Everyone out there seems to have a different answer to the mass exodus and slow disengagement of employees facing so many companies today, and much of it can feel contradictory. Have them come to the office so they feel camaraderie; let them work at home so they have flexibility. Push them to work harder to separate out the high-performers; let them work less to show you care about their wellbeing, too.
While there’s no silver bullet to solving challenges with employee engagement, I think all of these aspects of a company’s culture should be considered, it seems to be there’s one clear path to improving things ASAP. A recent McKinsey study showed that the number one driver of people who quit in the past year was that they weren’t getting the growth and development opportunities that they needed. So, it would stand to reason that the most effective way to keep employees around and dedicated to the work is to focus on their growth opportunities.
Too many companies hear this and start reevaluating their promotion paths or buying tons of new training programs to give their employees access to. There are a few problems with this approach. The first is, when you’re talking about making organizational change, it could take months or even years before changes will trickle down and improve things for employees. Perhaps more importantly, this assumes a one-size-fits-all approach to career development, which is just not the reality for the future of work.
A better approach is to start on the individual level, to empower your employees to take charge of their own career development, and to show that you’ll support them along the way. Here are three steps managers can start taking today to shift how you approach career growth conversations with your employees and have a meaningful impact on employee engagement—before you lose the rest of them.
1. Foster more expansive views of growth
It all starts with a mindset shift. For far too long, managers have viewed career development solely through the lens of promotions and compensation. Although ensuring your employees are paid competitively and are being offered the formal growth opportunities they want shouldn’t be ignored, it will likely be a short-term solution if done in isolation. It’s like giving someone a bandaid when they need surgery—it’s not a bad thing, but you’re not getting to the root issue. Plus, it’s often something managers don’t have as much power over as they’d like.
Career growth could be a promotion or a raise, but it could also be other things that managers do have more control over: a stretch assignment, taking on new passion projects within the company, partnering with other teams to develop new relationships or skills, getting formal mentoring or career coaching. By opening up your mind to new ideas about what career growth can look like, you’ll be able to offer your employees more chances to progress, even when a raise or promotion isn’t on the table.
2. Make the career development conversation ongoing
The next step is a scheduling shift, away from the annual review and towards a more ongoing conversation about growth. According to research from 15Five, 82% of employees who have career development conversations more than once a month are highly engaged, compared to only 53% who only talk about their careers once a year or less.
Again, this stems from good intentions. The yearly individual development plan process is fine, but unless you’re continuously finding opportunities to check in and ensure your employee is actually making progress and feeling supported along the way, that plan is going to fall short. Moreover, given the pace of change today, it’s always a good idea to keep pulse on whether those goals are still the right ones.
Doing this doesn’t have to be complicated: During my last role as a people manager, one of my direct reports started putting their career goals for the year at the top of our 1:1 document to make sure we touched base on it—even if briefly—every single week. Not only did this help me proactively identify projects that furthered her career goals, it helped me show her how to…
3. Build habits of growth
Finally, make continuous career development easier for everyone by empowering employees to find opportunities for growth without your support.
I’ve been developing a framework for career development I call the career operating system (cOS), which is an infrastructure of habits that make career growth happen like it’s second nature. While this puts the onus for career growth in the hands of individuals, I think managers can and should help their employees foster their operating systems.
Think about it this way: If you want your employees to evolve their skills at the pace of business, if you want them to feel empowered to take ownership of new opportunities, or if you want them to be able to use their talents in ways that contribute to the overall business, it makes sense to teach them how to actually do that.
Again, this doesn’t have to be complicated or cost a lot of money. Some examples I’ve seen include:
- Turning praise into opportunities: A manager I had noticed I did well in a presentation, praised me for it, and then suggested that I could start training salespeople as a way to further grow those skills. This helped me see how I could turn professional wins into more opportunities in the future.
- Encouraging self-advocacy: At the end of each quarter, a former manager of mine encouraged us to write down three big wins, three big learnings, and three big goals for the next quarter and to submit them to her. For anyone that did, she would then share those with the broader leadership team and advocate for us on our behalf. This demonstrated how we could speak up for ourselves and also helped us practice continuous self-reflection.
- Sharing your own growth journey: Another manager of mine would take the simple step of sharing her development plan each year, talking about how her goals related to her strengths, how she’d be working towards them, and even things she was unsure about. This helped me see how to set and plan for my own goals.
Ultimately, it comes down to having regular conversations with your employees, and caring about their growth and success. I don’t think quiet quitting or surprise resignations happens when managers are doing this. For one, you’ll notice something is up far before someone puts in their notice. More importantly, you’ll be helping employees feel successful on their terms—and they’re unlikely to leave a situation like that anytime soon.