By Zach Curtis, Leadership Development Consultant
“Career” doesn’t mean the same thing as it used to. The traditional quest for promotions and raises is giving way to an entirely different set of priorities. More and more people are interested in building careers composed of meaningful experiences, interesting work, and work-life balance.
The good news is that this means there are more ways than ever for you as a manager to help employees find fulfillment and satisfaction in their jobs. The challenge is that the path to career development is much less obvious now and often less linear.
What Is Career Development Management?
Career development management is the process of actively planning an employee’s career path. During this process, individuals identify their priorities, set plans, and create short- and long-term strategies designed to help them reach their goals.
As employees begin to think about their futures, they need someone in their corner who can provide individualized guidance and support. As a manager, you can fill this role in several different ways. This support can be as simple as providing honest feedback on an employee’s strengths and opportunities. You can also take a more hands-on approach by connecting them to people and opportunities across the organization, or in helping team members to brainstorm roles that align with their unique skills.
Tips for Facilitating Career Development Conversations
Conversations are a crucial first step in the career development process. Research suggests that when managers provide regular career conversations, it has a noticeably positive impact on their employee engagement. Yet despite this, many managers are reluctant to discuss career opportunities because they fear their employees will request a raise or a promotion that the manager can’t provide.
While these conversations may occasionally be challenging, they are essential if you want to hold onto your employees. According to a Gallup poll regarding employee turnover, the number one reason employees left their current jobs—accounting for 32%—was for advancement or promotional opportunities. If you don’t prioritize career development, your employees may decide to go elsewhere.
If you’re unsure how to begin career conversations, here are a few ways to help make things easier:
Get to Know the Person.
People want to do work that resonates with who they are as individuals. Yet, each employee has a different set of values, strengths, interests, and goals, which impact their definition of what they find meaningful and interesting.
Getting to know your employees is one of your most important manager development opportunities. Until you know what matters to your people, what they’re good at, and what they enjoy doing, you will not be able to help align their personal goals with what the organization needs from them.
As a manager, you can learn a lot about your team members simply by observing their behaviors and asking the right questions. Think about some behaviors you’ve noticed on your team recently, good or bad, that stand out in your mind. What might those behaviors suggest about an individual’s identity or career goals?
However, the best way to learn something about one of your team members is to simply ask them. Questions like, “What do you enjoy doing? What are you curious about? What would an ideal job look like to you?” can provide you with valuable insights into how your employees think and feel.
Provide Perspective
Providing perspective is a vital component to the manager’s role in career development management. As a manager, your perspective is necessary for individuals to achieve alignment between who they are (their identity), what they want (their goals), and what the organization needs from them.
That perspective is most important when team members are experiencing gaps, which keep them from accomplishing what they set out to achieve. One type of gap arises when an employee’s perception of their identity differs from their reputation (i.e. how their manager and others perceive them). Gaps can also arise when an individual’s goals are misaligned with those of the organization. These gaps can have significant impact on an employee’s career development, and it is the manager’s responsibility to communicate them to their team members and offer perspective on how to close them.
Explore Opportunities
The third way that you can help support your team members’ career journeys is by creating opportunities for them. As a manager, you have a unique vantage point within the organization. You work closely with your team members each day, which allows you to develop a good understanding of their values, strengths, interests, and goals. At the same time, you are also aware of the larger organizational strategy and routinely work with people that your team members may never come across in their day-to-day responsibilities—whether it’s senior leaders in the same department or managers and leaders across other parts of the organization.
One of the best ways to add value to your team members’ career development is by connecting them to new opportunities within the organization and introducing them to valuable people they might not otherwise meet.
Creating a Career Management Plan
After you’ve shared several career development conversations with an employee, the next step is to put together a career management plan that lays out their goals and the steps necessary to achieve them. While every employee’s management plan will look slightly different, it should include these basic steps:
Step #1 Determine Employee Goals
The key here is to help your team members set goals that reflect their unique priorities. Encourage them to set both short-term and long-term goals and make sure that the objectives they set are measurable in some way, so you can check in later and measure their progress.
Step #2 Identify Employee Skills Gaps
Once an employee has identified a set of goals, it’s important to determine the skills necessary for them to reach those objectives. Discuss the qualifications they already have and take note of areas where they need additional training.
Step #3 Connect Employees to Resources
As a manager, you are often aware of training and other resources that employees may not know about. Keep your employees apprised of any personal and professional development opportunities, particularly when they align with your employees’ goals.
Step #4 Check in with Employees
Be sure to schedule time to meet with employees and check in on their progress. If you don’t have additional time in your schedule, you can build this into your existing employee review cycle.
Step #5 Celebrate Wins
When navigating a career path, it is easy to get discouraged. Celebrating accomplishments will help employees feel like they’re making progress and provide them with the motivation they need to keep moving forward.
Step #6 Update Career Management Plans
When checking in with employees, be sure to adjust the plan based on the progress that they are making. As they begin to fill skills gaps and check off short-term goals, it is important to create new goals and benchmarks to help move them along the path toward their long-term objectives.
Empower Your People to Drive Continuous Growth
It can be challenging to align individual aspirations with the constant pressure of organizational expectations. For many managers, it can feel like two jobs in one. However, the steps outlined above can go a long way toward demystifying the process and help you create a culture of career growth. When learning becomes continuous, employee become more loyal, well-rounded workers, and better equipped to handle change.
To learn more about career development management, check out our coaching services.
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