A 2024 American Psychology Association (APA) survey revealed that 23% of employees aren’t satisfied with career growth opportunities at their respective companies.
Employers haven’t caught on.
63% of respondents in a 2022 Pew Research Center survey cited “Lack of career opportunities” as the reason for leaving their employers.
Contrary to popular belief, a high salary isn’t the only factor an employee considers about a job.
They want to see where the time invested in helping you run your business will take them.
Many employees want to feel valued.
- How much do you value your employees?
- Do you want to retain top talent?
- Do you consider growing an employee’s career an accomplishment you can be proud of?
When employees see that you have their careers as part of your growth strategy, they will be motivated to give you their best every day at work.
That’s what having a career development plan for your team does.
If you don’t have one, read on.
What is a Career Development Plan?
A Career Development Plan (CDP) is a detailed outline of your business goals and describes the strategies, processes, and tactics you’ll use to achieve them.
Some refer to a Career Development Plan as a “Charter,” “Covenant,” or a “Contract.”
Another “C” word best describes what a CDP is.
Commitment.
A CDP is the roadmap that charts your path to business success. You might not achieve your goals if you’re not committed to your CDP.
You probably had a CDP when you first started your professional career. You mapped out a flow chart of the targets you had to achieve to get to where you wanted to go.
Whenever you experienced failure or felt demotivated, the CDP kept you focused and on track.
Maybe that’s why you became successful, moved up the ranks, or started a business.
If a Career Development Plan worked for you, it might work for your team.
What Are the Benefits of a Career Development Plan?
Business is unpredictable. Tomorrow’s challenges could be different from today’s. You think you’re on a growth trajectory until something happens that brings you down to earth.
The challenges might differ, but everyone, employers and employees, goes through them.
Having a Career Development Plan in place has benefits that could help you navigate through these challenges.
1. Keeps You Focused
A CDP can break down a goal into multiple targets. Hitting a target brings you closer to accomplishing the goal.
The path to hitting the target isn’t straight and narrow. Sometimes, situations or circumstances make it hard to focus on the target.
The truth is you have no control over your situation. There are variables that are beyond your grasp. You can only focus on what you can manage – your performance.
As the saying goes, “Eyes on the prize.”
And the prize is the end goal!
2. Anticipate Challenges
To get promoted to management, you might need to acquire specific skills. When you have a career development plan, you’ve identified some of these skills.
You’d know the certifications or professional certifications required to assume the position. If there are software programs that you have to be proficient at, you’d set aside a budget and time to learn them.
A CDP will guide your expansion plan if you’re starting a restaurant business. It identifies the profit target you must hit before you can open another location.
With a profit target, you’ll know the margins you need to maintain. You’ll become more aware of the factors that could affect the prices of raw materials and plan for possible increases in retail prices.
3. Helps You Stay Motivated
Climbing up the corporate ladder isn’t easy.
Growing a business from start-up to the expansion stage is challenging.
You’ll have moments that make you think, “Why did I get into this?”
During those moments, pull out your CDP. You’ll be reminded of your “why” or your purpose for embarking on this career journey.
Here’s the truth…
The benefits of having a career development plan can be applied to your team.
Implementing a CDP for your team will help them stay focused, anticipate challenges, and remain motivated.
How to Create a Career Development Plan For Your Team
You might not be aware, but your team members might have individual CDPs.
The key is to align your CDP with theirs.
Aligned values, purpose, and vision is a powerful thing. It can help you navigate through the most difficult challenges in your career.
Step 1: Discuss Your Company’s Career Development Plan with Your Team
Your career development plan is your company’s. Discussing it with your team is sharing your vision.
1. Discuss your goals
- What are your revenue targets in six, nine, and 12 months?
- What are your courses of action to attain these revenue targets?
- What skills/positions are needed at this stage of your CDP?
- What are the responsibilities of each position?
2. Explain Your Workflow
- What is the procedure for attendance/timekeeping?
- What software will be used for file sharing and work submission?
- What is the process flow per department?
- What are the tiers for Quality Assurance?
- What is the schedule of weekly meetings?
- How will you rotate telecommuter assignments?
3. Orient Your Team About Performance Metrics
- What are the performance metrics per position?
- How often is performance evaluation done?
- What is the scoring/rating system?
- What are the components of the grading formula?
4. Discuss Your Career Pathing/Succession Planning Program
- What are the current available positions in your company?
- What key positions will be available in the next six, nine, and 12 months?
- How can they qualify for these key positions?
- What are the financial benefits of acquiring these key positions?
- What are the projected roles and responsibilities of people who acquire these key positions?
- Is there an opportunity for a management-level position?
Step 2: Listen to the Career Goals of Your Employees
While this step can be done as a group sharing session, talking to each employee or team member might be better. Some people might be hesitant to share their goals with others.
This depends on the size of your team. If your team is only composed of five to 10 people, having individual sessions would be doable.
If your team comprises 10 to 20 people, you can host five group sessions composed of two to four members each.
1. Ask them about their career goals
- What is their timeline for achieving these goals?
- How do they plan to achieve these goals?
- Do they have the requisite skills to achieve these goals?
- What do they perceive as their strengths and weaknesses?
2. Find out what their expectations are from you and the company
- What kind of support do they need from you?
- Do they find your goals realistic and doable?
- What type of employee-employer relationship do they expect?
- Do they believe you’ll be fair and deliver on your word?
3. Learn about their work experience
- What is their biggest career achievement?
- How did they accomplish it?
- What was their most painful experience or failure?
- How do they cope with failure?
- What’s their mindset when it comes to facing challenges?
4. Talk about their core values
- What are their five non-negotiable core values?
- How do they apply these values in work and life?
- Why did they identify these five values as non-negotiable?
- Are these values aligned with yours?
- How can their values help you accomplish your goal?
Step 3: Tweak Your Career Development Plan
After the first two steps, you have a better understanding of who your team is, what they can do, and what they’re capable of.
You’ll know how to tweak your career development plan and incorporate your team’s goals.
The key is to ensure the adjustments are in place to support your business goals, not detract from them.
For example, if you have short-term targets, you can include incentives complementary to your team’s goals.
Incentives could be…
- Monetary
- Extra points for your scoring/grading system
- An extra day off from work
- Taking the team out for dinner.
For long-term business goals, review your CDP and identify the targets that, when attained, could trigger promotions for the team.
Present a hierarchy or an organizational chart to your team:
Here’s an example:
| Level: | Position: |
| 1 | Assistant Team Leader |
| 2 | Team Leader |
| 3 | Assistant Supervisor |
| 4 | Supervisor |
| 5 | Management Trainee |
| 6 | Assistant Manager |
| 7 | Manager |
Explain how they can achieve the promotion. It’s like a video game where you move a level up after completing a stage.
In a CDP, the team has to hit its target, and a team member must attain performance benchmarks and improve their scores to progress.
Discuss the potential salary increases, benefits, and rewards for each promotion.
Be creative!
What’s important is that everyone’s happy, engaged, and motivated.
Also, be ready to invest in training your people.
Companies willingly invest in upgrading their technologies and infrastructure to improve efficiency and production.
Your employees are business assets.
To yield dividends, you must invest in training programs that improve their technical skills and harness important soft skills such as leadership, communication, and decision-making.
Employees want to be valued. If they see you’re investing in their careers, they’ll invest more time, effort, and productivity in your business.
Step 4: Implement Your Team’s Career Development Plan
Make it official!
Launch your team’s career development plan!
- Produce a written manual or guide book detailing the particulars of the CDP.
- Create infographics of your plan and the organizational chart.
- Distribute copies of the manual and infographics to the team.
- Prepare all the reports that your team members need to fill out.
- Incorporate the software programs into the workflow and discuss the process with your team.
- Provide everyone with business emails.
- Send authentication links to everyone and have them set up usernames and passwords for the software programs.
- Establish the reporting system.
- Establish the chain of communication.
Schedule a team meeting and discuss the CDP before launching it. Ensure that everyone understands the processes and procedures.
Step 5: Regularly Monitor the CDP
Assess the team’s performance monthly, quarterly, and annually.
- Are you hitting your targets?
- What are the flaws in the CDP?
- Who are the leaders?
- Who are the laggards?
- How is team morale?
- Are there troublemakers?
- Are there loners?
- Is there anyone you can promote as an assistant?
In addition to metrics and analytics, you can run surveys, conduct interviews, and ask team members to self-evaluate their performance to assess the effectiveness of the CDP.
Analyze the data and implement the necessary improvements.
Summary
A Career Development Plan will strengthen your team’s bond. They have a singular purpose and a common goal. Most importantly, you and your team share the same interest.
Your success is their success.
They don’t want to become passengers. They want to become the drivers.
They’ll help you achieve your business goals, and you help them accomplish theirs.
In effect, they become strategic partners.
If you don’t achieve your goals, neither will they.
Your purpose becomes theirs. It becomes their “why” and motivates them to get out of bed every morning and seize the day.
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