How Small Businesses Can Retain Top Performing Employees For The Future Through Career Progression Opportunities

Career progression is one of the most exciting parts of being a leader, and it's also one of your biggest responsibilities because it is key to retaining employees for small business owners

It's proven that people want to be in (and stay in) a company culture where they can thrive and grow. Through that lens, most every employee has job satisfaction when they:

• Feel valued
• Are recognized and rewarded for their contributions and efforts
• Know that the work they do matters

One of the best ways to encourage a positive working environment for employees in a small business is through career progression opportunities

Whether you run a small company, or are a leader within a company, retention rates and career progression opportunities should be a huge part of your role. In large companies where moving departments is common and there are plenty of positions and opportunities for growth available, this seems obvious. If, however, you are running a small company, or hiring your first (or first few team members), you may be wondering how to go about defining a career path for each new employee.

If your ultimate vision is to grow your team and build a self-led company, you need to be thinking long-term in terms of your employee retention strategies.

Take a look at each role in your company and ask yourself: “what does success in this particular position look like? At what point will we have enough productivity and profits to be able to hire the next person?”

Oftentimes (especially in the beginning stages of building your business), your team is juggling more than one job. As your company grows, roles are going to separate out into 5 core departments: marketing, sales, service delivery, operations and finance. But at the startup phase, your first and first few hires are typically a hybrid of more than one of these.

Regardless of what the structure looks like (i.e a sales/marketing assistant), responsibilities should always be clearly communicated and your team should have a crystal clear path on how to achieve their goals. Eventually, as they are wont to do, the roles will begin to split out and you'll start making new hires to fulfill more responsibilities.

When we first launched Kelly Roach Coaching, we had a full-time billing and operations person, as well as a sales and marketing person. As they hit their productivity and profitability targets, though, those roles split out and we began hiring individuals for each key area.

If you're interested in exploring what each of these roles should look like on your own team, schedule a strategy call with our team here, and we can map out your growth plan.

Ultimately, you need to remember that career development isn't something that happens as you hit a certain revenue stage. It should be a focus from the day you make your first hire.?

Retaining employees and keeping them engaged in productivity is all about clearly communicating? their next step in the company.

What are your employees working toward? What happens when they get there? Are they getting the training and development they need to fulfill those goals?

While this doesn't mean you need a complete job description written out and ready to go, you should have an idea of where that person is headed and what comes next. You can't get to the point of splitting the role, or hiring someone new, if you're unclear on what progression within your company looks like.

Your employees can't be motivated about where your company is headed if you don't have a clear vision of it yourself.

Which is why vision-casting is a crucial piece of the professional development puzzle (I talk more about that in Bigger Than You: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Building an Unstoppable Team ).

Clear productivity and profitability targets are required for every employee in your company

Employees should have clear milestones and deliverables, as well as a clear vision of what's in it for them.

What are THEIR goals? What's on their dream board? What personal achievements are they working toward? If you're directly managing someone and you can't answer those questions, there's a disconnect. You need to correct your employee engagement priorities.

Leadership is an opportunity for you to be a facilitator of someone accomplishing their biggest goals and dreams

When you play that role for your team, you will create motivated, excited employees who want to invest in the growth of your company - because they can directly tie it to their vision for themselves and what matters most to them. Maybe it's being able to travel the world. Maybe it's paying off student debt. Maybe it's buying a home for their family.

Whatever it is, get clear on it. Much of the time we're really clear about where we want to take our business.? Though, at the same time, we may not be so clear on what our employees are trying to accomplish. Give them a roadmap to achieve it by working for your company, and watch productivity and profitability soar.

Are you starting to build your team? Have one but they aren't getting the level of results you'd like? Take inventory. Do they have a clear career progression plan? Do they have a roadmap, milestones, deliverables, and an action plan for how to get there? Are you engaging in meaningful conversations about how you can support them in achieving those goals?

If those answers are "no," I invite you to explore our coaching programs, where we focus on hiring, leadership development, team retention, career progression productivity and profitability.

Visit our consulting page to learn more about our Legacy Builders and Legacy Leaders programs and what might be a fit for you as you grow and scale your company.