The modern world has unrealistic expectations from employees. Despite growing innovation and technology, there’s still a significant amount of pressure on employees to maintain high performance and work tedious hours. In this context, it’s easy to become demotivated and exhausted. Thus, it’s important for managers to make sure their workforce is both satisfied and constantly stimulated One of the most important ways of doing this is through employee career growth. In fact, a large number of talent acquisition plan also focus on this to attract the best workers. Here’s how managers can support employee career growth.
Let Your Employees Know You’re Interested in Their Career Goals
One of the most basic ways you can support employee career growth is by first taking a personal interest in their aspirations and goals. This way, you’ll have a better idea of what your employees want and what they aim to be. Moreover, there will be better chances of enhanced communication. In addition to this, when your employees know you’re interested, they’ll be encouraged to work on these career goals. They’ll also feel they’re part of a bigger role in the organization. As a result, they’ll feel both valued and important. Furthermore, this will also significantly improve their productivity and motivation.
Encourage Employee Development and Training
When you promote training and development of your employees; you’re directly increasing their chances at career growth. Training and development help people to hone their skills and improve their expertise. They can learn a large number of new abilities that will help them in their professional life. For instance, technology is all the rage today.
Thus, many companies, regardless of type, are encouraging their employees to take courses on similar topics. As a result, employees have access to a wide range of skills that make them flexible and well-rounded as workers. It also helps them explore their strengths and weaknesses. With virtual learning, training and development are becoming easier and more accessible. Therefore, you can allow employees to access it without sending a fortune.
Promote Mentoring and Counselling
Organizations and workplaces seriously underestimate the importance of a good mentorship program. These can improve an employee’s productivity, increase motivation, and enhance communication. When you provide employees with a mentor, they’ll have better clarity regarding the future and their career goals. In fact, they might even become workers if they realize it matches their objectives and aims.
In addition to this, mentoring is also important for managing remote staff. Today, a large number of companies have enforced work-from-home policies. This makes it difficult to manage a workforce and to keep a check on everybody on an individual basis. With mentorship programs, you can increase communication and build a better relationship with your employees. Not only will you be better informed about them, but you’ll also have a hand in their career advancement.
Establish Boundaries Between Professional and Personal Lives
If you want your employees’ careers to advance, you should establish strong boundaries between their professional and personal lives. When the COVID-19 pandemic first broke out in 2020, many companies introduced remote work. However, they blurred the lines between work and personal life. As a result, there was no work-life balance. While work shifted to private homes, it became tougher on most. This is because employers would expect their team to be available at all times. Even after work hours. However, remote work does not translate to 24/7 availability. If this is a common practice in your company, you’re promoting a toxic culture with diminished boundaries.
This leads to greater demotivation rates and intense dissatisfaction. If you’re not giving your employees enough time and space to recharge, they won’t be able to work at full capacity. In addition to this, it’s important to allow them sufficient vacations and both casual and sick leaves. Such policies are important in keeping employees satisfied and motivated. You should ensure flexibility in your management strategies. Remember, your employees are people. Not machines.
Help Them Figure Out Their Strengths and Weaknesses
In order to support employee career growth, you should first help them identify their weakness and strengths. Once they’re aware of these, it’ll be easier to gauge what their future looks like. Many agencies (including my friend\’s mortgage staffing agency I was told) are focusing on skill-building today.
Managers should make sure that the strengths their employees display should be further enhanced. This means that they should be given roles and responsibilities specific to those strengths. In case of weaknesses, it’s necessary to help your employees work on these. This will lead to growth and advancement in the long term.
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