Are you helping workers achieve their career goals? If not, you could be missing out on a powerful HR tool. 

A career journey isn’t a path that contains a defined end. It includes rich learning experiences, detours, and opportunities for growth. Beyond enriching the employee’s life, a career journey can make them a more productive, engaged employee in your company.

What Is a Career Journey? 

A career journey is the path employees take during their career, and it focuses on the experience they have at each stage. Like a career path, a career journey helps workers arrive at different milestones until they reach their final career objectives. 

At its heart, a career journey is like other journeys and road trips you make in life. Along the way, there are bound to be accidents, detours, and traffic jams. Sometimes, these unintentional changes lead to new, unexpected opportunities. In other cases, they simply delay the amount of time it takes to reach your final destination.

The Advantages of Supporting Career Journeys 

When it comes to career journeys, your small business may have an advantage over large corporations. In a recent Mission to Grow podcast, partner and founder at HRTechRadar, Anita Lettink, discussed this benefit. “I think that small business owners have a tremendous advantage over corporations because they are so much closer to their people and, typically, small business owners know everyone that works for them. There aren’t a lot of CEOs in the corporate world that know everyone that works for them. And that means that they can create much more personalized learning journeys or career journeys.”

Boost Employee Morale 

When employees know that they have a future at your business, it improves their morale. They know you care about where their career is headed and are there to support them along the way. Once workers know you’re committed to them, it boosts their engagement level in your company.

Retaining Top Performers

Your top performers want to reach their goals and get promoted. If they don’t think that there is any career advancement at your organization, they’ll move on to another company. By sitting down and going through an employee’s career journey, you demonstrate to your top performers that they have a future at your company and don’t have to leave to continue their career journey.

Encourage Productivity 

Another important advantage of providing career journey support is its impact on productivity. Training opportunities, good leadership, and positive communication encourage employees to put in their best efforts. If an employee knows the end goal and why they are working hard, they’ll be more likely to put in extra effort. 

Attract Top Employees 

Top talent wants to work at a good company where they can build a future. When you demonstrate your commitment to workers through career journey support, you increase the odds that top talent will come to your company. Top candidates target top companies, so you need to do everything you can to become one of the best places to work.

Compete in a Tight Labor Market 

Thanks to changing demographics, there is a shortage of skilled labor. Competing for skilled workers in this labor market can take some creativity. If you don’t have an unlimited ability to increase wages, you’ll need to adjust your company culture, on-the-job benefits, and soft factors to attract top applicants. Supporting workers’ career journeys and providing employee development tools can help you become more competitive in a tight labor market.

Create More Valuable Employees

Career journey support isn’t just an attractive benefit for employees and a way to boost productivity. It actively helps you create more valuable employees for the same labor spending. When workers know where their careers can go and have the training tools to get there, they will devote more energy to learning and growing. As a result, you get a more valuable employee for a fraction of the cost you would have to spend on hiring someone with the same skills. 

How Can You Support Someone’s Career Journey? 

Supporting a worker’s career journey is an important way to motivate employees and boost your company’s productivity. The hard part is figuring out the best way to support the employee’s career journey. By using the following steps, you can help workers achieve their dreams and catalyze your company’s growth.

Talk to Workers About Their Goals

The first step in helping workers achieve their goals is to talk to them. You can’t understand the worker’s objectives if you don’t know what they want. Once you have a general idea about their aptitudes and interests, you can make suggestions about how they can reach those goals through your company’s promotional opportunities and development tools. 

Identify Advancement Opportunities 

Next, identify the advancement opportunities that are available at your organization. This demonstrates the potential the worker will have to grow, and it shows that you’re committed to helping them improve their skills. 

Even if the only advancement opportunities available will take place at other organizations, you should discuss ways that you can help the employee reach the next step in their career. When you’re committed to the worker’s growth and development, they’ll be committed to your company’s growth and development. 

Offer Job Shadowing and Mentoring 

75% of executives say their success can be attributed to a mentor. Plus, 90% of employees who have a mentor report being happy at work.

Pairing employees up with a mentor can improve their job satisfaction and success. Additionally, job shadowing and mentoring are key tools for helping workers continue on their career journeys. They can provide advice, direct employees to the best opportunities, and help workers reach their goals in the easiest manner possible. 

Conduct Regular Assessments 

The next step in helping workers along their career paths is to conduct regular assessments. Evaluate the employee’s skills, and look for growth opportunities. This can occur during your standard performance review, or you can do it during a separate assessment. 

Once you’ve completed the assessment, talk about it with the employee. Get their feedback on skills they need help with or wish to develop further. 

Provide Development Opportunities 

After assessing where the employee is at, the next step is figuring out ways to help them reach their goals. Often, employees don’t have time to complete in-depth degrees or coursework. Because of this, you may want to offer short, on-demand training programs. The employee can also develop their skills through seminars and on-the-job training as well.

Give Stretch Assignments

When it comes to employee development, one of the best options is to provide stretch assignments. This type of on-the-job training involves giving the workers an assignment that is slightly beyond their current abilities. By doing the assignment, the employee is able to learn a new skill and prepare for the next stage in their career. 

Focus on Your Organizational Goals

As you support workers in their career journeys, it’s important to keep your organizational goals in mind. While you want to support workers in achieving their goals, you also need to relate these goals back to your organization’s mission and purpose. Whenever possible, you should encourage employees to pursue advanced positions and skills that will make your company more productive and dynamic.

Learn More About Supporting Career Journeys at Your Workplace

Supporting a worker’s career journey can help you attract top talent to your company. It can boost employee engagement, increase motivation, and encourage worker retention. With just a few changes, your workplace can have an easier time recruiting and retaining top talent.

To learn more about supporting your employees’ career journeys, reach out to our team of small business HR and payroll experts today.