Invest in Career Development to Prevent High Turnover Rates

The business world is facing a Great Resignation issue partially caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and all the changes it has brought. With the rising popularity of remote work, the entire world has become a job market, enticing more and more employees to leave current positions and seek better work conditions. If you want to attract top talent you need to offer more than the usual office perks.

Employees nowadays want to do meaningful work, committed to purposeful vision and values of diversity, inclusivity, and equity. They also want to know that their company will support and guide them on their career path, providing exceptional learning opportunities.

Therefore, before you start building highly productive teams, make sure to create an atmosphere based on trust and open communication, where your employees will feel confident, respected, and heard.

But if you want to retain top talent and make your team grow, you need to offer employees a chance for personal and professional development.

Here are some significant steps that you can take to improve career pathing in your company and keep the talented workers by your side.

Turn Career Development into an Ongoing Process

Employees rarely stick to their initial career plans when they gain considerable working experience. Their wishes and intentions change as they acquire new skills and adapt to the roles they have. So you should repeat the question about their career goals regularly throughout the time they work for you.

You need to listen carefully to your employees' feedback, focusing on their strong sides and drawbacks to be able to take decisive steps and bring their careers to the next level.

Furthermore, you should shift from annual career planning meets to one-on-ones conducted weekly or every other week. In this way, you can get closer to your employees on a personal and professional level. The questions on these meetings should be specific, discovering the inner motivation and their personal goals.

You aim to find out what skills would they like to develop. What’s the best part of their job? What projects have they excelled in so far?

Besides asking questions, you need to listen to their feedback. Because even though you may have done significant things to enhance employees’ careers, they may have not recognized these efforts. So make sure to remind them of what has been already done in this field.

Challenge Your Team with Demanding Tasks

Effective leaders tend to challenge their teams to give their best at work by facing them with demanding tasks. By pushing them to their limits and making them break free from their comfort zones, you will help them develop the skillsets needed to meet the challenges.

Employees who wait for your instructions will never advance their skills. But if you support their effort, allowing a level of independence in the decision-making process, you’ll boost their efficiency and motivation. They’ll feel like doing a purposeful job and move towards set goals.

If you know that your entry-level developer expressed a wish to advance to the senior level position in your company, make sure to support this intention by offering comprehensive training or making them in charge of a project that requires them to develop their programming skills.

Remember, every career development opportunity represents a mix of excitement and fear. If the amount of excitement your employees show when facing challenging projects exceeds their fear, rest assured that they are making a step in the right direction.

Invest in a Reliable System to Track the Training Program Progress

If you want to know how effective your training program is you need to invest in advanced digital solutions like activity monitoring software that can show you the time spent on each project along with the apps and websites your employees use while working on their tasks. This detailed insight will allow you to measure the effectiveness of your training and compare employee productivity data before and after the training process.

You can also use track records to plan the next steps, defining expectations and employees’ responsibilities. This efficient tool will offer your employees real-time insight into their skills development, keeping them aligned with their training and career development goals and motivated to go through with it.

Managers who decide to implement training without the help of a well-devised system for recording its effectiveness may have a hard time tracking significant milestones and achievements.

Learning and Development Opportunities Should be Included in Your Benefits Package

According to the Axonify report from 2019, almost 80% of candidates will be more interested in positions in companies that offer various learning and career development opportunities.

However, these career-related opportunities shouldn’t be just another tempting benefit on your list. You need to show that you invest in employees’ personal and professional development. Offering financial support through stipends and scholarships to employees who want to upgrade their education may be a clear sign that you’re committed to employee professional growth.

Employees nowadays choose companies that offer benefits that will help them climb the career ladder. So if you want to stand out among your competition, you need to provide reliable support systems and efficient tools as well as experienced mentors that will guide your employees towards professional growth and success.

Give Up Control

One of the major fears that may prevent you from investing in employee professional development is that they’ll start looking for a better workplace once they perfect their skills. The statistics show quite the opposite. Around 94% of employees state that they would stay with companies whose leadership helps them perfect and upgrade their skills.

In a time of acute talent shortage, it’s imperative to invest in developing the teams that you already run without the fear that they will leave you at some point. It’s better to help them grow professionally and let them leave your company at one point than to lead stagnant teams without a chance for learning new skills.

It’s hard to see top performers leave your company after you’ve invested energy time and money into their growth. However, the fact that you helped your employees feel confident, competent, and able to thrive on their own is a characteristic of an exceptional leader.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes