How to Set Career Development Goals That Benefit Personal and Organizational Interests

It’s easy to think that individual career development goals have to be at odds with the interest of the company. After all, employees may want to explore new skills that don’t align with their current job while companies are concerned with immediate business results. Also, organizations may be concerned about ambitious employees leaving after developing new skills. 

Career development can be a win-win situation though. Skill development and enhanced experience can make employees more valuable assets to the organizations where they work, advancing the company’s overall objectives.

Here are five actionable and effective career development strategies that both individuals and organizations can implement to ensure that personal and organizational interests benefit.   

1. Identify and Align Personal and Organizational Goals

Setting career development goals that benefit individual team members and the organization begins with figuring out and matching the goals of both parties. The essence of this step is to facilitate mutual growth. It ensures that individual career advancement interests are positioned to further the organization’s strategic objectives.

This step also shows employees that the organization’s overarching goals dovetail with their professional aspirations, driving employee retention and engagement.  

An illustration of this in action would be the case of a company in the business of selling products or services. While such a company would want to boost its sales, its sales representatives would have the aim of improving their sales skills. These individual goals can be discovered through communication, employee surveys, or AI platforms such as Jules.

An advancement of individual sales skills would lead to an increase in sales for the organization.    

2. Conduct Skills Gap Analyses 

The next tip is to find out the skills you need to excel in your various roles and find out if you have those competencies. A skills gap analysis uncovers the various areas employees need to improve to achieve their career goals within the context of the organization. It eliminates misalignment between personal professional advancement and organizational priorities by ensuring that employees develop skills that match business needs. 

In the case of a company selling products or services, skills gap analyses could take the form of manager evaluations and self-assessments to gauge the current sales skills of its sales representatives. It will uncover strengths, weaknesses, performance gaps, and opportunities for improvement. These weaknesses could be poor negotiation, struggling with consultative selling, or an inability to use the dedicated sales software optimally. 

3. Leverage Tailored Learning Opportunities

Having identified the gaps in your skills, it’s ideal to seize any customized learning opportunities. These training opportunities are typically designed to also advance the company’s overall goals. So, as you gain skills relevant to your desired career path, you also gain expertise that can benefit the company’s business performance. 

This can create an agile future-ready workforce for the organization. Employees will gain future-proof skills that keep them competitive in the job market while the company will stay ahead of the curve, thanks to a team of competent workers ready for industry changes. 

Tailored learning opportunities for sales representatives would include sessions on asking the right questions to identify customer needs, handling negotiations and objections as well as how to efficiently use the company’s sales software of choice.      

4. Get a Career Coach and Build Your Network

Mentorship and networking opportunities can help advance your career while furthering your company’s goals. Mentors can share industry knowledge, best practices, and practical skills. An AI coach such as Jules can also offer specific pointers on how you can advance your career in a way that will benefit the company. 

Likewise, networking can expose you to new trends, professional development opportunities, industry leaders, and potential collaborators.   

The power of this strategy lies in its ability to enhance employees’ skills leading to increased productivity and innovation for the company. 

Sales representatives can learn powerful customer engagement techniques from industry experts and mentors. They can also discover more efficient sales software at networking events. As they improve their skills and form stronger connections, the organization gets to enjoy a better-skilled and well-connected workforce that can facilitate new and stronger relationships.    

5. Encourage Internal Mobility

Facilitating talent mobility within your organization can benefit both personal and organizational interests. Whether promotions or lateral moves, the movement of employees within an organization can help them expand their expertise and experiences within the company. It’s a clear career advancement opportunity. 

However, the company can also benefit from this. Research shows that companies with strong internal hiring markets enjoy a 33% higher employee intent to stay. So, organizations can enjoy lower employee turnover and its associated costs, while also retaining institutional knowledge. 

What’s more, internal mobility can help your organization improve its succession planning and leadership development. It helps identify high-potential employees for leadership roles and polishes employees to fill critical gaps in the organization. 

Internal mobility in the case of a company selling products or services would involve moving a junior sales representative to the role of an account manager to improve their customer retention skills and expose them to bigger accounts. The employee can subsequently be promoted to the position of sales team lead to gain leadership experience and train junior sales representatives. 

Further promotion to the role of sales manager or director will put the employee in an executive position with company-wide responsibility. This way, the employee grows their career and earnings in the company while the organization retains talent and enjoys improved sales. 

Setting career development goals can yield mutual benefits for individuals and organizations. By identifying and aligning interests, uncovering skills gaps and bridging them through tailored learning opportunities, networking and adopting a coach, and driving internal mobility, individual career development can be designed to help employees and organizations nail their targets.