Attracting and keeping good staff is a challenge within today's labour market. One strategy that will help you with this is to encourage all staff to engage in career planning. If your staff have clear direction and goals they are more likely to be satisfied in their job and this could mean less staff turn over for your business. Career planning is essential to retain the good staff you already have.
What is purpose of career planning?
When you organise or support career planning, you give staff a clear message that you support their employment advancement within your organisation. By helping people to plan career choices that are realistic and suitable, you are offering them the opportunity for future satisfaction within your business and you significantly lower the risk of them leaving.
In the process of developing a career plan, employees will gain a better idea of:
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what type of work they are best suited to within your organisation
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what training and education they will need to pursue the work they would most like within your organisation
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the strategy that will help them get where they want to be.
How can I support career planning in my business?
Making career planning a priority within your workplace will raise interest and discussion of the process itself. Some employees may not have thought themselves worthy of having a career plan.
It may be appropriate to have some general training for all staff about the benefits and nature of career planning, which can be followed up with individual employees by supervisors.
There are many resources available through web sites such as Get Access and MyFuture (see Related Links). Sites like these provide links to other sites that have information on a wide variety of topics including:
All of these can help your employees increase their expertise, their own sense of focus and direction, and consequently add value to your organisation.
Will Career Planning make a difference in my workplace?
Supporting employees to develop a career plan helps send the message that they are valued as individuals and that you care about their future. It is likely to lead to increased confidence in their performance and may well lead to increased loyalty to your business.