Unlocking Employee Growth: Key Strategies to Support Career Development

When you think about career growth opportunities for employees, you may equate it to promotion, advancement, and increased earnings. And while those are certainly ways to define growth, the concept can be much more inclusive. In this article, we’ll explore what creating career growth opportunities for employees means and how organizations can support it.

What is the meaning of career growth?

Career growth is the process of developing a worker’s skills, knowledge, and experience to advance their career. Here’s what it can look like within organizations. 

As mentioned above, promotion and advancement are the most traditional, clear, and visible ways to quantify growth. Skill development is another way to define growth. As an employee’s skills grow, they not only become more efficient at their current job, but they expand their opportunities for new or advanced roles. 

Additional responsibility, even if it’s not accompanied by a new role or significant pay increase, is also a type of career growth. It allows employees to practice new skills and expand their perspective while still maintaining a role they are comfortable in. Similarly, cross-functional experience can be a way to grow. Taking on tasks or projects in another department of the organization helps employees build new knowledge, develop a broader point of view, and grow their network.

For many employees, growth is defined by personal fulfillment. This is about finding meaning and purpose at work. It could be related to their organization’s mission, to employee values, or to the inherent satisfaction of doing their job.

What is important for career growth?

There are many benefits of career development for employers—such as increased retention, job satisfaction, and productivity. To realize these benefits, employers can support employee growth in multiple ways. 

• Offer professional development. Help employees stay up to date on job skills and industry trends. This could mean enabling employees to earn technical certifications, attend conferences, or grow their networks.
• Provide access to training and education. Support employees in their efforts to grow their skills and knowledge. This could include offering tuition assistance or subsidizing technical training. According to data from the 2023 Great Retention Survey, 87% of workers believe employers should be investing in employees’ continued education.
  
• Encourage mentorship. Find ways to connect employees with more experienced colleagues who can share insights and inspiration.
• Collaborate on employee goals. Work together with employees to create achievable, realistic goals to help them grow skills and responsibilities while also aligning with organizational priorities.
• Incentivize career growth. Reward employees who take steps toward career growth. This could include pay increases, bonuses, or smaller rewards such as recognition or gifts.

What is the career development of an organization?

In an organization, career development is the structured approach to helping employees grow and progress. It means taking a big picture view to determine what skills and roles are needed to ensure that the organization can thrive. Then, it’s about supporting and promoting the diverse types of career growth that will support that vision. 

• Career paths. Creating clear pathways from one job to another gives employees a roadmap to advancement while also constructing an internal role architecture to support long-term success. 
• Internal mobility. Giving employes the freedom to change roles helps them broaden their skills while also ensuring that the company can retain key talent.
• Leadership development. Offering development opportunities with leadership potential is a powerful way to help build the skills to guide the organization into the future.

How to support employee career development

Whether it’s an employee who wants to “climb the corporate ladder" or one who’s looking for new skills in their current role, offering career growth opportunities is a critical way for organizations to support employee development. Here a few career growth examples to explore. 

With individualized career planning, you can give employees one-to-one support to create development roadmaps. Ideally, you can also ensure that employee goals are aligned with organizational needs. Frequent feedback is another crucial way to support growth. This can happen during periodic reviews, through spot coaching, or with peer input. 

Tuition assistance programs are also a powerful tool to support employee growth. This has the added benefit of increasing employee engagement, retention, and satisfaction while boosting organizational performance. According to one survey, 90% of business leaders agree that their organization views tuition assistance benefits as an investment in its people.

Discover a powerful new way to support employee growth

Learning is a key component of growth. And learning is what Workforce Edge is all about. Our streamlined and easy-to-use platform empowers employees to pursue career-enriching learning opportunities—while giving you simplified tools to manage your tuition assistance benefit. Reach out to learn more.