Objectives of Career Planning in HRM and How to Achieve Them

Effective career planning can lead to improved talent management and workforce optimization.

Explore the core objectives of career planning and find tips on how to achieve each one. We’ve also talked to a couple of organizations that have already implemented career planning to learn from their experiences.

Objectives of career planning in HRM: The organizational perspective

Let’s explore the key objectives of a career planning process and how to make them a reality.

Improve talent retention

Career planning provides employees with a clear path for advancement and growth within the organization. Employees who see future potential and progression in their roles are likelier to stay with the company long-term.

How to use career planning for improving talent retention

Providing employees with career growth opportunities shows them that the company values them and their professional development. In turn, they’ll also be motivated to do their best work as they can see a clear path to advancement within the company.

One fundamental way to use career planning for retaining top talent is by giving employees clear growth plans. Additionally, offer coaching and guidance on how to prioritize their short- and long-term career goals and how to reach their objectives.

Another strategy you can adopt is creating roles based on your talent pool’s strengths, passions, and potential rather than fitting employees into predefined roles. This approach leads to greater job satisfaction and can uncover unique roles that give the company a competitive advantage.

Enhance employee skillsets

Ensuring employees possess or develop the necessary skills to meet organizational needs can help organizations stay competitive in a rapidly evolving marketplace. Career planning identifies future skill requirements and encourages employees to acquire these skills.

How to use career planning for skill enhancement

Upskilling (adding new skills) and reskilling (learning entirely new skill sets) ensure employees remain relevant and valuable. Upskilling and reskilling initiatives ensure employees have the necessary skills and knowledge to take on new roles, tasks, and responsibilities and stay competitive in your industry.

Plus, upskilling and reskilling can help employees feel more confident and capable in their roles, increasing job satisfaction and performance.

Boost employee motivation

When employees know the organization invests in their professional growth, it drives their motivation and engagement. Career progression opportunities also motivate employees to excel in their current roles.

How to use career planning for boosting employee motivation

Career path outlining is a solution for boosting morale and job satisfaction that will likely work for most employees. ‍Career paths give employees a sense of direction and purpose in their jobs. They offer a clear plan for advancement, with milestones and goals employees can strive toward. This helps increase motivation and morale as employees can see tangible rewards for their hard work.

Having a career path can further give employees a sense of job satisfaction as they can track their progress and identify specific goals they are working towards. It also helps reduce the feeling of stagnation that can come with a job that lacks clear advancement opportunities.

Improve workforce planning

Another objective of career planning is to ensure a steady supply of talent to fill roles in a timely manner. Career planning allows HRM to better anticipate future staffing needs based on business goals. It helps in understanding which skills will be essential in the future and how current employees can fill those roles.

How to use career planning for improved workforce planning

Start by assessing your existing employees’ current skills and expertise through regular evaluations or skills assessment tools. Once you’ve identified the gaps, use career planning to guide current employees toward the training and experiences they need to fill those future roles.

This proactive approach not only pre-empts potential shortages but also provides a clear growth trajectory for employees.

Some of the ways you can get started with improving your workforce planning efforts include:

• Promotions and rewards
• Internal mobility programs
• Employee performance tracking
• Training and development program

Make the most of managerial talent

Identifying and grooming potential leaders ensures that when key roles become vacant, there’s a pool of qualified candidates ready to step in, ensuring business continuity.

Career planning also ensures that high-potential employees can grow into more impactful organizational roles.

How to use career planning for making the most of managerial talent

Start by identifying the key positions within your organization that are pivotal for operations and strategy. Then, identify your top performers and support their development.

With succession planning, you can start preparing your company’s next generation of leaders so they can move into the position.

Offer additional training or mentoring or help them identify and pursue more challenging roles. By doing this, your company can help develop and retain its best talent, which can improve its overall performance and secure business continuity.

Use 9-box assessments to identify those who have the potential to become future leaders.

Reduce voluntary attrition

When employees leave your company voluntarily, you can lose valuable knowledge and experience, which can be difficult to replace. Additionally, recruiting and training new employees can be costly, as the average cost of hiring a new employee is around $4,000.

How to use career planning for reducing voluntary attrition

A clear career path and growth opportunities can reduce the number of employees leaving the organization of their own accord. They’re less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere when they see a future with the company.

You can minimize employee attrition by addressing every team member’s career aspirations. By doing this, employers can help to retain staff by providing them with opportunities for career growth and development. This can create a more engaging and rewarding workplace, leading to increased job satisfaction and motivation.

Ensure optimal utilization of competencies and knowledge

Optimal use of competencies and knowledge is essential for any organization that wants to ensure its resources are used to their maximum potential. Having the right people in the right job roles means your company uses its resources efficiently and effectively.

Through career planning, HRM can identify employees’ strengths, knowledge, and competencies. This ensures that employees are placed in roles where they can utilize their skills to the fullest and add maximum value.

Additionally, it increases productivity and efficiency, improving your organization’s profitability. The right people in the right job roles can also minimize potential conflicts or misunderstandings. That’s because employees are better suited for the role they’re expected to fulfill.

How to use career planning to ensure optimal utilization of competencies

Encourage employees to reflect on their skills and career goals regularly. This self-awareness, combined with the insights from feedback, can lead to more informed decisions in career planning, ensuring their competencies are always being put to the best use.

Tia Smith, VP of Global Talent at Collaborative Solutions, is a huge proponent of understanding and leveraging each individual’s strengths in their role:

”Leveraging an individual’s unique strengths isn’t just beneficial for the employee; it’s pivotal for organizational success. Focusing on an individual’s strengths during goal-setting leads to increased engagement and better performance, a principle supported by Gallup’s decades-long research. This shows that people who use their strengths daily are six times more likely to be engaged at work. In a fast-paced business environment, optimizing for strengths isn’t just an HR initiative. It’s a strategic imperative.”

Promote a growth mindset across all levels of the organization

When learning is part of the flow of work, employees always strive to develop their competencies and knowledge.

On this, Gayla Wright, Head of HR, notes that fostering a culture of continuous learning and resilience can encourage employees to embrace challenges, view setbacks as opportunities for growth, and take proactive steps to develop their skills:

“By nurturing a growth mindset, employees are more likely to engage in effective career planning, actively seeking out opportunities for skill development, setting ambitious career goals and looking at ways to achieve them, hopefully then leading to a more successful and fulfilling career.”

How to use career planning to promote a growth mindset across your entire organization

Career planning fosters a culture where continuous learning and self-improvement are valued. Employees at all levels are encouraged to challenge themselves, seek new knowledge, and embrace change.

To promote a growth mindset across the entire organization:

• Make training, workshops, courses, and seminars regularly available
• Allow employees to dedicate a certain portion of their workweek to learning, ensuring they see it as a part of their job and not an add-on
• Celebrate learning, not just task achievement—recognizing employees who undertake challenging courses or bounce back from failures can set a precedent that growth and effort are valued
• Instead of having a one-size-fits-all career trajectory, sit down with employees to discuss their aspirations and strengths—craft career paths aligning with their goals and the organization’s needs

The objectives of career planning from the employee perspective

While we’ve discussed the organization’s objectives above, note that employees should have their own objectives for career planning. Your role is to help them understand and work towards these.

Worthwhile objectives include:

• Increasing self-awareness: Identifying strengths, weaknesses, passions, and aspirations
• Setting strategic goals: Establishing short-term and long-term career goals
• Acquiring new skills and developing existing ones: Identifying and acquiring necessary skills for desired career progression
• Increasing job and career satisfaction: Achieving a career that aligns with personal values and life goals
• Facilitating financial planning: Aligning career choices with financial objectives, especially considering promotions
• Improving work-life balance: Ensuring career choices promote a balanced personal and professional life

How do personal and organizational career planning objectives intersect?

An employee’s objectives will ultimately benefit your company by increasing every individual’s performance, motivation, and engagement.

When employees have objectives aligning with the company’s goals and objectives, you can start building a shared sense of purpose and ensure that your employees are working towards the same goal.

Aligning objectives can also build trust and engagement between the employee and the company. This leads to increased productivity and a better overall work environment.

Career planning also gives employees a sense of direction and purpose at work. It can also help organizations retain talented employees and even recruit top talent, demonstrating that the company is committed to assisting employees in achieving their career goals.

Challenges in implementing career planning in HRM

Implementing career planning in HRM can be a complex process with several challenges. Below are some common challenges, along with suggested solutions:

1. Lack of employee engagement

Employees may show limited interest or engagement in career planning initiatives, often due to a lack of awareness of its benefits or a perception that opportunities for advancement are limited.

Offer workshops or seminars that explain how employees can leverage these initiatives to advance their careers. Encourage managers to have regular career development conversations with their teams.

2. Inadequate resources

Implementing career planning requires significant resources, including time, technology, and personnel. Organizations may struggle to allocate these resources, particularly in smaller companies.

Utilize available HR software to automate parts of the process, reducing the resource burden. Consider a phased implementation to scale the initiative gradually.

3. Resistance to change

Employees and managers might resist career planning initiatives because they are comfortable with the status quo or fear increased expectations and accountability.

Highlight success stories where career planning has benefited employees. Address concerns by providing support and reassurance during the transition.

4. Difficulty in tracking progress

Tracking the progress of career planning initiatives can be difficult, particularly in large organizations with many employees and diverse career paths.

5. Limited career development opportunities

In some organizations, particularly smaller ones, there may be limited opportunities for career advancement, which can discourage employees from engaging in career planning.

Encourage continuous learning and provide employees with opportunities to acquire new skills they can use in different organizational contexts.

How organizations can measure the success or failure of their career planning objectives

Measuring the success or failure of career planning objectives allows individuals to pinpoint areas that need improvement and set up strategies for achieving their goals. It also helps employees track their progress over time and adjust their growth plans as necessary.

The first step to measuring success or failure is to look at the goals you’ve set before and track specific metrics.

Some of the metrics that will indicate whether your organization is on the right path with career planning include:

• Reduced turnover/attrition
• Improved satisfaction scores
• Higher performance ratings for employees
• Number of years in the same position
• Professional development opportunities taken
• Number of career goals achieved
• Salary increases over time
• Any certifications/qualifications obtained

To get even more accurate results, seek feedback from colleagues, mentors, and supervisors to get an honest assessment of progress and areas of improvement. Go beyond the individual level to evaluate the impact of your career planning strategies on overall organizational performance.

Plan your people’s career growth with Deel Engage

Planning for your team’s future has never been this intuitive. With Deel Engage:

• Every employee gets a clear roadmap for growth—every step in their career progression is clearly documented, ensuring that motivation and clarity are always in sync
• Individual workers and their supervisors can get a 360-degree of their strengths and improvement areas
• Managers and their teams align on actionable plans for growth to address skills or performance gaps and prepare workers for advancing their careers in the company
• HR teams can create learning materials or curate relevant resources from the vast external training library, ensuring that learning never stops

Additionally, Deel HR, our truly global HRIS solution, is always included for free.

Book a demo to see how our solutions will help you reach the objectives of career planning and build a future-proof workforce.