6 ways to ensure your employees succeed
Research has demonstrated that when employees feel empowered at work, it has a significant positive impact on retention. Employees thrive when their managers help them succeed.
Every human has some kind of vision around their career, but may not be clear on how to achieve it. That’s where the leaders come in!
Leaders play a key role in guiding their humans to understand what they want to accomplish and who they want to become when it comes to their career aspirations. Unlocking human potential is key to success, especially for the 85% of employees who don’t have a clear understanding of their natural talents and abilities.
Here are 6 strategies to help clarify and empower your employees to achieve their career goals and reach their true potential.
1. Be an active listener
Why are career conversations so important?
Listening and creating a safe environment for your humans to express their thoughts about career opportunities not only boosts employee engagement and retention – it also helps foster positive relationships with your team.
Help your employees feel valued by initiating regular, clear, and direct career conversations about their career ambitions which identify:
- what their career path within the company might look like
- specific milestones to achieve these goals, and
- supporting resources they require for their journey.
When your humans know that their daily responsibilities align with their long-term career goals, they’re more likely to enjoy their work. This leads to greater productivity and loyalty.
2. Help your employees identify their strengths
Identifying strengths to initiate goal setting allows your employees to feel valued and empowered. If you take a personal interest in their career aspirations and focus on your humans’ strengths, you can help them reach their goals faster.
A strength-based approach involves concentrating on the inherent strengths of individuals, then defining growth opportunities accordingly. Employees who set their career goals based on their positive attributes will be more engaged – and therefore more likely to be high performers.
3. Align values and strengths with your organisation
Once you’ve established the strengths and values of your humans, you can determine where they overlap with those of the company. As a result, you’ll gain a better understanding of where they fit in the organisation.
Employees who share the same values with the company will work together more harmoniously compared to those who have conflicting interests. Ensure your organisation has a list of clearly articulated company goals. This provides a useful platform for your employees to choose their personal goals.
Benefits of this strategy include:
- better work relationships and greater teamwork
- increased engagement and productivity, and
- mutual success and goal accomplishment, for both the individual and organisation.
When your employees’ values and strengths are aligned with yours, they’ll be more open to internal opportunities to develop and accomplish their personal goals – rather than going elsewhere.
4. Provide opportunities through job rotation
Provide opportunities, promote flexibility, and retain talent by allowing your humans to harness their strengths and acquire new knowledge and competencies by rotating employee roles.
Job rotation not only ensures a change of scenery with new responsibilities that challenge the employee to learn and adapt, but also benefits the business in leveraging the latent strengths and capabilities of your people.
It’s an effective tool that
- reduces boredom
- identifies where employees work best
- encourages your employees to play to their strengths
- motivate employees, and
- allows employees to attain a better understanding of the business.
Furthermore, you can increase team collaboration and benefit from having a more well-rounded workforce.
5. Create a succession planning program
Succession planning is a process of identifying employees who are capable of moving into the key positions within your business. It’s useful for identifying future capacity and capability gaps – and addresses professional development requirements.
Creating a succession plan for every position in your company helps motivate your staff to develop the skills and knowledge required for achieving career advancement and growth. Furthermore, the cost savings obtained by promoting from within and the trust and loyalty you build enhance and strengthen the employee experience while creating significant and measurable benefits to the organisation.
6. Implement learning and development programs
To create an effective learning and development program, you first need to understand your people through the lens of their natural talent, outside of skills and qualifications alone. This will help you understand natural patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviour and how they get work done.
Ongoing training continued education, and team-based activities like industry events, will encourage employee career growth. In addition, adopting formal mentoring programs are a valuable way to transfer knowledge from seasoned team members – allowing them to offer deep insights and share professional guidance. This helps establish collective success for both the individual and organisation
In summary
Leaders can adopt a multitude of strategies to show their humans they care about their professional and personal development. This can be achieved through support resources and opportunities that contribute to their career growth.
Staying attuned to their employees’ career aspirations and leading with a strengths-based approach is essential for maximising success, for both the organisation and the individual.
For more information about how Humanico can help unlock the full potential of your most valuable asset, contact us today.
