5 Ways Managers Can Support Employee Career Development

I've been exploring the role that managers play in supporting employee career development. Through my research and work in my leadership development consulting firm The Edge of Work , I wanted to share some of the practical tips and best practices that I think managers can adopt to effectively support employee career development.

Gallup found that organizations that make strategic investments in employee development report 11% greater profitability and are twice as likely to retain their employees. Managers are better positioned to help employees invest in career development.

The manager’s role in supporting employees is not new. We’ve known that managers have an outsized impact on the employee experience . Many employees take jobs for the same reason they leave—for career growth.?

?Traditionally, organizations have not helped managers see the value of talking to their employees about their career growth or actively investing in it.?

Public opinion research company The Harris Poll surveyed 1,433 full-time employees at 310 workplaces. Nearly all of the companies surveyed said they provide career-development tools. However, only one in four employees surveyed felt the employer helped them grow "very well." Around 77% of employees feel "on their own" to develop their careers at the company.

?In research from 15Five 82% of employees who discuss their careers with management more than once a month are highly engaged, compared to 53% who have these discussions once a year or less. Culture Amp ?Culture Amp found that the top three areas employees felt managers could improve were all related to how managers help them develop their careers.

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Many Employees Are Still Figuring Out How to Manage Their Careers (And that’s okay!)

In my experience advising organizations and leaders, there is absolutely an interest in employees who want to develop and grow their careers. When I ask leaders how to manage their careers, they say things like, “I learned by trial and error," “I’m not sure,” or “I’m still figuring it out.” This affirms how challenging it can be to acquire the career navigation skills you need to feel confident.

?These same leaders are responsible for determining how to manage their careers, and they also play a critical role in supporting and co-facilitating their employees' career growth.?This results in a domino effect: managers aren’t confident in their abilities to manage their careers and put them in a position to support their direct reports but don’t know how to do that effectively.

How Managers Play Supportive Roles in Employee Career Development

?I’ve developed five plays for people managers to support their employees’ career development, along with actions the managers can take to support their employees in their career development journey.

?They are:

1. Amplify Their Work - Proactively identify where they are doing great work and share it with others.??
2. Play to Their Strengths - Shift the tasks, workstreams, and responsibilities that align with employees’ strengths and interests.
3. Opportunity Creation - Create opportunities for employees that enhance their careers.
4. Connect Your People to People ?- Connect your employees to other people.
5. Career Development Feedback - Provide in-context feedback that encourages action toward career development.

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1.??? Amplify Their Work

?Managers can identify where employees are doing great and amplify and share their work with key people, such as stakeholders, peers, or leaders. Your stamp of approval can enhance their personal brand and help them gain additional exposure and opportunities to elevate their careers.?

Two things are critical to this. First, managers should know and understand what their employees are doing and how they are making an impact. Second, managers should go out of their way to communicate this within the organization.

?Actions and Behaviors

• Encourage your employees to track their accomplishments and projects and review them regularly.?
• Regularly promote and share your team's work with your stakeholders and leaders.

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2.??? Redesign the Role to Their Strengths

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A manager’s job is to guide their team to an agreed-upon outcome, determine who does what, and guide how it gets done. Managers can assign tasks, assignments, and projects that are more appealing to employees or leverage their strengths or interests.?

By asking and learning what makes an employee light up or what leverages their strengths and using that to inform how they assign work, managers can ensure the right people are working on the right projects.?

Actions and Behaviors

• Ask your employees what they would like to do more of and what they would like to do less of, and then find a way to redesign their roles and responsibilities based on that insight.
• Identify a specific task or project they did a good job with and enjoyed doing and work with them to find more opportunities to do that in their specific role.
• Create a side project for them to explore a specific skill, task, or interest.

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?3.??? Create Opportunities?

?Managers can use their perspectives and experiences to spot and create opportunities for employees, especially ones they cannot see or get on their own. By providing a stretch project, writing a recommendation for a leadership program, or getting them included in a cross-functional project with exposure to senior leaders,?a manager can use their power to create career opportunities for their employees.?This is why helping, mentoring, and coaching employees in their careers is critical to equity and inclusion.

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Actions and Behaviors

• Identify specific opportunities like stretch projects, side projects, or ERGs that employees on your team can participate in and encourage them to participate.
• Make nominations for team members to participate in leadership development or high-potential programs.?
• Find an industry conference relevant to your team members and secure the budget and resources so they can attend.

4.??? Connecting Your People to People

Using their social and career capital, managers can facilitate introductions to new people and help their direct reports build social capital for additional opportunities they would not otherwise have, enhance their personal brand, and grow in the short and long term. This also helps employees improve their engagement and connection to their job.

Actions and Behaviors

• Identify two to three people you can introduce your direct report to who would enhance their opportunities inside your organization.
• Speak to your employees about a specific career goal and identify one or two people who would be great to speak with to help them accomplish that goal.

• Help your employees get the right support by identifying the help they need (i.e., a peer, mentor, or thought partner) and then connect them with those people.

5.??? Provide Career Focused Feedback

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Getting feedback from someone who has observed their work and talked with them about their motivations makes a manager very qualified to provide insights that can help an employee identify how they can develop and grow.

Examples of helpful feedback to an employee include targeting career development goals, noticing when an employee is using their strengths, or highlighting if an employee is progressing in a skill. We cannot always see ourselves clearly,?so a manager who provides career development feedback can make a huge impact.

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Actions and Behaviors

We encourage managers to regularly and consistently provide the 3 Ps of effective career development feedback:

• Prompts: A prompt is a question, idea, or conversation starter that encourages an employee to take action.
• Pulses: Pieces of data and insight you observe and see about how your employees work, their words or actions, or past work experiences you share with them.
• Paths: A path constitutes a series of steps or actions that employees can take toward a specific goal or outcome.

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Bonus Play: The Slingshot

Sometimes, managers cannot offer something relevant to employees' growth, so they can offer a “slingshot” or assisted acceleration in finding the next best opportunity. This could mean connecting them to another hiring manager or helping them identify a list of potential new roles or opportunities. Ensuring managers have the right toolkit to help employees grow in their careers is critical for organizations serious about linking career development and internal mobility to improving engagement and retention.?

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Elevate The Potential of Each of Your Employees

Employees with managers who are invested in their career development through words and actions are more likely to stay and continue to perform.

If you’re a people manager or leader, consider these ideas to partner with your employees on their career development. As a manager, these are things you can do to play your part in helping your employees rise to their potential and become the people they are capable of being.