In the past, we have talked about the best ways to Attract and Retain Talent. In today's Capsule, I want to address in depth a topic that was maybe too big to take on that entry, Employee's Career Growth. Encouraging your employees to challenge themselves will show you how passionate and excited they are about their professional development. Promoting personal growth will prove your team yu worry about their overall wellbeing. But that in hand with career growth will boost their confidence and the quality of their results.
Back in 2014, Sir Richard Branson worded an idea that is very popular. On his Twitter, he shared this phrase: "Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to". As we have seen in this HR Development Capsules, there are plenty of things we must do as a company to improve our organizational climate. Having competent employees will not only give you excellent business outcomes but are a base for a great organizational climate. Your employees, like any of your company assets, are an investment you need to take charge of.
Effectiveness, efficiency, and training are tightly linked. So What can you do to encourage and promote career growth in your company and what are its benefits?
What could you do when promoting and encouraging your employees' career growth?
This is definitely a go-to strategy for a lot of organizations. Of course, your organization is focused on one or several industries, so always have a list of conferences near you so you can offer your employees to attend them. However, it is important to acknowledge that your employees may come from different careers. There may be conferences and events exclusive to their educational background they may be interested in attending. So let them know that if they have any conference they want to attend and it is not on your list, they can always make the request to assist those.
Attending these conferences and events will help them stay updated with their skills and any relevant tools they need to succeed at their job. It will also open more opportunities for professional and educational growth, so, always encourage and promote the role conferences have in their career growth. Remember any investment in your employees is a great opportunity to increase and strengthen your ROI.
New things always keep us humans excited. The ability to grasp new tasks, learn new things and change will increase their engagement. Remember all your employees are different in many ways, so encourage them to shape their reality and expectations. Tell them to come up with new things they want to do or learn within the organization.
They will feel like they can exceed their job descriptions and boost their confidence. You need to show them you want them to grow within their own skills and limits. Having to embark on new projects and tasks also gives them the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. The possibility of innovation allows them to grow on different aspects and you must always encourage it.
This is centered on allowing your employees to learn new skills. This will give them the opportunity to learn and diversify their "work curricula". Presenting new challenges and keep "practicing" with their trial and error by taking them out of their comfort zones.
There are different ways you can approach this. One way is planning courses and workshops with educational organizations that would teach your employees different skills and provide them with tools for their work. For example Every month you can have an organization that specializes in software tools to give them courses on how to excel at Excel. Or a Company in the HR Development field that can help them improve their communication skills. Be open to any suggestions they will have.
The other approach you can take is to have every employee prepare workshops on a skill they have developed and would like to share with the rest. This also provides team integration opportunities. You can diversify these two ways and mix them over time. For the employee preparing the workshop it could be challenging, so make sure you support them throughout the process.
The lack of growth within the organization is one of the reasons people tend to leave their jobs. If they feel they are stuck in a position for too long, they will leave. For some organizations, leadership positions have a very low rotation rate. However, we are sometimes left without a key role for unexpected reasons and a Leader in Training program can change the outcome of that.
Provide your employees with key elements that may help them be successful at their current roles, but also train them and prepare them for bigger roles. Some people have the aspiration to become coordinators, managers, chiefs, show them you provide them the tools and opportunities for that to happen.
Personal and professional growth go hand in hand. Some of our employees will find motivation in career and professional growth opportunities. However, the fact that you show them that their personal goals and times are also valuable, will motivate some other type of employees as well.
You can encourage personal growth by respecting your employees' free time, off-times, and vacations. By allowing them to fix their schedules in their own ways as long as they are committed and accomplish their tasks. By permitting remote work hours.
I wanted to leave this for last because some organizations have a false belief that money buys happiness. Most people think about this when they think about career growth, and yes, the potential of an increased income motivates most people. However, money is not the only way to keep your employees happy and them wanting to stay with you. I have witnessed people changing jobs to a lower-paid one because they offered growth in the other 5 aspects I talked about above. An increased pay may motivate your employees, but understand that if they don't see growth in other parts of their career they will most likely leave when they get the chance.
We have discussed what can you do to encourage and promote your employee's career growth, now let's see what the benefits of doing so are.
This of course is the main reason you want your employees to grow, so they stay with you. So, well-prepared people are always next to you. Your employees will be more engaged with your organization if their career development is being taken seriously. Identify which are your key workers and develop a career growth plan to offer them.
And with retention of essential employees, you have less shortage of talent. So, while other companies may be lacking talent for essential positions you have made it a task for your organization to ensure you always have someone in those positions and that these people feel comfortable and happy with their roles and the company. Hence, the possibility of having vacant key roles are lower if you are engaged with your employee's career growth and development.
The fact that you give your employees the possibility to grow and better their skills. Getting better at their jobs and use their tools more efficiently, translates into business growth. So, yes, you will be likely spending sums of money into preparing and improving your talents' resources. However, in the long run, this will mean their results will be better and more effective and implicate a strong ROI.
This is important to address. Employees tend to develop more engagement if their professional growth is involved in their roles. And tend to leave by the lack of it. However, even if you offer great opportunities to your employees, they may still leave. And that is okay as well, so, do not focus on the development of just one employee, but whole teams. If you encourage career growth you will have higher retention. But there are also other things we have addressed in these HR Development Capsules that can affect your turnover rates. Always remember that we never share a formula. You should always adjust our tips to your business needs and characteristics.