How to Ensure Proper Career Growth for your Employees in Your Office

Career development and improving crucial job skills are the two most important job satisfaction factors for employees.

In a study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), career development opportunities were found to have 57% stake in employee job satisfaction.

When employees are satisfied with their jobs, their productivity increase, they’re more inspired to carry out quality work.

Dikonia recently conducted a round of interviews with its employees to take their views on IT attrition rates in India and we found a direct link with career growth opportunities and employee turnover.

Employees who experience better growth at the workplace are far less likely to switch jobs, making it a win-win solution for everyone.

So, the question arises, how to provide career development opportunities to employees? Here are a few ideas that you readily incorporate in your workflow.      

Important Considerations while Planning out a Career Plan for Employees

It’s great to help your employees draft a sound career plan but there are a few things you must keep in mind, in order to avoid unnecessary outcomes:

• Formally, you can offer certain trainings, benefit programs and education for skill growth but make these offerings subjective to business conditions. Try not guaranteeing anything.

• Employees must be encouraged to discuss the planning procedure with one of the office’s managerial authorities but they should make the decision on their own and self plan their learning course.

• The arrangement of resources for education must be done by the employee with support from the office, rather than the office doing everything.   

Steps to Promote Career Development at your Office

Employee Training

Formal training is one of the best options for developing job-specific skills that employees want to voluntarily learn or can benefit by learning.

Training can be offered in a number of variations as listed below.  

Internal Training Measures

• Customized seminar sessions for awareness on new technologies.

• Mentoring sessions for new and tenured employees on personal skills.

• Coaching for improving job-specific skills with introduction to new domains in the same domain.

• Subscription to company’s internal study programs and online courses for increasing knowledge on core subjects.  

 External Training Measures

• Trips to other company campuses for interactive sessions.

• Participation in nationwide seminars and conferences lead by industry leaders.

• Evening school or other types of part time course classes for developing new core skills from a local university or educational institution of choice.

Make Use Of Technology

Technology offers so much in terms of training, and so it’s worth taking advantage of what’s available online. Apps are a great way to learn, and there are platforms like Ezra Coaching App that can be handy for offering coaching for future leaders and employees that have the potential to grow in the business.

While delivering the training programs make sure that they are taken up by employee will, rather than company requirement, wherever necessary. The most important part of training is relevance, and if the employee doesn’t wish to invest time in it, you shouldn’t either.    

Job Responsibilities

Assigning job responsibilities wisely can also help increase development of important management and leadership skills in employees. Most employees perceive skill growth as a trait closely knit with the type of job responsibilities they are incharge of:

• Creating enough room for growth in their daily job routine can also help. Let’s look at how this can be integrated in curriculum.

• Incorporating newer job responsibilities that require them to grow their comfort zones.

• Changing the responsibilities that challenge their will to carry out, from time to time.

• Allowing participation in company’s internal decision making processes as deemed fit by you.

• Promoting self decision making regarding the job the employees carry out and making them accountable for the work they do.

• Organizing interactive sessions with managers to refresh, review and refining employees on all kinds of challenges they face at the workplace.  

Facilitate Higher Formal Education

In a survey conducted by LinkedIn Learning and Study.com, it was found that companies invested an average of $1253 in an year, of which 13% went into sponsored education for employees.

While the trend is significant, it must be adopted by more and more companies to help employees gain formal expertise and advance their qualifications. This provides a great deal of personal satisfaction to the employee as well as addition in resource value to the company.

In addition to sponsoring university degrees and long term learning courses, part-time in-office options can also be explored. Online learning sites such as edx.org and coursera.org provide various options that can be taken up with merely 5 - 7 hour involvement in a week.

Create a Learning Environment

A significant part of career development is passive. Employees upgrade their interpersonal skills and knowledge by learning from each other. This is why experience is such a valuable asset for each employee.

Try to offer a learning environment to the freshers by directing tenured staff to actively participate in their nourishment. Allow a healthy flow of experience from the seniors to the juniors.

Constantly introduce new kinds of job content, exposure to new technologies and varying roles in a project, so that employees can develop an overall understanding of the business workflow.

By doing this, you will be able to create a progressive atmosphere for your employees and foster employee engagement in the long run. Just remember to always keep the employee's career goals and interests in mind while offering such opportunities.

Conclusion

Ensuring career development is rewarding to your business in a number of ways. Satisfied employees, lower employee turnover and a boost in resource valuation are some benefits you can add to your business by the same.

Trainings, out-of-the-office sessions and educational sponsorships are some ways by which you can help your employees grow their professional careers.