What do 90% of employees say will keep them from quitting?

1. Offering career development attracts better talent

Today’s employees are on the lookout for the best companies to work for. They’re no longer approaching the job hunt from an angle of what they offer the company. They're looking at what the company can offer them. Jobs aren’t hard to find these days, but top talent is. That’s why it’s important to step up your offerings and include career development as a basic benefit for all employees of the organization. 

2. Employees are more satisfied when they're engaged
It’s been proven that engaged employees are satisfied employees. And when you are engaging them in improving and building their career, they’re going to jump at the chance to do so. This will help create more satisfaction in the workplace overall. They can also give more to the organization and not feel like they’re being exploited for their skills. When you invest in people, they give back what they get, which means the entire workplace will be lighter and more enjoyable for everyone.

3. It encourages ownership of duties and roles
Career development is also a way for companies to encourage employees to take ownership of their roles and responsibilities within the organization. Not only are people expected to do their jobs, but they are expected to seek growth and development opportunities. They're also encouraged to consider applying for promotions and become a part of the organization for the long haul. You don’t want the people who are just looking for a job. You want team members who are excited about career development and who want to join your team so that they can have a career that’s rewarding and successful.

How to Create a Professional Development Map for Employees 

Professional development can improve your employee retention rate. Here’s how to create a program from scratch, along with best practices to maximize success. 

Here's what you need to know: 

• Designing a successful professional development initiative has both short-term and long-term benefits to the organization, as well as to the employee 

• A successful career plan involves workers through the process 

• Tools and programs that employers can choose to invest in include remote learning platforms, continuing education, and more 

• To map your employee's professional development plan, have the employee complete a self-assessment and set goals 

• Help your employee to draft an action plan and check in with them regularly to track their progress and ask if they need help 

Professional development and upskilling fulfill company needs and boost employee engagement, and yet starting an employee development program is an extensive project. But it’s becoming more of a non-negotiable benefit than ever before. 

Improve Performance Management with Simple Communication

One of the most dangerous consequences of a poor performance management process is how it reduces workplace morale and contributes to employee turnover.  A weak performance management strategy is a costly exercise with little value, so how do we make the performance management process more effective?

Improving the performance management process 

First, we should acknowledge that performance management is based on the foundation of a conversation between a manager and direct reports regarding their performance.

Cascading corporate goals, individual performance goals, competencies, bell curves and remuneration all have their place in the process but should also be accompanied by simple conversations. The informal interaction, including ad-hoc coaching and recognition, should be a component to a holistic performance management strategy. 

Far too often, companies don’t adopt real-time feedback because they’ve accepted the annual performance review as the holy grail of performance management.

A major component of the review is an employee’s annual goal status. Instead, encourage goals to evolve organically throughout the year, and adopt a more pragmatic methodology that follows the same realistic timelines of company projects and initiatives. Through this process, goals can be reviewed and scored when they’re completed, or can be a part of a weekly or monthly informal check-in. While this conversation is best held in person, face time is becoming a fleeting luxury in a busy office. 

This is where technology can become a crucial component to the success of good performance.  A performance management tracking solution can complement the one-on-one relationship with tools that provide additional clarity on performance metrics. It allows performance management to be accessible any time to capture feedback on the fly or check off a milestone as completed. Additionally, technology provides real-time metrics which can empower you to make smart decisions with current and relevant data.

By taking the time to strip away the clutter in performance management, employers can streamline the basic conversation that is essential to the well-being and growth of the workforce.

Your business can meet them where they are with new performance management techniques such as: 

• Taking a 360-degree approach 

• Utilizing an agile performance review tool 
• Leveraging technology and data