Why It’s Smart to Develop Your Early Career Employees… Even If They End Up Leaving
We’re seeing an unprecedented wave of movement among early- and mid-career employees. Normally companies start the process of developing people when they are ready to be promoted – but timelines are moving up, and people are moving into leadership positions earlier in their careers. In order to build the strongest future for your organization, it’s time to re-think your succession planning by investing in early career employees.
We're still seeing the impacts of the Great Resignation reverberate throughout our business environment, making it crucial that companies adjust their people strategy accordingly. Failure to do so will see your organization navigating complex situations with a young team of leaders who never received the development and training they need to excel. Fortunately, there are strategies you can implement that will help your organization take on these shifts in the culture of work... while setting your teams up for long-term success.
STRATEGIES FOR ENGAGING EARLY-CAREER EMPLOYEES
BEGIN ASAP
Start as soon as they come work for you. Have development conversations with your early-career employees about what they want out of their career, and the skills they need to build to achieve their goals. Make a plan for building those strategic skills so that your employee has confidence in the progress of their career, right out of the gate.
MAKE SPACE AT THE TABLE
Invite early-career employees to organizational strategic planning sessions. Give them a seat at the table where decisions are being made, so they can learn the business (and leadership skills) from senior leaders, while contributing their own valuable perspective.
GIVE STRETCH ASSIGNMENTS
Like leading meetings, managing a project team, or representing the organization at a conference.
INVEST IN A MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
A company-wide mentorship program is valuable for building inter-organizational connections; and giving early-career employees an avenue for networking and asking questions. I also recommend that you look into reverse mentoring... a powerful way to build inclusion, transparency, and growth in an organization.
GET INNOVATIVE WITH BENEFITS
Get creative with perks that provide a huge amount of development value – like sabbaticals or temporary reassignments. Normally reserved for senior employees to have time to work on high-value projects, this can be a huge draw for early or mid-career employees, and a BIG boost to their skills and careers.
THE REWARDS ARE GREATER THAN THE RISKS
Not every early-career employee will be with your organization long term. As people move to other jobs for a variety of reasons, you will lose some high-potential people that you’ve invested a lot in. Remember, investing in early-career employees is about developing individuals AND revitalizing your entire people strategy. The people who stay and move into leadership will be equipped to lead excellent teams, and people who leave will have great things to say about your organization to their growing networks… and they may end up coming back later in their careers. The past few years have brought a sea-change in the way we recruit and develop people... so you might as well seize this opportunity to make these changes work for your organization, for the long haul.
Success Labs is a leadership development and management consulting firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to grow leaders, build teams and drive results through great people strategy. Contact us to get proactive about expanding your company’s potential, and stay up-to-date with our latest news and leadership development updates here.
