What is Career Pathing?

And why does your small business need it?

Once you find a dream candidate, what does your company do to retain your high-performing employees? There is work to be done after filling a position to keep your employees on board while preventing them from moving on to another organization. Career pathing is an option for your organization to consider in order to accomplish just that.

Career pathing is an employee development method that should be included in your brand’s HR arsenal. This tool helps individuals to map out their own professional journey within a company. It is a personalized plan that can be offered to new and current employees to help them reach their goals while breaking it down into steps along the way. The career steps involved with career pathing can include specialized skills or positions, training, quotes, additional education and so on. 

In today’s workforce, employers need to think outside of the “what can this employee do for this company” box and start considering what the company can do for the employee – especially for those employees under 30. 

The benefits of career pathing are vast, including these top three:

• Employee retention. Millennials became the largest generation in the current workforce and they came along with a big emphasis on the employee experience. If an employee does not see the potential for growth within your company, they may look for another place to work. 
• Employee engagement. Companies that have poor employee engagement often have dissatisfied workers who don’t feel their company is investing in them and often feel that they don’t have a future with the brand. 
• Employee productivity. Employees are more likely to be excited about their work and work hard to accomplish it when they have new skills to hone and learn about in order to help them reach their unique professional goals. Career pathing helps employees to do just that.

If you are serious about employee retention and can’t afford to lose good employees, consider developing career paths with a few employees to begin with to see the results.