Every great employer has their employee's best interest at heart by prioritizing their professional development. However, failure to implement career advancement programs in their company policy means workers will look for opportunities elsewhere.
Talented professionals seek to build their skills and knowledge to further their careers. So they tend to stick their necks for a company that supports their need for career growth.
Managers shouldn't put their employees' professional growth on the back burner. If they do, their workers will feel like they don't value them enough. As a result of undermining their staff's productivity, they gamble with the company's stability. After all, employees are the life and blood of every organization.
So keep this in mind if you're managing a team; empowered workers work better and more efficiently when you support their endeavours.
Investing in employees' career goals helps your company grow because you have the best workforce who are willing to return the favor. So by focusing your energy on their career development, you expect to see the following benefits:
Offering a career development plan decreases employee turnover and hiring costs. That's why companies can't afford to ignore the many advantages of putting your attention to your talent's professional development.
Salary isn't always what employees want. In today's generation of workers, they're more motivated by non-financial gain a company can give them. So you must be aware of what drives your team to work hard.
To ensure your company grows at a steady pace, here are 6 ways to support employee career advancement:
Understanding your employee's short and long-term career goals can help you assess how their development aligns with the company's mission. Whether you're managing in-office or remote teams, it's important to know their aspirations.
Schedule regular one-on-one meetings can help you identify what makes your workers tick. This interaction lets you outline their career path and resources needed to make this journey run smoothly.
A learning work culture invests in employee career development. So encourage your team to speak up about what they need to further their career within the company.
Offering free educational opportunities lets your team keep up with changes within your industry. There are affordable eLearning platforms suitable for every business need. Even if you currently have a tight budget, there are ways to offer training programs to your employees. For example, if a team member wants to join your career growth program, you can fully or partially shoulder the cost.
Employers can't offer career growth to all of their team members. Only workers who work hard can earn this program. But that doesn't mean your employees should work longer hours. Instead, this opportunity should inspire them to do their tasks productively.
Thus, professional development activities are a reward to high potential employees. These are the people who have the leadership skills to rise to a senior role.
Mentoring and job shadowing programs are among the most effective ways to support employee development. And it doesn't cost the company a lot of money because you don't have to hire someone externally. But there's a strategy behind it.
Employers must discuss it with their respective leaders to have a successful in-house learning program. Then create a timeline and action plan before job shadowing starts. This is a perfect opportunity for job rotation if someone in your company is interested in working in another department.
Not every person knows what to do next after serving a particular role. While some may already have an idea of their career path, they might not know how to achieve it. Your job as their manager is to see to it that they can paint a bigger picture of their end goal and help them to build their career pathways.
You can learn your employees' career goals even before onboarding when you ask them about it during their job interview. Then, continue to revisit their objectives and meet with them regularly if their career paths still match the company's values and ideals. This is how you can customize learning and development programs for each employee.
Let every team member self-evaluate to understand their skill gaps and areas for improvement. On your end, have quarterly meetings so you can help each other develop a career plan.
Succession planning ensures that companies already have skilled leaders to fill critical roles in times of change. So it's vital to create a replacement strategy for every leadership role in your organization.
Examine if the key positions are at high risk of becoming vacant. Since you have to consider employee turnover and retirement, developing a succession plan is crucial annually or every 5-year increments.
Have an action plan in place by recognizing rock star employees to fill the roles. But you have to talk with them beforehand because they might not even want the leadership position in the first place. When this happens, you can appoint it to someone else within the company or hire someone externally.
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