Socially Embedded Model of Thriving and the whole-person approach literature to develop our theoretical propositions on how employee development can cultivate thriving employees by embracing the true essence of the “human” in “human resources.” We also draw on LinkedIn as an illustrative example of our framework to inform and inspire practitioners. We conclude by highlighting theoretical and practical implications, with suggestions for future research directions.
