Does Your Organization Have Enough Career Agility

Does Your Organization Have Enough Career Agility The findings from Randstads 2012 Employment Survey provide some illuminating and up to the minute insight into the reasons that todays employees are leaving their jobs. The survey revealed that approximately 86% of employees that are leaving jobs are doing so as a result of a lack of career development. Combine this finding with what we already know which is that candidate confidence has returned with employee resignations being 7% higher this year and we can see that career development is risingirresistiblyup the corporate agenda.So, the story is that candidate confidence is back and employees career development expectations are rising. The Career Engagement Group 2012 Career Agility and Engagement report has given some insight on what these expectations look like and it revealed three key findings31% of employees want to accelerate or fast-trac k their careers35% of employees want more work responsibility75% say theyre willing to use their own time to further their career and take on additional learning that would benefit them at work.Career AgilityThe big takeaway from these findings is that in this age of talent shortages and an increasingly mobile workforce, employees are looking not just for career development support, they are becoming increasingly self determining and are looking for Career Agility, that is they want to be empowered to be able to identify the best methods of reaching their career aims.If organizations want to attract and retain top talent they must tune into the post recession spirit and start building agile career development processes which empower employees to shape their own career development paths.So how can organizations offer Career Agility?This does not have to be expensive and the four areas that you should prioritize are1. Build a development road map for staff to followDevelop a competenc y framework which is kind of a road map so employees can see what skills they need to develop in order to progress up the career ladder within the business.2. Make DIY Resources AvailableOffer career support resources which include DIY/self service career review tools so self determining employees can review their career and understand their strengths, weaknesses and development needs.3. Provide access to coaches/mentorsEstablish an internal untersttzung program within the organization and allow employees to access this and select a mentor as they need them. This is a great reason to adopt a diversity based hiring strategy as you will attract workers from all different backgrounds, particularly older workers who can make excellent mentors.If your firm does not have enough internal mentors then you can tap into an external mentoring network and you should be aware that many mentors provide their service for free.4.Make a DIY Career Toolkit AvailableThis should be a a resource that e mployees can access which explains the career pathways within the businesses, along with learning opportunities, project opportunities, job vacancies and secondments and which also details how to access mentoring networks.Developing Career Agility within your organization does not have to be an expensive exercise, its much more about restructuring your career development processes to make them more accessible to employees and in a much more empowering and self determining way.