Four ways to encourage Career Growth and Personal Development in the Workplace

Good employees can be hard to find. As a result, when companies find people with the right skills and work ethics, they tend to do all they can to keep them on for a long time. Doing this usually shows that they are valued as employees and encourages their career growth. One excellent way to retain employees is to create opportunities that encourage their career and personal development. This can encompass anything from leadership training and skill development to simply encouraging them to pursue their dreams. It’s interesting to note that when an employee’s career growth and personal development is given the attention it deserves, they can achieve truly outstanding results.

In this post, we consider four ways to encourage career growth and personal development in the workplace. As usual, feel free to leave us a comment at the end of this post. We would like your feedback to know how well these ideas have worked for you and your company.

For your convenience, also see below, a list of related posts we believe you will love to read:

1. How to manage Time effectively and become more Productive
2. Ten Inspiring Quotes on Passion
3. Seven Secrets of Highly Successful People
4. Five ways Brand Marketing will benefit your Business
5. Capacity Building Techniques for Small Business Owners
6. How to be more Productive at Work

Also, we would like to remind you to subscribe to our electronic mailing list. Your subscription allows us to notify you when we release new posts. Simply enter your name and email in the section below to subscribe

With that said, lets take a closer look at what personal development is and why it is so important?

What is Personal Development?

According to the Business Dictionary, Personal development is “the process of improving oneself through such activities as enhancing employment skills, increasing consciousness and building wealth”. In fact, personal development should be a lifelong activity. Engaging this process ensures that you are actively growing and improving in all areas of life. Of course, it also means that you are always actively trying to become a better person to make your life and relationships more productive, fulfilling and meaningful.

Why Employers should encourage Personal Development?

The continual process of developing oneself is primarily so one can reach their full potential. As a matter of fact, employees that are willing to invest in themselves ultimately become successful both in life and at work. Employers can take advantage of this to create a win-win situation where employees grow and in turn produce growth for the company.

Personal development in the workplace is closely connected to developing skills needed for ones role in the company. Employees that are willing to engage in such development can also be encouraged to take on managerial roles that promote their career growth as well.

Four ways to encourage Career Growth and Personal Development in the Workplace

A well-thought-out employee development plan provides employees with opportunities and a clear path to increasing their skills and advancing their careers. While this could be a long term investment for companies, it usually leads to short-term benefits such as increased loyalty and improved performance.

Here are four ways companies can encourage career growth and personal development in the workplace:

1. Consider your Business Goals: While setting objectives for employee development, companies should align those goals to their corporate needs. For example, consider your long and short-term business objectives. Do you need one that allows your salespeople to grow into the role of a district manager? Or do employees in your accounts department need to learn to use and implement new software? Once company objectives have been identified, necessary skills and competencies for employees can be set.
2. Encourage Professional Training: Such training doesn’t have to be expensive. They can take numerous forms such as formal employee training or online courses. Employers can also create a knowledge base of critical information and best practices to pass on to new hires.
3. Create a plan for before, during and after: Once specific learning opportunities have been identified, companies should create an Employee development plan. This is because an employees’ progress is harder to measure when objectives are vague. Also, before training, employees should understand why they have been asked to learn new skills, what is expected of them and how it will benefit the company and their careers.
4. Encourage Personal goals alongside Professional goals: Employees should be encouraged to identify both personal and professional goals for themselves. They should also be encouraged to identify their current skills and what skills they would like to develop, both personally and professionally. Then, employers can offer their support to help them develop those skills.

Personal development is important and beneficial to both employees and employers. How have you encouraged the personal development and career growth of your employees? Leave us a comment at the end of this post. We would love to hear from you

Today’s Funny Quote

As is our custom, we would like to leave you with a funny quote. Today’s funny quote is by Lily Tomlin, the American Actress, Musician and Writer

I have always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.

If you enjoyed this post, remember to share and repost it online. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Our social media handle is @idscreate.

Have a great weekend and we will see you again on Monday.

Innovate Design Studios

Innovate Design Studios creates innovative web design solutions that provide you with a secure, custom designed web presence that promotes your business and generates revenue and exposure.