Your EMPLOYEE's Career Development, Your COMPANY's Competitive Strengt Email this article to a friend Printer-friendly version

Career development is a powerful employee motivator and retention tool, not to mention a competitive strength when it comes to attracting new talent -- all of which can have a profound impact on your company's bottom line. Happy, satisfied workers are more productive and more likely to stick around when they believe they are valued by their employers. Discerning candidates are more attracted to organizations with a reputation for encouraging employees' professional development. From more than 17 years experience working with organizations that value and actively offer career development for their employees, I share this list of ten best practices. I hope they are helpful for implementing career development programs in your organization that will cultivate and retain the talent you have and attract the best new employees. These initiatives are based on the philosophy that employees themselves own their careers but an organization's HR team and managers should work proactively to encourage and support employees' professional development. 1. Start up an in-house career development center (CDC). A CDC can boost workplace morale by honing employees' skill sets to improve performance in their current positions and prepare them for their next move within the company. It also provides an opportunity for your company to strengthen skills that support its key business objectives. If possible, set aside an appropriate space, preferably one big office or room, for employees to visit on their own time (lunch, breaks, or after hours). Make materials available to check out for use at home. Depending on your resources, an effective CDC would include: Individual work-study spaces (like library carrels). Computers with Internet browser bookmarks to career development websites such as WetFeet.com or career-inspirations.com. A selection of classic and popular business and career management books, such as What Color is Your Parachute?, by Richard Bolles; Networking Works!; or my new book The Ultimate Guide to Getting the Career You Want and What to Do Once You Have It, by Karen O. Dowd and myself. Targeted communication to introduce the CDC, such as open houses and tours to familiarize employees with the CDC's resources. An on-site manager to answer questions (the HR staff could rotate shifts for this responsibility). Continuously update the CDC's resources based on employee feedback, career development plans, and the skills your organization needs to develop in employees for its long-term business strategy. 2. Host internal job fairs once a quarter. Filling job openings from within saves time and money -- no hefty search firm or referral fees and existing employees are already known to be good matches for the company. Hosting an internal job fair is a great way to get the word out to employees about advancement opportunities within your company. Done well, a career fair can prevent employees from looking elsewhere when they want to make a job change. Job fairs also educate employees about other groups within the company and germinate ideas about future opportunities they may aspire to, thereby strengthening their long-term commitment to the organization. This better understanding can also result in improved interaction and productivity among different groups. Encourage employees to bring their resumes and to present themselves as if they were attending an outside job fair. A successful job fair would include: A clever communication campaign to generate excitement about the fairs, such as a countdown or a simple e-mail advertising campaign using teasers such as, "come find out about a department that has been recognized as most admired in the industry for 5 years running" or "talk to Jane and Alex, two directors who recently joined us from our number one competitor, about the new product-development teams they're building". A kick-off event such as executives serving lunch, or coffee and donuts before the fair. An abbreviated summary of available openings and departments. A large, open location, such as an employee cafe or parking lot. Booths or tables staffed by each group within the company. Some groups may not be hiring now but may want to talk with employees about future opportunities. Signs and handouts that include an overview on each group, explaining top priorities and job descriptions. Refreshments -- Krispy Kreme donuts and milk, or popcorn and Slurpees have been favorites. Resume-writing and interviewing workshops held in your CDC (before or during your job fair) to help employees appreciate their marketability and employability. These exercises can also help your employees understand that they need to learn new skills to compete for the best jobs. (See "Get Results with Your Cover Letter" and "Resume Makeoves: How to Stand Out from the Crowd.") 3. Enlist employees as teachers and mentors. Identify managers who are great at what they do and enthusiastic about the company. Ask them to mentor new hires, high-potential employees, or all interested employees, and to lead your new employee orientation sessions or other in-house programs. These mentors will share the benefit of their knowledge and experience and serve as great role models. What's more, the mentors are likely to feel more appreciated and personally invested in the company. Mentoring can be formalized, such as facilitating the matching of mentor and protege through a buddy system. Less formally, you could ask for mentor volunteers and note how many proteges each is willing to take on. Build a database that employees can use to contact a mentor. The mentor and protege can take it from there. 4. Give employees opportunities to branch out. Find ways to allow your employees to work outside of their areas of expertise, by serving on cross-functional teams or completing short-term assignments in other areas. Make a point of knowing what your employees' professional interests and aspirations are and how they intersect with your organization's projected growth areas and HR needs. Identify employees with significant potential, and create experiences (springboard roles) that will help prepare them for future advancement. 5. Create two possible career tracks for star performers. Offer both a managerial and a technical career track to reward strong employees. The common wisdom in most organizations is to give top performers increased responsibility and more people to oversee -- a management career track. Some people, however, do not enjoy or excel at managing others. Making managerial roles the only advancement opportunities may actually discourage top performers or set them up for failure. Including a technical advancement track, one that involves more responsibilities and pay but not more employees to manage, is a good alternative for encouraging continued motivation in your more autonomous star performers. 6. Hire from within when possible. Develop a recruiting process that allows current employees to compete for openings offered to external candidates. Hold your internal applicants to the same high standards you expect from outside candidates, but give them opportunities equal to those for outside candidates. If a current employee interviews for another position and is really talented but not quite right for the job opening, you could create an intern or apprentice position that would give him or her an opportunity to develop the needed experience and skills, in anticipation of future openings. 7. Offer a thoughtful new employee orientation. Orientations can go a long way toward building a strong foundation for acclimating new recruits. (For more on orientations, refer to "Getting Set for Success -- New Hire Orientations and the First 90 Days," HR Magazine, SHRM, The Employment Management Report, May/June 2002.) 8. Hold managers accountable for employee career development. Include employee development in your managers' performance evaluations and compensation decisions. As seasoned managers, you know that things outside of formal performance objectives can go unnoticed among the more immediate responsibilities. 9. Track success stories and use them in recruiting. Is there a former administrative assistant who became a VP of sales; a financial analyst who is now director of strategic planning; a recruiter who is on the team to start up your new operation in South America? In your recruiting efforts, illustrate your commitment to career development by describing employees who have benefited from the development programs and resources you offer. Continued learning, intellectual stimulation, and career growth -- both through career broadening opportunities and advancement -- are consistently among the top factors that candidates cite when evaluating companies and job offers. 10. Treat ex-employees as alumni. When employees leave your organization in good standing, maintain a relationship with them as valued alumni. Consider periodic newsletters, an alumni database, or even alumni events. Laid off employees should also be treated with respect and kept in contact with. They are a source of experience and skills if you need to staff up again in the future, even on a consulting basis; they are also potential customers and ambassadors of sorts carrying forth your company's reputation to outsiders. Also, there is the goodwill and PR factor -- the surviving employees will view the treatment of their laid-off brethren as an indication of how they would be treated in a similar situation. CEOs and managers often say that their most valuable asset is their people. When an organization demonstrates that it values its employees by providing resources to help them grow within the organization, it will be rewarded with employees who work hard and are committed to the long-term success of the company. In short, your employees will value the company in return. Author Bio Sherrie Gong Taguchi has served as Vice President of University Recruiting for Bank of America, Director of Corporate Human Resources for Dole Packaged Foods, and Assistant Dean of the Stanford MBA Career Management Center. She is co-author of The Ultimate Guide to Getting the Career You Want and What to Do Once You Have It (McGraw-Hill), a book for people in all phases of their careers who aspire to meaningful, dynamic careers over a lifetime. Sherrie can be reached at http://www.career-inspirations.com. Top of Page