Overcoming the Three Obstacles to Employee Empowerment

As the skills shortage continues, employers are looking for new and innovative ways to encourage higher engagement and motivation among their staff. 

Most HR professionals are all too aware that their employees become disengaged and unhappy if they feel they are performing repetitive and monotonous tasks each day. Low engagement levels impact employee productivity and your organization’s attrition levels may rise as a result.  

Taking pre-emptive action is essential to boost both engagement and performance in your company.  One way to achieve that is to empower your employees towards career mobility. This simultaneously creates what research and advisory firm Gartner describes as an ‘internal labor market’ designed to address future potential skills gaps.  

But it is not solely about meeting the demands of your organization, it is also about acknowledging the expectations of your talent.  Career development opportunities and brand values which align with their own are priorities for today’s professionals.  

3 obstacles to employee empowerment  

According to Gartner, three specific areas may be preventing your employees from understanding the opportunities available to them. These are: 

• Visibility : Just over a quarter (27%) of employees believe their employer enables them to find internal career opportunities aligned with their aspirations and interests. 
• Company culture : Approximately third (37%) of managers positively encourage their teams to explore internal opportunities. What is perhaps more telling is that only one in five employees (21%) feel it is easy to secure a new career role within their current organization.  The remainder believe that career development and achieving their career goals is only possible with another employer.  
• Skills : Gartner research also suggests that only 6% of heads of learning and development are confident their staff possess the skills need to meet future requirements. Furthermore, all too often, employees who find openings within your organization that they are interested in believe they are not adequately qualified for the job. As a consequence they feel more ‘stuck’ in their current jobs and so a cycle of disengagement, low productivity and higher attrition levels commences.  

The problem is that cultural expectations in the majority of businesses don’t support the idea of internal career mobility. 

Career pathing empowers your employees to create their own career mobility, exploring vertical and lateral opportunities within your business. An easy to follow process guides them through a step-by-step evaluation of their career aspirations, personal strengths and weaknesses and identifies areas for training.  

For organizations new to career pathing, communicating the benefits to your employees encourages employee buy-in but the majority will welcome a way to create their own career path. In implementing an effective career pathing strategy it is important to remind your teams of your end goal, how they fit within that and how internal career mobility helps both your managers and staff to work towards that objective.   

Support with dedicated HR software  

80% of HR professionals believe that supporting initiatives with HR technologies help to improve the attitude of their employees towards their company. Facilitating internal career mobility with dedicated career pathing technology provides an interactive experience for your employees to chart their own career path.  

In a competitive labor market, career pathing is the standard that sets your employer brand apart from your competition by making a clear statement of commitment to employee development. Placing the emphasis firmly on career progression and skills development ultimately leads to a more engaged and happier workforce. And in a skills shortage that has to be good news.  

For more information on how to implement an effective career pathing strategy within your organization, our previous blog highlights best practices for getting started.  

Empower your talent with award winning software from TalentGuard. Our dedicated career pathing software supports your employees to map multiple career path scenarios, review job competencies and evaluate skills gaps in order to achieve their career goals.