Career development tips that have nuthin' to do with promotions

We'd all love to invest time and money in developing our people, whether they’re high performers or it's their first day on the job.

The rub is that many organizations lack formal career development programs, constrained either by budgets or the reality that there are very few rungs on the proverbial ladder.

With this in mind, many organizations acknowledge that "up" is not the only way to get ahead and have turned to mentoring programs and co-created job descriptions as a way to onboard and develop employees and managers. In fact, a recent study acknowledged that 49% of employees prefer to work for organizations that “emphasize mentoring and nurture their career development”.

Here are some tips:

1. Career success should not only be about promotions - especially if there are not many opportunities. Be sure to celebrate training, mentoring and coaching success as much as promotions.
2. Conduct “stay interviews” not just exit interviews to gain insight into what skills employees would like to develop. What type of projects would they like to work on? What would encourage them to stay with the company?
3. Highlight success stories of other employees as examples of how they can move through the organization.
4. Give employees exposure to what everyone else in the company does. Maybe another department is a better fit for their skills.
5. Build a grid of the various levels of each position within the organization. Have managers sit down with their employees and find out their goals and which level they would like to get to.
6. Know your internal candidate pool and their goals for success and a path forward. Actually map it out with them.
7. Create an open feedback loop about career and growth at your company and ensure it’s an ongoing conversation that welcomes every voice.

If you’re looking for a framework for employee or manager mentoring programs then I encourage you to register for our #TorontoHR Meetup on January 25 where experts Tom Themelis and Daneal Charney will walk you through it.