According to Gallup research, companies with highly engaged employees report 22% higher profitability, 37% lower absenteeism, and 48% fewer safety incidents. Clearly, making the effort to keep your employees engaged and motivated is good for business.
There are many factors involved in employee engagement, including communication, leadership, culture, recognition, challenging work, and growth opportunities. The one I’d like to talk about today is growth opportunities – giving employees a sense that they have room to grow, whether that’s improving their skills in place, or moving to the next level in their career path.
Many business owners shy away from career conversations with their employees because the company isn’t large enough to provide a “next level” or there just isn’t a budget for training. Yet avoiding the conversation could result in losing that employee (the #1 reason employees leave is for career advancement) as the employee looks for growth elsewhere.
Here are some easy and economical tips for providing growth for your employees (and thereby increasing their engagement).
Keep job descriptions current. Having clearly defined job descriptions for each job in the company is the first step in creating an environment for growth. Identifying and documenting skills and requirements will also help you with recruiting and hiring, performance management, and promotion decisions.
Create career paths, if applicable. For jobs where there is more than one level, be sure that your job descriptions define the additional skills, competencies and experience required for each level. This will ensure consistency in making promotions and help employees understand what they need to know or do to achieve the next level. If there are clearly defined career paths, document them and share them with employees so they can see the opportunities.
Have the career conversation. Show interest in your employees and their aspirations by having a career conversation. You may find that they have under-utilized skills or interests that you could leverage elsewhere in the company, or call upon for a new project or business opportunity. The career path doesn’t necessarily have to be vertical; especially in smaller companies, providing cross-functional experience can be beneficial to both employees and the organization.
Tie career planning to performance management. Too often performance reviews focus on fixing what are perceived to be “weaknesses” even though the employee may not need or want to use those skills. Certainly if it’s a job related skill, development is necessary. But be sure it’s tied to the employee’s career goals and that you are also leveraging and developing their strengths. And remember that development doesn’t have to be formal training. Development comes in many flavors – mentoring, coaching, job shadowing, cross-training, reading, online resources, etc.
Follow up, follow through. Once the career plan is in place, follow up with the employee to check progress and follow through on what you said you would do to help in their development.
Demonstrating that you care, and showing employees that they have a future within your company is key to helping both your employees and your business thrive.