Every organization’s success depends on employee growth, which is also central to individual success. Having a strong plan for growth assists in career planning and dramatically improves job satisfaction. When employees show up each day with professional goals that motivate and inspire them, their work will become more rewarding and enjoyable.
But what exactly is employee growth, and how can you promote it? In this article, we’ll answer those questions and explain how to create a strong individual growth plan.
Table of Contents
- What Is Employee Growth?
- How to Promote Employee Growth
- How to Create an Employee Growth Plan
- How to Measure the Success of Employee Growth Initiatives
What Is Employee Growth?
Employee growth is the outcome of employee development initiatives, new experiences, and learning opportunities. It involves formal and informal training that supports cultivation of new competencies and skills. Organizations can measure the effects of development by establishing KPIs to track employee growth.
Fostering a high-development culture that promotes employee growth can double retention, says Gallup. Nine of 10 employees want their job to offer substantial development opportunities—especially high-performers. One LinkedIn study found that 94% of employees would stay with their company longer if it invested in their growth. Plus, prioritizing employee development can boost profitability by 11% (if not more!).
Now that we’ve addressed why growth holds such importance, let’s discuss how to achieve it.
How to Promote Employee Growth
Take these steps to nurture employee development at every level of the organization.
Request Input from Managers
Ask managers what training and skills are most needed in their department or team, as researchers say in Harvard Business Review. Frontline managers have their finger on the pulse of what will power the company’s success. On a daily basis, they see what skills are most in demand—and what gaps exist. So, instead of taking a top-down approach, consult with them about skill gaps.
Focus on Strengths
Lead with development of strengths. Awareness and utilization of one’s personal strengths can increase engagement by nearly six times, says Gallup. Point out strengths often, giving specific examples of how employees have applied them. Suggest additional ways they can leverage their strengths, too.
Look for Skill Adjacencies
Consider which desired skills are related to employees’ existing skill sets. People can often quickly gain a new competency that relates to their current abilities. These are called skill adjacencies. Moreover, employees frequently feel eager to learn adjacent skills. And sometimes, these adjacent skills can be a bridge to an exciting new role, as the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) says.
For example, an employee who works in marketing but has a passion for graphic design might wish to cultivate adjacent skills in design. Or, an employee who works as a developer might want to build specialized skills in cybersecurity.
To aid in this process, maintain a portfolio of current skills for each employee. (Managers and employees can craft them together.) HR can reflect on these skill sets to make training suggestions and find appropriate learning resources. You could even create a “skills bank” on a centralized platform for easy reference.
Provide Hands-On Practice
Learning becomes ingrained only when employees get to apply it in real-life context. Make the application of knowledge part of the training process. Give employees assignments that let them test their skills, and then, offer feedback and suggestions.
You could also encourage sharing new knowledge with others. The process of teaching others can help them internalize new concepts and skills. For example, after completing a workshop, an employee could share key takeaways during a weekly team meeting.
Next, let’s talk about how to craft individual plans for growth.
How to Create an Employee Growth Plan
An individual growth plan will serve as a roadmap to success. We’ll walk through a step-by-step approach to creating this personal development plan.
Managers should sit down with each employee to craft this plan together. Urge managers across the organization to follow the same approach, providing them with an outline of these key discussion points. That way, each employee will receive the same type of support, which promotes equity.
1. Discuss Career Aspirations
All learning goals should relate to employees’ long-term ambitions—that’s what makes them motivational. So, begin by talking with the employee about their career aspirations. Find out if they aim to make a lateral move or follow a traditional trajectory. Discuss their main learning interests and what types of work they feel most passionate about.
2. Set Great Development Goals
Set strong professional development goals. Just as with performance goals, personal growth goals need to be SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Help employees set broader goals for a longer-term period, such as a year. Then, break them down into quarterly goals.
Next, define the steps they must take to achieve each quarterly goal. Link each step to a measurable KPI so they’ll know when they’ve achieved each milestone. Make sure your plan is action-oriented, focusing on concrete activities, and set a clear target date for achieving each KPI and goal.
3. Select Training Opportunities
Now, determine what types of training and resources will help employees move toward their goals. Pair each person with a compatible mentor who can shape their growth. Also consider workshops, conferences, online trainings, certification programs, and support for educational advancement.
Training options don’t need to be limited to technical skills. Instead, they could include myriad types of interpersonal abilities:
- Leadership
- Mediation and conflict resolution
- Public speaking
- Project management
- Emotional intelligence
- Strategic thinking and analysis
- Time-management
Such skills will prove useful across all fields, and they’ll remain invaluable throughout any changes that occur in your business or industry.
Maintain a list of potential resources to draw upon, as Doug Dennerline and Jamie Aitken say in Make Work Better: Revolutionizing How Great Bosses Lead, Give Feedback, and Empower Employees. This will both save time and standardize access to resources, ensuring fairness. Let employees look over this list to see what sparks their interest.
4. Decide on Enrichment Options
Consider training and enrichment opportunities like job rotation, job shadowing, cross-training, and stretch assignments, as SHRM says. Talk with employees about which ones both appeal to them and make use of their preferred learning style. For instance, if an employee prefers hands-on learning, job shadowing may not be right for them. Instead, you could consider job rotation.
Stay attuned to emerging opportunities that may benefit your employees, too. For instance, if an employee is interested in cross-training in another area, you can nominate them to work on a newly forming project in that department. Talk with them in advance about the types of assignments they want to pursue.
You can also consider job redesign, which expands job duties, typically making them more complex. However, take care to offer appropriate compensation if you increase responsibilities substantially.
5. Meet Regularly with Employees
During one-on-ones, check in about progress toward learning goals. Once per month (or every two months), focus your one-on-one on personal development. During this time, take an in-depth look at progress toward learning goals, comparing the KPIs you set together with what they’ve achieved. Discuss additional resources and consider new stretch assignments, too. You can also adjust goals if priorities have changed or if they’ve already achieved their targets.
In between these in-depth conversations, give feedback on their efforts. Sharing bite-sized feedback on a daily basis will help them stay on track and motivated. Strive to have positive coaching conversations that build confidence by recognizing their efforts.
A strong employee growth plan fosters a structured approach to personal development. This will help people efficiently move toward clear learning goals.
How to Measure the Success of Employee Growth Initiatives
Setting strong KPIs for employee growth will aid in measuring your efforts. Let’s explore how to do this.
Goal-Tracking Tools
Utilize goal-tracking software to measure ongoing progress. With Primalogik’s performance management solution, for instance, you can input individuals’ goals into the system. Then, you can monitor how quickly they move toward them. You can also look at overall progress among teams or the whole organization to gain a broad view of your initiative’s success.
The 9-Box Grid
Ask managers to use the 9-box grid tool to rate employees’ current performance and future potential. Tracking 9-box grid results over time can serve as another measure of progress. You can look at how much the whole team has improved over time in terms of these ratings.
Tracking Engagement and Satisfaction
In addition to directly tracking growth, look at other major benefits of employee growth initiatives.
Here are a few points to consider:
- Has retention risen—and if so, by how much?
- Do employees voice greater fulfillment on anonymous surveys?
- Do they show higher engagement and motivation, as demonstrated by performance management tools?
You could also hold employee focus groups to explore satisfaction with employee growth initiatives. Anonymous surveys can act as a jumping-off point for these discussions, framing the conversation around particular issues. If surveys highlight any areas of dissatisfaction, you can use focus groups to gain a detailed understanding of how to improve, as Dennerline and Aitken say. They’ll also help reveal what you’re doing right.
Additionally, calculate your ROI by tracking how company profitability aligns with employee growth initiatives. However, be aware that you probably won’t see these results in real time. Rather, you could see a rise in ROI several months after launching your initiative, as learning takes time!
Tracking such metrics will build awareness of the overall benefits of your developmental initiatives. Share them with leadership to highlight such improvements. Use analytics tools to quantify the benefits of employee growth initiatives. Good tools can help you benchmark your starting point, in terms of engagement, profitability, and other metrics, and then track increases over time.
As you take steps to promote employee growth, you’ll prepare each individual to take on greater responsibility. By doing so, you’ll also prepare for succession planning. Through this process, you’ll strengthen relationships between managers and team members as well. All of these benefits will lead to heightened organizational success while enhancing job satisfaction.
Learn how Primalogik’s tools can enhance employee development—demo our performance management product!
