Retaining Employees

Employee Career Planner Kit

Career development is a responsibility that is shared by employers and their employees. An employee career planner kit provides your company with a ready-made resource for helping your workers achieve their career enrichment goals.

You can't offload the entire burden of career development to your employees.

Do employees play an important or critical role in career development? Absolutely! But as the employer, you have a responsibility for giving your employees the encouragement and resources they need to devise an achievable career path.

Ideally, career enrichment is a task that is willingly shared by management and workers. In fact, your company has a vested interest in your employees' career development. When an employee engages in an intentional process of self-improvement, your business reaps the benefits of additional skills, increased knowledge and improved productivity.

The more effort you invest in creating a robust employee career planner kit, the more equipped your employees will be to deliver better performance for your company. Employee career planners come in a variety of forms, tailored to the company's business model and workforce. Here are some of the elements you'll find in the kits of the most successful career enrichment programs.

• Goal clarification worksheets. Most employees lack clarity about their own career goals. And most employers are completely in the dark about their workers' aspirations and career plans. Goal clarification worksheets help workers focus their development goals and offer opportunities for meaningful conversations with supervisors.
• Skills assessment tools. Employee skills are a determining factor in the goal clarification process. Employee career planning kits should include inventory tools that identify current skills and highlight possible areas for retraining.
• Growth identification resources. In collaboration with company management, employees should be encouraged to identify areas where growth is needed. Career planners can include growth area identification tools, but the best approach may be for workers to have face-to-face meetings with their supervisor.
• Training opportunities. A good career planning kit contains information about the training and career development opportunities the company provides for its employees. If possible, these resources can be customized to address the needs of individual departments or business areas.
• Coaching resources. Effective career development sometimes involves the participation of qualified business coaches. If your business offers coaching for your workers, include information about it in the employee career planning kit.

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