Personalised career development: Because no one-size fits all

Career development is essential.

It’s a motivating factor for people considering new opportunities. It’s a reason for staying at your current company. It’s an avenue for self-gratification as you succeed in learning something new.

But for HR teams, strategising and planning career development for each individual employee isn’t easy.

And it certainly isn’t one-size fits all.

?In fact, it’s not even as simple as sticking employees into the old 70s approach that is the 9-box grid.

We’re humans. We’re all unique. We can’t be defined by only 9 boxes.

So how exactly do HR leaders personalise career development so it’s not one-size fits all, but remains efficient, effective, and engaging?

Know your (skills) gaps

We know you need to prioritise career development.

But how do you ensure that your employees are given growth opportunities that also support your businesses’ goals?

Employee development should help them to achieve personal goals, whilst contributing to team and organisational success.

Understanding where your team skill gaps lie is the first step to creating a clear strategy, so if you haven’t already, it’s time to perform a skills gap analysis.

Learning where your employee’s knowledge gaps are allows you to bridge them before they impact business priorities. You’ll be aware of where the recruitment costs are needed, where you need to invest in additional training and who is potentially ready for a promotion.

And it’s not just knowledge gaps you need to look out for.

With more boomers than ever expected to retire this decade, ensuring you have the right people in your workforce to fulfil their roles is essential to your business continuing to run smoothly and successfully.

Maximising your tech stack

Skills gap analysis is more than just a way to strategise. When employees understand what they need to do to grow, they become more engaged, motivated, and invested in your business – because as they grow, you grow.

Personalised development plans for every employee can sound daunting – especially if we’re talking 1000s of individuals.

But it doesn’t have to be.

That is – provided you have the right technology in place.

Consider how your current processes are working.

Are they taking hours? Are you using outdated processes like the 9-box grid to analyse your employees?

Succession planning is plagued with the 9-box grid.

We hate it. You probably hate it too.

Every employee is talented, and it's unfair to box them according to a static moment in time.

Which is why we created our alternative, Success Circles?.

Imagine as an employee you have little understanding of how you can get to your next career goal or what you need to do to upskill.

You can’t access your 9-box assessment (and let’s be honest, would you really want to?) so you have no idea where your individual growth lies, and you’re stuck.

Demotivated. Disengaged. Disheartened.

With Success Circles?, every individual has access to a play-by-play of their core strengths, how to improve and how to work towards a promotion.

Personalised to them and automatically updated within the platform, creating individual development plans just got easier.

Get personal in reviews

A skills gap analysis is a great starting point, but understanding directly from the individual what they hope to achieve and how they want to grow can support you to create personalised development plans that work.

We mentioned earlier that boomers were on the out, and as more Gen Z enter the workforce, it’s important to understand what drives them to succeed.

83% want to learn skills to perform better in their current role and 76% of Gen Z employees believe that learning is the key to a successful career.

Surprisingly, 47% of Gen Z employees also state they get better career advice from ChatGPT than their manager.

Are your leaders maximising their reviews and feedback to suit their team?

The annual appraisal is out with the 9-box grid.

Regular reviews and consistent feedback both from the individual employee and those they work with can help you to generate an overall picture of how best to engage with the employee to ensure their development is successful.

Personal, planned, prioritised

It’s time to create personal development plans for your staff.

To support, you can download our handy template here.

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