Knowing the importance of career progression is vital for your career development. But when you are focusing on your own career progression plan, it can be easy to forget about the development of your employees. As an employer or manager, it is your responsibility to offer career development opportunities to help your employees reach their ultimate goal.
This is particularly important if you are looking to boost employee retention in your workplace. If you are wondering how to enhance career development in your company, then look no further. We have developed '5 Golden Rules' of career development strategy that you can encourage your employees to use to enhance their career progression.
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To give you a helping hand, our recruitment experts have given a useful insight on how to optimise your career progression.
“Career progression is becoming increasingly important to career professionals today. Statistics have shown that 87% of millennials say that professional development or career growth opportunities are very important. Whether this has come from higher levels of competition, economic factors or employment rates, we do not know. But what we do know, is how you can manage your own career development with our 5 golden rules” – Nathan, Recruitment Consultant
1. Create a career progression plan to achieve your goals
Creating a strong career progression plan is imperative to helping you achieve your goals. Suggesting that staff write out tasks that they have achieved, what you would like to do for your company, and where they visualise themselves currently is a great way to envision your career progression. Creating a plan will also help them to understand exactly what they need to do to achieve your goals, and see realistically when can be achieved. Having a career progression plan enables you to understand and visualise the career development stages that your employee is working towards. You will be able to understand exactly what they want out of their role as well as proving to you that they're willing to put in the effort to pursue it.
2. Develop a timeline and include milestones
Timelines are a good way to boost productivity in your career development. If you have a deadline of when you want to achieve something, then you are more likely to plan your day to day workload around it and ensure that you prioritise your career development. As succession planning can span over a long time, it is important to remind yourself with deadlines and milestones so it doesn’t get forgetting the hurry of day to day working life. Milestones are also important to reward yourself. You might have one big end goal, but it is still a great achievement to get a step closer. You should reward yourself accordingly for your efforts, take some time off from work or treat yourself to something you’ve been saving up for.
3. Utilize your opportunities
Succession planning take place everyday in your workplace. As an employer you should be keen to help build your employees skillset and experience, as it is in both of your interests; they are interested in progressing while you are keen to retain their employees. Building up the skillset of your employees will enable them to be innovative and knowledable about what they can bring to the company.
Remind them about opportunities at work. Is there a new project coming up that they might want to be a part of? Encourage them to voice their interest.
Many employers nowadays offer training to their employees. If you think there is a training that might be beneficial to you and your company, ask your employees if they would like to take part in more career development opportunities.
4. Do more than your job
As a manager, you should be there to help your career progression. You can do this by being pro-active and offering your employee career progression examples and development strategies. This is something that will lead you to be a good manager and benefit your employee.
Offer work shadowing opportunities. Shadowing a role in a different department or one which they might like to progress too will help them learn the skills they might need to include in their career progression plan.
Attend training days/ programmes with your employee. Attending a variety of work events such as a morning breakfast, evening seminars or all day events is a great opportunity to network, get your name out there, and introduce them to roles which they might like to progress into.
Make the most out of your appraisals and reviews. Use this time to your advantage and ask them to prepare a career progression plan. It is likely that they will be interested but potentially unsure how to get started, so offer some valuable advice on succession planning and career development examples from your own experience.
5. Write it down
Encourage your employee to write down their career progression. Firstly, you will be able to go back and reference their plans, remind yourself of what their long term and short term goals are, and edit them accordingly. Secondly, you will be able to see clearly how far they've have progressed, making it easier to reward them when they reach each milestone, which is iimportant for employee retention. Finally, it is a great way for your employee to present their succession plan to you, as you will be able to clearly see their goals; making it easier for both parties.
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