Opportunities for Growth: What They Are and Why They’re Important
If you want to advance in your career, show employers that you are working toward your full potential. Employers want to give jobs to individuals who take initiative and want to improve their skills. One way to do this is by looking for opportunities to grow as a professional. In this article, we define opportunities for growth, explain why they are important and share different types of them.
Opportunities for growth are situations where you can advance in your career. The main way to grow as a professional is to find ways to improve your skills and applicable knowledge. You can do this by seeking out new responsibilities and experiences. The key to career growth is being open to making mistakes. When you are willing to try things out, even your failures can teach you a lot. You may even find that you are successful in what you try too.
What Is Career Pathing?
A career path is a sequence of jobs an employee plans to attain during their time at an organization. The path maps out roles, skills, and competencies needed to attain each job.
- Employee engagement: Employees will feel more engaged when they can grow and learn new skills.
- Employee retention: Retain more employees by showing that the organization has a plan for movement and growth.
- Address employee skill gaps: Employees who realize their potential career paths gain valuable insights into several areas of their performance, including existing skills and competency gaps they should address prior to the next step in their career.
- Succession planning: Retained employees will have the experience they’ve gained by learning new skills and could then have opportunities to apply for openings within the company when other employees leave.
- Stronger understanding of interdepartmentalism: When employees shift into new roles or departments, they gain a wider understanding of how individual parts of the business can be better aligned for the overall organization’s goals.
Support work-life balance
Hard work is a prerequisite for career advancement, but that doesn’t necessarily mean committing to an endless series of lengthy workdays. Encourage your employees to work smart, maximize their efficiency, and leave time and energy for their interests outside of work. This advice is especially important for remote team members who may find it difficult at times to keep work and life separate.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many professionals to rethink their priorities. Research by our company found that 40% of workers see themselves emphasizing their personal life over their job moving forward. That suggests employers will be under even more pressure in the future to help their employees achieve a desirable work-life balance.
Taking a proactive approach to your team’s well-being can also prevent stress from rising and leading to burnout. By adopting flexible policies that enhance work-life balance, you can buoy employee morale. You’ll help your workers find the time to do their jobs, attend to personal demands, and even engage in professional development activities that can aid their career advancement.
Create a succession planning program
Succession planning can demonstrate to high-potential employees that you not only want to invest in their professional development but also see them evolving into future leaders for the business. That is a powerful message. So, don’t push this important process to the back burner. Create a succession plan for every key position in your organization. It can help motivate employees to learn the skills and knowledge needed for career advancement.
Your employees will be better positioned to achieve their career goals if they know they have manager support. And even if your team is working remotely right now, it’s still possible to make professional development of employees and career advancement high priorities for the business. Emphasizing employee career growth can create significant and lasting benefits for your workers. It can also help position your company to be even more competitive.
Source:
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/opportunities-for-growth
https://www.bizlibrary.com/blog/employee-development/creating-growth-opportunities-for-employees/
https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/management-tips/7-ways-to-support-employees-career-advancement
