Helping employees with personal and employee development goals is a wise company investment. It attracts top talent, keeps team members engaged in their jobs, and grows the organization. Employees who work for companies that support their career development goals tend to take the initiative. They learn more about day-to-day operations and focus on doing their jobs well to progress toward their goals.
It is important to work with employees early and often to determine their long-term employee development goals. Then, you can help them create a development plan with several milestones or short-term goals to help them succeed. It is common for an employee with a growth mindset to ask about training programs during onboarding. If they don’t, it certainly should be a topic to discuss during their initial performance review. Here are some examples of employee development goals and how you can help employees achieve them.
Disclaimer: The information below is accurate as of August 16, 2024.
1. Developing new skills
Harvard Business School notes that those interested in working their way into a leadership role within your organization should work on developing new skills that will enable them to fill that role better. Not all of those skills are taught through outside education opportunities.
As reported by Indeed, workers need to develop numerous “soft skills” to increase their value to a company. These soft skills include dependability, adaptability, teamwork, and more. Currently, the rise of AI and other technologies has caused workers to worry that robots will replace them. But the opposite has occurred in many cases. Human capabilities such as empathy, emotional intelligence, and analytical thinking are in high demand in the workplace. Some of the most crucial soft skills include critical thinking, communication, time management skills, and problem-solving.
An LMS like Docebo that can provide micro-lessons geared toward helping the employee develop new skills through a mobile-friendly app even as they perform other tasks related to their job. Also, they can develop skills through job shadowing, working with mentors, and tests of worker competencies through metrics and benchmarks. Docebo’s Learning Impact tool helps you measure the effectiveness of your organization’s career development program. Start collecting and interpreting learner feedback; make comparing learner outcomes with global benchmarks easy.
2. Gaining a greater perspective on the company’s inner workings
The term “crosstraining” is a way to ensure that you have enough trained staff to fill each position. You can then avoid situations where a valued employee goes on vacation or unexpectedly quits and no one knows how to take their place. However, cross-training is also an important part of career development. It shows workers new paths in the organization that they can follow when they’re inspired to pursue them. Even better, it shows your workers that they aren’t working for a dead-end job with no opportunity to move up.
Part of your career development program should be the option for team members to cross-train for different positions. This might even work well as a requirement. Prioritize the positions the employee indicates interest in. Brainstorming with team leads from different departments can help you develop a plan for cross-training. One of the short-term employee development goals for workers should be to determine what positions will be most beneficial to learn on their specific career path.
3. Learning to communicate effectively
One of the hallmarks of good leadership is effective communication. This is—as previously mentioned—a crucial soft skill. Workers who are assuming leadership roles in your organization need to be able to communicate with their team through constructive feedback, encouragement, and problem-solving. They also need to have the ability to communicate with other teams, partners, vendors, and clients or customers.
Effective communication can mitigate conflict, build trust, and increase productivity. When your team members set professional development goals, ensure that bolstering their communication skills is on the list. Many courses and training programs can build:
- Public speaking
- Presentation skills
- Active listening
- Reading and responding to written communication
- Other communication skills
Docebo’s features are a great addition to the leadership development tools you provide to the learners in your organization. Social learning tools allows them to create learning opportunities to share with others. Social learning involves learning from peers and is associated with higher retention of information and increased communication and collaboration.
4. Specializing in line with company goals
Just as individuals within an organization have career goals, a company also has an organizational development plan. The best-case scenario is that the company’s and its workforce’s goals align to create a culture of learning, career development, growth, and success. However, around three-quarters of organizations fail to link skill-building to corporate strategy. Most companies fail to report the outcomes of skill-building through their professional development programs.
Aligning the development plan of a specific employee with the company’s goals first requires alignment between the company’s learning initiatives and its goals. Docebo’s platform allows organizations to provide the opportunities their employees need to upskill, reskill, and prioritize the focus of their learning to further their professional development goals.
5. Taking on a remote or in-person leadership role
Can you imagine who will be on your management team ten years from now? Do you recognize leadership potential and a growth mindset in a new hire? Post University notes that having an employee development plan in place that features leadership development is a way to grow your own managers. You can better ensure you have the right people to lead your team in the future.
Those interested in assuming a leadership role often build their skills through a combination of:
- In-person and online courses
- Webinars
- Developing a professional network through the organization
- Using social networking sites such as LinkedIn to turn to for support and information
- Coaching by or collaboration with other leaders in the company
Workers don’t always have the self-awareness to understand the leadership role they’re well suited for or how a specific goal can open the door to new career opportunities. However, existing organizational leadership, such as managers and HR personnel, can help through brainstorming or even developing a template that allows the worker to define actions needed to meet short-term employee development goals and create a path to career advancement and increased job satisfaction.
6. Earning a raise or promotion
Having a positive work-life balance is a crucial long-term goal for most workers. After all, why would one invest so much time and money in a job without any sort of benefit to their personal lives and their ability to live and raise their families a bit more comfortably? Earning a raise or promotion is a tangible sign of career growth for nearly every worker. It’s often an inspiration to keep pushing forward with professional and personal development. Receiving a promotion typically involves acquiring new responsibilities. But it doesn’t always come with a pay increase. However, according to a survey by consultant firm Korn Ferry, workers often prefer a promotion with no raise than a raise without a promotion.
More than half of the survey respondents who had not received a promotion in the year before they participated stated that the main reason they didn’t was because of a bottleneck in the organization that prevented them from moving up. Eighty-four percent of respondents said that if they were passed over for a promotion, the number one thing they planned to do was identify the reason and work harder to improve.
Docebo’s LMS platform can help organizations track the progress of their workers in developing the skill sets they need for a raise or promotion. Docebo allows organizations to provide customized courses and certifications and paves the way for additional rewards, such as company swag, that keep learners motivated and engaged. Engagement is a major factor in employee retention.
It is also important to check in with your employees regularly. Ensure that they have SMART employee development goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) in place that can help them receive the level of wages and responsibilities they desire. The onus is on the employee to do the work required to meet those employee development goals. But forward-thinking leadership and a work environment with a culture of learning also play a crucial role in the well-being of an organization’s workforce.
Learn more about how Docebo can help your employees meet their professional employee development goals
Helping your employees identify and achieve their career development goals is just as important for companies as growing the right talent to lead the organization. For more information about how an LMS platform like Docebo can deliver the training your workers need to satisfy both of these needs, book a demo.