8 Objectives of Career Planning in HRM (+ Shortcuts to Achieving Success)
Think of a harmonious workspace where every career path intertwines seamlessly with the company's vision. Where growth is not an accident but a well-charted course. That's the promise and one of the core objectives of career planning in HRM.
Delve into eight core objectives of career planning and development and uncover their transformative potential.
Bonus: We've also talked to a couple of organizations that have already implemented career planning to see how they went about it.
🏢 8 Objectives of career planning in HRM: The organizational perspective
Let's dig into each of the objectives of a career planning process and how to make them a reality.
Improve talent retention
Career planning provides employees with a clear path for advancement and growth within the organization. Employees who see future potential and progression in their roles are more likely to stay with the company long-term.
How to use career planning for improving talent retention
One fundamental way to use career planning for retaining top talent is by giving employees clear growth plans.
Offering coaching and guidance on how to prioritize their short- and long-term goals and how to reach their objectives.
💡 Tip: Use performance reviews and development conversations to help them identify and develop their strengths and potential.
Providing employees with career growth opportunities shows them that the company values them and their professional development. In turn, they'll also be motivated to do their best work as they can see a clear path to advancement within the company.
Another strategy you can adopt is creating roles based on your talent pool's strengths, passions, and potential rather than fitting employees into predefined roles. This approach leads to greater job satisfaction and can uncover unique roles that give the company a competitive advantage.
Enhance employee skillsets
Ensuring employees possess or develop the necessary skills to meet organizational needs can help organizations stay competitive in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Career planning identifies future skill requirements and encourages employees to acquire these skills.
Upskilling (adding new skills) and reskilling (learning entirely new skill sets) ensure employees remain relevant and valuable.
How to use career planning for skill enhancement
With upskilling and reskilling, organizations can ensure their employees have the necessary skills and knowledge to take on new roles, tasks, and responsibilities. This further helps you stay ahead of the curve and remain competitive in your industry.
Plus, upskilling and reskilling can help employees feel more confident and capable in their roles, increasing job satisfaction and performance.
➡️ Learn how to create upskilling programs in your organization using development frameworks and on-the-job training.
Boost employee motivation
When employees know the organization is invested in their professional growth, it drives their motivation and engagement. Career progression opportunities provide motivation to excel in their current roles.
How to use career planning for boosting employee motivation
Career path outlining is a solution for boosting morale and job satisfaction that will likely work for most employees.
Career paths give employees a sense of direction and purpose in their jobs. They offer a clear plan for advancement, with milestones and goals employees can strive towards. This helps increase motivation and morale as employees can see tangible rewards for their hard work.
Having a career path can further give employees a sense of job satisfaction as they can track their progress and identify specific goals they are working towards.
It also helps reduce the feeling of stagnation that can come with a job that lacks clear advancement opportunities.
Improve workforce planning
Another objective of career planning is ensuring you have a steady supply of talent who can fill roles on a timely basis.
Career planning allows HRM to better anticipate future staffing needs based on business goals. It helps in understanding which skills will be essential in the future and how current employees can fill those roles.
How to use career planning for improved workforce planning
Start by assessing your existing employees' current skills and expertise through regular evaluations or skills assessment tools.
Once you've identified the gaps, use career planning to guide current employees toward the training and experiences they need to fill those future roles.
This proactive approach not only pre-empts potential shortages but also provides a clear growth trajectory for employees.
Some of the ways you can get started with improving your workforce planning efforts include:
- promotions and rewards;
- internal mobility programs;
- employee performance tracking;
- implementing a training and development program.
Make the most of managerial talent
Identifying and grooming potential leaders ensures that when key roles become vacant, there's a pool of qualified candidates ready to step in, ensuring business continuity.
Career planning also ensures that high-potential employees can grow into more impactful organizational roles.
How to use career planning for making the most of managerial talent
Start by identifying the key positions within your organization that are pivotal for operations and strategy.
Then, it's time to look at your people. Identify your top performers and support their development.
With succession planning, you can start preparing your company's next generation of leaders so they can move into the position.
Offer additional training or mentoring or help them identify and pursue more challenging roles. By doing this, your company can help develop and retain its best talent, which can improve its overall performance and secure business continuity.
➡️ Use our 9-box succession planning template to turn your top performers into future leaders.
Reduce voluntary attrition
When employees leave your company voluntarily, you can lose valuable knowledge and experience, which can be difficult to replace.
Additionally, recruiting and training new employees can be costly, as the average cost of hiring a new employee is around $4,000.
How to use career planning for reducing voluntary attrition
A clear career path and growth opportunities can reduce the number of employees leaving the organization of their own accord. They're less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere when they see a future with the company.
You can minimize employee attrition by addressing every team member's career aspirations. By doing this, employers can help to retain staff by providing them with opportunities for career growth and development. This can create a more engaging and rewarding workplace, which in turn can lead to increased job satisfaction and motivation.
➡️ Drop an eye on our complete guide to reducing employee attrition through 11 tried-and-tested retention strategies.
Ensure optimal utilization of competencies and knowledge
Optimal use of competencies and knowledge is essential for any organization that wants to ensure its resources are used to their maximum potential. Having the right people in the right job roles means your company uses its resources efficiently and effectively.
Through career planning, HRM can identify employees' strengths, knowledge, and competencies. This ensures that employees are placed in roles where they can utilize their skills to the fullest and add maximum value.
Additionally, it increases productivity and efficiency, improving your organization's profitability. The right people in the right job roles can also minimize potential conflicts or misunderstandings. That's because employees are better suited for the role they're expected to fulfill.
How to use career planning to ensure optimal utilization of competencies
Encourage employees to regularly reflect on their skills and career goals. This self-awareness, combined with the insights from feedback, can lead to more informed decisions in career planning, ensuring their competencies are always being put to the best use.
Tia Smith, VP of Global Talent at Collaborative Solutions, is a huge proponent of understanding and leveraging each individual's strengths in their role:
"Leveraging an individual's unique strengths isn't just beneficial for the employee, it's pivotal for organizational success. Focusing on an individual's strengths during goal-setting leads to increased engagement and better performance, a principle supported by Gallup's decades-long research. This shows that people who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged at work. In a fast-paced business environment, optimizing for strengths isn't just an HR initiative, it's a strategic imperative."
Based on career planning discussions, create individualized development plans for employees.
Tailor these plans around enhancing their existing competencies and developing new ones relevant to their career aspirations.
🚀 Learn everything about competency-based development plans and get extra inspiration from 10+ development plan examples curated by our learning scientists.
Promote a growth mindset across all levels of the organization
When learning is part of the flow of work, employees always strive to develop their competencies and knowledge.
On this, Gayla Wright, Head of HR, notes that fostering a culture of continuous learning and resilience can encourage employees to embrace challenges, view setbacks as opportunities for growth, and take proactive steps to develop their skills:
"By nurturing a growth mindset, employees are more likely to engage in effective career planning, actively seeking out opportunities for skill development, setting ambitious career goals and looking at ways to achieve them, hopefully then leading to a more successful and fulfilling career."
How to use career planning to promote a growth mindset across your entire organization
Career planning fosters a culture where continuous learning and self-improvement are valued. Employees at all levels are encouraged to challenge themselves, seek new knowledge, and embrace change.
To promote a growth mindset across the entire organization:
- Make training, workshops, courses, and seminars regularly available.
- Allow employees to dedicate a certain portion of their workweek to learning, ensuring they see it as a part of their job and not an add-on.
- Celebrate learning, not just task achievement. Recognizing employees who undertake challenging courses or bounce back from failures can set a precedent that growth and effort are valued.
- Instead of having a one-size-fits-all career trajectory, sit down with employees to discuss their aspirations and strengths. Craft career paths aligning with their goals and the organization's needs.
➡️ Ready to build your first career development plan? Get our recommended steps and free template!
🎯 What are the objectives of career planning for employees?
While we've discussed the organization's objectives above, note that employees should have their own objectives for career planning. Your role is to help them understand and work towards these.
Worthwhile objectives include:
➡️ Not sure where to start? Read more on 28 inspiring development goals, see some examples in action, and take the right steps to achieve them.
🕵️♀️ How do personal and organizational career planning objectives intersect?
An employee's objectives will ultimately benefit your company by increasing every individual's performance, motivation, and engagement.
When employees have objectives aligning with the company's goals and objectives, you can start building a shared sense of purpose and ensure that your employees are working towards the same goal.
Aligning on objectives can also build trust and engagement between the employee and the company. This leads to increased productivity and a better overall work environment.
Not to mention that career planning gives employees a sense of direction and purpose at work. It can also help organizations retain talented employees and even recruit top talent, demonstrating that the company is committed to assisting employees to achieve their career goals.
⚖️ How can one measure the success or failure of their career planning objectives?
Measuring the success or failure of career planning objectives allows individuals to pinpoint areas that need improvement and set up strategies for achieving their goals. It also helps employees track their progress over time and adjust their growth plans as necessary.
The very first step to start measuring success or failure?
Looking at the goals you've set before and tracking specific metrics.
Some of the metrics that will indicate whether your organization is on the right path with career planning include:
- reduced turnover/attrition;
- improved satisfaction scores;
- higher performance ratings for employees;
- number of years in the same position;
- professional development opportunities taken;
- number of career goals achieved;
- salary increases over time;
- any certifications/qualifications obtained.
For the next steps, you'll want to regularly review these objectives of career planning and track progress.
To get even more accurate results, seek feedback from colleagues, mentors, and supervisors to get an honest assessment of progress and areas of improvement. Go beyond the individual level to evaluate the impact of your career planning strategies on overall organizational performance.
➡️ Plan your people's career growth with Zavvy
Planning for your team's future has never been this intuitive. Meet Zavvy - your ultimate career planning partner:
- 🧭 With Zavvy, every employee gets a clear roadmap for growth with our career pathing tool. No more ambiguity - every step in their career progression is charted out, ensuring that motivation and clarity are always in sync.
- 🧩 But what if they have skill gaps? Zavvy's AI-driven growth plans come into play, analyzing areas of improvement and setting them on personalized learning paths tailored to bridge those gaps.
- 🧑🎓 Career planning isn't just about progression; it's about continuous evolution. Zavvy's vast training library ensures that learning never stops.
- 🔢 But what's planning without insights? Zavvy's state-of-the-art analytics provide a 360-degree view of each employee's strengths and improvement areas, helping you make data-driven decisions and ensuring that your talent strategy is always aligned with business goals.
In the dynamic world of work, don't just plan for careers - elevate them.
📅 Get a free demo from Zavvy today. Empower your workforce to envision, embark, and excel in their professional journeys.