Career Pathing: The Importance Of A Career Development Framework

Why Have A Career Development Framework?

Finding, hiring and keeping good talent is a challenge for companies these days. Some roles are in such high demand that companies are on high alert for poaching of their best talent. Before it comes to this, companies need to take a step back and ask themselves, “How can we make sure that our talent not only wants to work here, but envisions themselves growing and remaining with our organization for years to come?” In the upcoming weeks we’ll highlight additional reasons to create and maintain an employee career development framework, but today we’re going to take a more in-depth look at how they are one of many tools necessary to retain the amazing talent you’ve already made a large investment in.

If you are a large organization with tons of different job families and job roles, how would your talent know how to find out about different job options available to them? If one of your employees aspires to a higher-level position, a lateral move to another department, or even taking on an entirely new role, how would they know where to focus their development? Here are some of the things your employees are probably thinking right now:

“I have no idea where my career is going. Since there’s no real path, maybe I should consider going somewhere where I can grow and move up the corporate ladder.”

A career development framework lets employees know what steps they need to take to go where they want in their career. With a career development framework in place, there should be no surprises when they have performance reviews on what they need to do to get a promotion or move to a new role.

“I know I’m lacking in some areas in order to get a promotion. But I’m not sure exactly where and what my company needs me to improve upon.”

The great thing about career development frameworks is that, when done correctly, they highlight skill gaps and give both the employee and manager an opportunity to discuss how the employee can fill these gaps and then move into a new role.

“Sure, there are a lot of resources available to me, such as training, but I’m unsure which resources apply to me and I’m overwhelmed by all the options.”

Sometimes talent managers believe that by offering a plethora of career development resources and training options they’re helping their employees. Often, this list becomes daunting and employees just can’t digest it. Also, employees aren’t always clear on what career development resources and training options they should take advantage of. By creating a career development framework and performing a gap analysis, employees now know the areas they need to improve upon and work on with their managers to review training and development options that will help them fill their existing gaps.

Employee engagement is key when it comes to keeping your best talent. By using career development frameworks, you’re engaging your employees and confirming that they know what it’s going to take to not only move into their next role, but what they need to do to obtain future roles.