A benefit for both employers and employees.
The last couple years have exhausted employers with an ever-changing work environment, and these changes don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. As a result, it is vital for employers to look at areas of employment where their company may have an opportunity to breathe. Employee turnover is not only time consuming, but also expensive; losing an employee can cost the company money, morale, and productivity.
So, where can employers invest to help keep employees longer-term? We believe that investing in your employees’ career development will help. You may also be familiar with the terms career pathing, upskilling, reskilling, professional development, continuing education, career progression, etc. These terms are all part of the overall subject matter of career development.
WHAT EXACTLY IS CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND WHY SHOULD EMPLOYERS CARE?
The process of identifying career goals, then developing the skills and knowledge needed to reach those goals. According LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2022, 46% of Learning and Development pros said upskilling and reskilling was a top area of focus[1]. While a survey by LORMAN suggests 41% of employees consider their organization’s career advancement opportunities a very important factor to their job satisfaction[2]. Linkedin’s Data Insights stated employees who see good opportunities to learn and grow are 2.9 times more likely to be engaged than those who don’t[3]. All of this points to the fact that investing in an employee’s career development could be a huge win for companies as more employees crave learning new skills both to make their jobs more fulfilling but also to improve their earning potential.
Employers of all sizes can offer career development opportunities to employees in both formal and informal ways. Some employers may be open to:
- reskilling, when employees learn new skills to help them obtain other positions within the company;
- upskilling, when employers help employees enhance skills to grow within a current role and prepare for the next role.
Both options encourage employers to look inside their organization to identify individuals who might benefit from career development activities, as well as allow employees to choose ways to continue to learn and grow, and not all of them have to cost money. Employers can explore many options for career development including, but not limited to, online or classroom-based courses, onsite training, providing access to “libraries” (such as online resources for courses, books, articles), as well as other options that will encourage continuing education. Once the company has an idea of what they would like to offer, it’s important to implement a learning and development plan for each employee and to hold them accountable for following through on the plan.
With the ever-changing work environment, employers have an opportunity to look into career development as an additional benefit to assist employees. This could aid in engagement, moral, and help ease the burned of turnover.
-Camille Pavelko, HR Administrator
[1] https://learning.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/learning/en-us/pdfs/workplace-learning-report/LinkedIn-Learning_Workplace-Learning-Report-2022-EN.pdf
[2] https://www.lorman.com/blog/post/39-statistics-that-prove-the-value-of-employee-training
[3] https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-strategy/state-of-the-manager-report#:~:text=Employees%20who%20see%20good%20opportunities,skills%20gaps%20on%20their%20teams.