While building an effective career development program can be challenging, it’s also highly rewarding.

In this post, an excerpt HRSG’s ebook, Engaging and Developing Talent with Competencies, we will review how career development can move the dial on a wide range of high-priority business areas.

Impact on: BUSINESS EXCELLENCE

Learning and development are shedding their reputation as cost centers within the organization and being re-envisioned as vital, strategic activities.

• A recent Brandon Hall report revealed that the C-Suite is more likely to claim ownership of the learning budget than HR or business unit leaders.
• The Great Places to Work Guide to Greatness, an annual report that analyzes the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For, pointed out that the companies on the list, all of which had made employee development a top strategic priority, were also organizations that had experienced intense growth, with reported revenue rising an average of 22.2 percent over the past 24 months.
• In a study of more than 500 US corporations, The American Society for Training and Development found that companies offering comprehensive employee training enjoyed a 24percent higher profit margin than those who focused less on training.

Impact on: LEADERSHIP

Leadership capacity is a top concern for virtually every organization, and development plays an essential part in helping those organizations address the talent gaps and create a strong leadership cadre. Companies that are struggling to find leadership talent are recognizing that the solution lies in taking a more active role in developing that talent from within.

• In the 2015 Brandon Hall Group’s State of Leadership Development Study, leadership shortfalls were identified as the single greatest differentiator between high-performance and all other organizations.
• In Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends report for 2015, only 6 percent of organizations surveyed felt ready to meet their leadership needs, and learning was identified as one of the top three talent challenges, with 85 percent of business and HR leaders reported that learning was an ‘important’ or ‘very important’ problem.

Impact on: RETENTION

Retaining talent is an ongoing issue. When a high number of employees need to look outside the organization to fulfill their career goals, it’s likely that the way the organization is promoting internal opportunities and supporting employees to take advantage of them is falling short.

A commitment to training and development signals to employees that the company values their talent and is investing in their future.

• According to a recent Gallup poll, fewer than one in 10 US employees who change jobs stay at the same company.
• A 2007 review of the research, which found that effective employee training increased employee commitment levels and reduced organizational turnover.

Impact on: MILLENNIALS

Company demographics are undergoing a seismic shift as the Millennial ranks swell from a tiny fraction of the workforce to a clear majority.

Prestige, perks, and pay won’t entice them to stay longer, but new challenges and opportunities to learn and progress in their careers will. Career progression doesn’t need to be strictly upward, either: it can involve lateral moves into other company areas.

The most important considerations for Millennials is to feel their talents are being developed and plugged into a meaningful endeavor.

• Today, 35 percent of the North American workforce is between the ages of 18 and 34, and projections for the future suggest that Millennials will comprise anywhere from one half to three quarters of the workforce by 2025.

• This cohort averages three times as many job changes as Baby Boomers did at the same age, and a recent survey from Mercer indicates that 44 percent of employees ages 18 to 34 are seriously considering leaving their current job, despite reporting high levels of job satisfaction.

Download HRSG’s ebook “Engaging and Developing Talent with Competencies” to learn more about how to support organizational and individual success through competency-based career development. ‘

To receive blog posts like this one straight in your inbox, subscribe to the blog newsletter.