Career advancement is important. Really important. In fact, both employees and companies rank career advancement opportunities among the top three drivers of attraction and retention (2016 Willis Towers Watson Global Workforce and Global Talent Management & Rewards Studies – U.S.).
Willis Towers Watson’s 2016 studies found that less than half of employees are satisfied with their organization’s career development process. A majority of employees are lacking effective career development discussions with their supervisors, helpful career planning resources and clear explanations for how to advance in their careers.
It’s important to get this right in order to attract and keep the best employees.
While there are technology and programmatic solutions for large organizations with larger budgets, small and medium size businesses can also find ways to improve their focus on career development, such as:
A robust skills training program isn’t always enough to satisfy eager employees who want to grow their careers. Moving beyond skills to a focus on competencies can be a simple-to-implement, quick-win career development solution.
How can I use competencies to create an effective career development solution?
Competencies are defined behaviors that provide structure for career evaluations and can help describe development opportunities for employees. Here are a few best practices that relate to career development:
If your competency model is aligned with best practices, the link to career development becomes more manageable. Here are some ways that a best practice competency model can be used to guide effective career development in your organization:
Our off-the-shelf effective career development competency solution includes examples of each behavior, demonstrated at three levels: professional, manager and executive. Small and medium sized businesses can take this competency content and layer it on the job functions and roles within their organization to help create an effective career development framework that helps attract and retain the very best people for your company.
Blog Contributor
Her experience in consulting spans across talent, change management and rewards projects, including global communication and change management strategy, design and implementation of organizational and functional competency models, development of performance management processes and tools, executive, leadership and manager assessments, and career management. In her free time, she enjoys trying out fitness classes including barre, CrossFit, and yoga across New York City.