Webinar Recap: Retaining employees through structured development

This January, our HR Consulting team hosted their first quarterly webinar for 2024. Each quarter, the team will share relevant, timely, and informative HR best practices for organizational leaders and HR professionals, primarily focused on small-to-medium size businesses.

As we navigate the labor market this year, focusing on employee retention and engagement will continue to be critical, and employee development plans are a great place to start your retention efforts. To kick off the webinar series, Shellie Haroski and Dennis Hughes, two of our Senior HR Consultants, led participants through a 30-minute session focused on how companies can prioritize structured development and growth opportunities to increase retention. Additionally, they reminded attendees that as employee growth and development increases, so does company growth and development.

Below you’ll find two key considerations to review as you assess how you can implement employee growth opportunities at your company.

Promotional v. Positional Growth

Growth looks different depending on your organization, so it’s important to assess what kind of growth you can offer your employees within your business structure.

Promotional growth is seen when organizations are able to offer a structured career path, or a tiered progression for an employee. This often looks like taking on additional responsibilities and management as they grow in a standardized way.

Positional growth is seen in less hierarchical, or “flat”, organizations. Positional growth provides opportunities for growth through additional responsibilities, but also through more “out of the box” opportunities like professional development, shadowing, and knowledge sharing.

Don’t forget: No matter which kind of growth you are structured to support, employee growth should be aligned with business and organizational objectives.

Employee Analysis & Development Plans

To start the growth planning process, begin by conducting an employee analysis to determine if skills or knowledge gaps exist with individual employees and within the organization. Once you have identified the needs of the employee – either through in-role growth or promotional growth – you can outline a plan, define objectives, set measurable goals, assign accountability partners, and begin implementing the plan.

Don’t forget: Developing the plan is only half of the battle – you need to measure and assess how the implementation is going using both tangible and intangible benefits, for both the company and the employee.

If you want to learn more about this topic, reach out to our team! We would love to share additional insights and resources with you. And, be on the lookout for an announcement and registration link for our next HR Consulting webinar. We hope that you will join us!