4 Easy Ways Businesses Can Encourage Career Development For Its Employees

According to a recent study, 79% of employees confirmed that they want quarterly or monthly career sessions with their managers. As per a survey from Infrastructure, 70% of US employees are most likely to opt for the company that invests in their employees’ career development. In short, employees don’t look for just a reasonable salary and decent benefits in a company. They expect the reassurance that their career will move forward after joining that organization.

An unexpected business setback is pretty common if your company fails to build a solid career development front. You may end up losing your key employees or notice a sharp decline in the productivity of your business. So, companies of all sizes need to focus on career development. Here are the top four ways to create a career development plan for your business employees.

1. Talk To Your Employees About Careers

Remember, career development in a business is a two-way street. Both the employer, as well as the worker, must travel together down this road to achieve success. Your main motive would be to highlight growth opportunities to your employees during regular performance conversations. These sorts of conversations can help you understand your employees’ goals. You can thus help them out through relevant suggestions and possible development opportunities.

Here’s what you can do:

• Consider all career movement as successful in motivating your employees.
• Evaluate their performances in terms of quality and not in terms of the hours spent at work.
• Support career progression that meets the expectations of your employees and their current life situation.

Let’s say you had a conversation with one of your employees about her career goals. She shared her interest in writing assignment reviews apart from the regular tasks she does in the company. So you can ask her to volunteer for the kind of work she is interested in to help her grow in the company.

2. Develop Feasible Career Maps

Careers maps can help you serve three purposes related to your business. One, you can understand the immediate needs of your business in terms of skills and expertise. Second, you can have a preview of the aspects that will improve your business if you meet the needs. Third, it will help you map out impressive career development plans for your employees.

Here’s what you can do to build a career map:

• Consider the objectives and long-term goals of your organization.
• Determine the current role, skills, experience, strengths, weaknesses, etc., of each employee and then map his/her future destinations at your company.
• Discuss immediate and future goals and timelines with your employees based on where they want to be within six months.

For example, let’s say the receptionist at your organization has demonstrated his expertise in sales. So, he might be right for the role of a sales executive. Similarly, say the person who takes care of the shipping details speaks fluent Spanish. You can hire him/her if your long-term plans include forming a Spanish speaking international sales department.

3. Figure Out The Roles Your Business Needs

Businesses of all sizes have different duties, responsibilities, and goals. You need to make sure that the duties of your company are taken care of by all the members of your organization. That is how you will be able to meet your business goals and create a career plan for your employees. You can’t let one employee of your business handle five tasks alone. Not only will that hinder the growth of your business but also limit the growth of your employees.

Here’s what you can do:

• Identify the specific roles you need to reach your business goals.
• Define each role and how it contributes to the success of your business and career growth of your employees.
• Determine the employees who currently hold the roles or the ones who could do so in the future.

Let’s say you own a content marketing agency in the United Kingdom. So, for a content marketing firm, you would want a web content writer, a graphics designer, a web developer, and so on. Hire the best employees for the job roles and provide them with more responsibilities gradually. This way, your employees will have a direction towards a promising career within your business infrastructure.

4. Offer Better Career Possibilities

A career development plan should consist of certain objectives and a plan to achieve those goals. You have to provide a framework for the process. Provide some options and ways to your employees for enhancing their skills and expertise. Large businesses can afford to send their employees to workshops and help them build a career they are interested in. Small businesses can embrace the following options to bring forth a proper career development plan for its employees.

Here’s what you can do:

• Look for job roles in the organization that need to be filled and assign a skillful employee to the task.
• Tech firms such as HubSpot focus on career training development programs. So you can provide free books and training to your employees.
• Set your senior employees to mentor the juniors. This can be a new career for the latter and a chance for the former to learn the work better.

Let’s say one of your employees named ‘X’ had served four years in your organization. ‘X’ had amazing performance all these years. So you can ask ‘X’ to mentor the junior employees who join your organization. This will also provide a sense of responsibility to the senior employees.

These are the four ways your business can focus on the career development of your employees. As per a recent survey conducted on about 5000 professionals, people look for new jobs mostly because they are bored. They don’t find anything to look forward to in their current organizations. It’s okay if you are focusing on building an engaged and fun culture in your organization. But, you may end up losing valuable employees if you don’t prioritize career growth.

About the Author:

Ricky is a part-time web developer at a reputed firm in the United Kingdom. He also writes myassignmenthelpreview for TopAssignmentreviews.com. Ricky loves to spend time with her daughters during the weekends.