It’s imperative for employers who want to grow their business to create career development paths for employees to take advantage of in order to keep them engaged.
A lot of employees want to develop their careers, but they often want to do it within the company they already work for. It costs employees money to jump from company-to-company, so if they can grow within the organization they currently work for, they like that.
But if employees don’t see a career path available to them, or they don’t see how they can grow within the company they currently work for, they may realize the only way they’re going to move along in their careers is to develop themselves or leave the company and go advance somewhere else.
Common Mistakes
Here are some common mistakes employers make when formulating a career development path for their employees:
- Not offering a career development path—Employers often make the mistake of not implementing career paths at all and employees have no idea if they can advance within the company or not. This often causes turnover because employees are moving on to other companies where there are career development path options available to them.
- Not asking employees what they want their careers to look like—An employer may offer career paths, but the mistake comes from not involving employees in developing these paths. Employers often don’t bother to find out if employees are interested in a particular career development path. As a result, the employer develops the path based on what the company needs, as opposed to what a mutual need may be for the employees and the company.
A company is made up of more than just the building it’s located in, and a strategic plan, including employee development, needs to be written down and fresh. People need to have objectives to reach so they can grow.
- Not making employees aware of available career paths—Some companies have career development paths available, but they mistakenly don’t make employees aware of this. So employees have no idea opportunities exist within the company they currently work for.
In cases such as these, employees often seek advancement outside the company, which increases turnover.
- Not providing a structured plan to move employees along a career path—An employer might tell an employee, “Yeah, you would be a great leader/supervisor,” but then the employer doesn’t actually give the employee the tools to achieve the skills necessary for him/her to grow into another position.
What I often see is employers increasing an employee’s workload and responsibility so the employee can move to that higher position, but the employer doesn’t inform the employee that this is part of a plan to promote him or her.
The employee then simply sees his/her workload and responsibilities increasing, but his/her pay staying the same. So then the employee thinks he/she might as well go elsewhere and take on the same responsibilities, but for more pay.
That’s why it’s important to make sure you and your employees are on the same page. If you are grooming someone for a higher position, communicate that to the employee and get his/her buy-in.
When you don’t communicate with employees, when you don’t train them and when they’re just given additional work without solid reason, they will most likely go elsewhere.
Steps to Effectively Creating a Career Development Path
In order to effectively create career paths at your company, you need to do a two-pronged investigation to:
- Find out what your employees want out of their careers
- Determine what your company is able to offer
This is not to say that every employee’s wish needs to come true, because sometimes companies just can’t offer an employee what he/she wants. But if there’s a way to align the employee’s career desires and the organization’s goals, then you should at least see if it’s feasible to offer a career path to an employee and determine how you’re going to do it.
By doing this, you’re going to provide employees with a road map of where they can go within your organization. And if this road map matches the employee’s goals, then he/she will see opportunity at your company.
Next, you’ll want to develop a more open mind. You don’t want to restrict your company to the typical career paths, such as management, because not all employees want to be managers.
You want to keep an open mind to see what opportunities may be present within your organization, especially given the current economy.
But at the same time, you also want to provide each employee with an opportunity for a career path and make sure that it’s structured properly. It has to meet the needs of the employee and the organization.
It doesn’t do the organization any good to provide a career path that doesn’t benefit the company, as well as the employee. And it doesn’t do the employee any good if you provide him/her with a career path that:
- Doesn’t get them anywhere within the company
- Only benefits the company
When you’ve done your research, have a devised career path opportunities within your company and have determined multiple ways in which employees can advance, you want to communicate this to all your employees.
Let them know:
- They are eligible for a career development path
- How they need to go about applying for a career path
- What they need to do to make that path work for them
You want to make sure you have a structured plan in place, including a method employees can use to provide feedback, so employees can follow it.
With a little research, education and structure, you can create a career development path at your company that helps you retain your employees while meeting the goals of your organization overall.