7 Ways To Create More Career Growth For Your Employees

We know that employees crave one thing above all else in the modern workforce - the opportunity for growth within their role in order to advance in their career.

Unfortunately, too often top-performing employees feel left out in terms of career paths at their company. A 2015 survey by Gallup found that 93% of employees who advanced their careers did so by moving companies. 

If you want to keep your best employees, you need to invest in their development so they can move internally within your company. In this article, we’re outlining seven creative ways you can create more career paths for your employees.

SEE ALSO: Get the Definitive Guide To Internal Mobility And Career Pathing

Career Paths Are Complex. Let’s Help Each Other Figure It Out.

For employees, career pathing creates a structured playbook for them to map out and visualize their career progressions within a company. A sound “career pathing” plan for an employee allows them to set clear milestones and see exactly what skills they need to reach their goals. 

For employers, taking on the responsibility of creating career paths is essential to creating a high-functioning and nimble workforce. Companies that commit to this process are able to better attract talent and drastically reduce employee turnover.

7 Ways To Create More Career Growth For Your Employees

According to the American Society for Training and Development, 75% of executives say mentoring has benefitted their career development. So while it’s true that the best talent can come from anywhere, it seems that mentorship is the common thread between success stories.

1. Prioritize goals and assessments. A good first step is to have a one-on-one with the employees to figure out where their career goals and interests lie. At the same time, managers should be facilitating the process of assessing what the employees’ strengths are. At Paddle HR, we’re big fans utilizing assessments like StrengthsFinder by Gallup, but there are other tools out there that work well, too. By finding where the employee's goals and strengths intersect, you can start to outline the most successful options for career pathing.

2. Create “linear” career roadmap and profiles for clarity. For individual functions within your organization, you should create a “standard” career path. For example, an HR Administrator’s next career move could be HR Manager, and after that, they could become an HR Director. From there, you can outline the core responsibilities and typical skills set for each position, adding clarity for aspiring candidates. If necessary, outline the required skills, training and licenses needed.

3. Part-time projects. When people hear “internal mobility”, they normally think of employees moving to new positions within the same company. Although this is the main way of implementing such programs, it does come with its challenges.
   
   And while roadmaps are a good start, modern career paths are becoming increasingly nonlinear. People don’t stay in one career path for long. As employers, helping your employees discover their passions through part-time projects with other teams is the perfect way to supplement their standard career paths.

4. Pair mentorship programs. Above and beyond the typical manager-report relationship is the mentor-mentee relationship. For employees who are hungry to grow in their career, nothing is more valuable than feedback and advice from somebody who’s been there before. Unlike managers, mentors often have a more objective view of their mentee’s career prospects - a prospective mentor doesn’t have to work on the same team…or even the same business unit. The insights a mentor can provide to expose them to new networks can be invaluable.

5. Embrace the re-skilling revolution. According to WEForum, at least 54% of all employees need re-skilling or up-skilling by 2022. Employees who lack the technical skills they need to move into the workforce of the future will have a much harder time growing within the company. For large companies, re-skilling is a modern (and preferable) alternative to the painful process of mass layoffs.
   
   Instead of firing redundant employees and spending exorbitant amounts recruiting new ones, companies should simply invest a fraction of those costs retraining their existing employees.

6. Implement Temporary Rotation. By now, it’s probably clear that your standard, linear career paths aren’t going to cut it with the modern workforce. Everything we’ve listed above supports a culture of continuous learning, which is exactly what rotations can provide.
   
   These can include secondments and part-time rotation programs, which allow employees to stretch their talents across a broad range of functions. It a world where the sharing economy has taken over accommodation and transportation, it makes sense that experiential learning and professional development might be next. This more flexible structure allows employees to take a “try before you buy” approach to making permanent career changes. 

7. Relocation. According to an Indeed survey, 42% of Millennials would move if their company offered voluntary relocation. For every time you hear about somebody quitting their job to “follow their passions” and travel the world is a missed opportunity to keep them. If your company has offices in different cities across the globe, why not use that to your advantage to keep your best talent?
   
   For an employee who was thinking of leaving, relocation gives them many of the same benefits of jumping ship. They get a totally new experience, a new team, new projects...all while never having to leave your organization. It’s a win-win. 

Typical, out-of-the-box career paths just won’t cut it today with today’s growth-hungry workforce. It’s time for employers to break convention when it comes to career mobility.