What is career management?

Career management is an ongoing HR process that involves planning, implementing, and monitoring strategies to help employees achieve their career goals while aligning their growth with the organization’s objectives. It focuses on identifying employees’ skills, interests, and potential, then providing opportunities for training, mentoring, career progression, and succession planning.

As part of career management, human resources departments ensure that clear career paths or frameworks are in place, offering employees guidance on how to develop within their current role or transition to new ones. The process also includes regular performance evaluations, career development discussions, and feedback to ensure employees stay engaged and motivated while meeting organizational needs.

What is the difference between career management and career development?

Career management encompasses all the activities undertaken by employers or individual employees to foster career growth, boost job satisfaction, and fill talent gaps. It involves everything from skills gap analysis to career planning and pathing, goal setting, performance management, learning and development, and succession planning.

Career development, on the other hand, is the series of actions and strategies that enable employees to acquire or enhance skills and knowledge, increase expertise, reach set career goals, and unlock professional growth. You can think of career development as the execution portion of a career management plan.

What is the difference between career planning and career management?

Career planning is the process of identifying one’s skills, interests, preferences, motivations, and professional goals and using those insights to inform career decisions and development initiatives. It’s an offshoot of career management, and it sets the stage for other activities that promote growth and satisfaction, such as knowledge acquisition, skills development, career transitions, and role progression.

Career planning is an ongoing effort that’s usually time-bound and concerned with short to medium-term goals and activities geared toward career growth.

Career management, however, is focused on all of the processes involved in ensuring enhanced skill development, continuous improvement, and career advancement in line with industry trends, technological advancements, personal ambition, and organizational talent gaps. As a result, it is a long-term exercise that spans all the stages of one’s career journey and embraces the continuous strategies and actions required to build a successful and fulfilling career.

What does a career management program look like? The key components of a career management program

Career management programs typically include these key elements:

1. Existing career progression framework: This shows where and how employees can move from their current position into other desirable roles so they can make informed career development decisions. It specifies all possible trajectories within the company, including dual paths and vertical or lateral career growth options. Your career progression framework should also highlight the job level classifications in your organization and what it takes to qualify for each one
2. Initial assessment: Before you can help your workers manage their careers effectively, you need to know and understand their best traits, skills, personality, interests, values, and motivations. This analysis will allow you to correctly guide new and existing employees to the right occupational opportunities
3. Goal setting: Using the information gathered from assessments, you can evaluate the pros and cons of different career paths for individual employees, identify the most befitting option, and then define realistic short and long-term career goals. This way, employees, in collaboration with their managers, can come up with the best strategies for accomplishing set goals, milestones for tracking progress, and timelines for completion
4. Skill and competence development: This is the actualization portion of your career management program where employees start taking action to improve their careers and meet the objectives they have outlined. You get to deploy resources and support mechanisms like training, mentorship, and job rotations to help them gather experience, develop competence, and build results-driven careers
5. Coaching and feedback: Constant check-ins, guidance, and feedback are a crucial part of any career management program—constructive feedback can help boost employee performance and ensure your program is producing optimal results for the organization

Complementary resources:

• Check our analysis of seven effective goal-setting frameworks —you’ll also find tips for selecting the right one for your organization
• Learn how to create career development plans for employees
• Check these development goals examples and actionable steps

Why is personal career management important for workers?

Effective career management provides significant benefits to employees by promoting:

1. Clarity and direction: Instead of wasting precious career years wandering with little to show for it, employees can analyze their skills, strengths, and interests to determine which roles or career path would best fit their abilities and aspirations, and then implement informed strategies to achieve desired milestones
2. Mobility and employability: Continous knowledge acquisition and talent development endows employees with in-demand skills and expertise, opening doors to promotions, higher earnings, career transitions, and great job opportunities
3. Skill and knowledge development: In managing their careers, employees will take on tasks, gain experience, and learn relevant skills to help them function better in existing roles and prepare them to tackle advanced responsibilities
4. Increased job security: Since career management takes a long-term approach and ensures adaptability to changing trends and circumstances, it allows employees to build careers that are resilient, come layoffs, market shifts, or technological advancements
5. A sense of empowerment: When employees have a plan for their career and a clear path to reaching those objectives, they will feel more in control of their career choices and potential outcomes
6. Better alignment with the organization: When employees understand how the different roles contribute to the company’s success and are given opportunities to grow in vertical or horizontal directions, they’ll feel more connected to the company and its goals

Why is career management important for organizations?

Reasons to devote attention to career management as part of your company’s employee enablement initiatives include:

1. Improved employee engagement: There is less room for employees to become complacent and demotivated when working for organizations that take an active interest in shaping and growing their talents
2. Greater job satisfaction: A lack of development and advancement opportunities is a leading factor behind employee resignations. Providing means for your workers to realize their career expectations and potential is key to keeping them happy and satisfied
3. Increased retention: Employees who feel like they’re doing challenging work and getting their developmental needs met are going to stay longer with an employer to keep enjoying these benefits instead of switching to another job that can offer them growth opportunities
4. Continuous supply of talent: As your business expands, technology changes, and team members leave voluntarily or involuntarily, prioritizing career management will ensure you have the right people with the right skills waiting to step into the gaps
5. Significant cost reductions: By investing in career management, your company can reduce employee churn and confidently recruit competent workers to fill open positions from within, resulting in massive long-term cost savings
6. Higher productivity and performance: Since they have goals to reach and they know those goals are tied to milestones like getting moving up the ladder, earning more money, or gaining recognition, employees are more likely to put in extra effort and acquire new skills, which will yield better work results

How can career management improve organizational performance?

When your work culture fosters creativity and development, employees will be better engaged and connected to the work they do and how it contributes to the organization’s mission. This will make them loyal to your organization and driven to learn faster, do their best work, and achieve business outcomes because the company’s success is connected to their career success and vice versa.

Career management guarantees employees are acquiring critical knowledge, sharpening their skill sets, and adapting to business and industry demands. This allows them to work faster and better, and contribute fresh ideas and innovative solutions to problems, keeping your business thriving and competitive.

Also, by identifying employees’ strong suits, interests, and career desires and nurturing them, your organization can build leadership pipelines and equip talent with the skills the company may need in the future.

Since these employees are already familiar with the workings of the company and the team dynamic, they can transition seamlessly into different roles without disrupting or slowing down processes.

Complimentary resources: Discover examples of individual development plans for priming future leaders.

How can organizations support career management for their employees?

Successful career management begins with implementing the right initiatives.

Create clear pathways for advancement

Help employees visualize their career options within your organization by constructing career paths and frameworks. Detail the skills, knowledge, qualifications, or milestones they need to accumulate to succeed in each role and progress to the next level.

Career pathing energizes employees to focus on polishing the right skills and investing in their professional goals by showing how those goals and skills align with existing career paths in the company.

Learn how to do it:

1. Step-by-Step Guide for Developing a Career Progression Framework
2. 12 Career Progression Examples: Inspiration for Your Pathways

Develop and review career plans

Arm your employees with a blueprint for their career detailing their ideal professional future, what skills and competencies they need to develop to get there, and how they will beef up those skills.

Review and revise this plan from time to time to measure progress, factor in unexpected changes or roadblocks and ensure that the plan still reflects their priorities and aspirations.

Continuously assess their skills

Conduct skill gap analyses, peer reviews, and performance appraisals regularly to discover valuable qualities that employees bring. Cultivating these traits will enable them to excel at their jobs and prepare them for potential career opportunities.

The more you know the strengths and weaknesses of your teams, the better you will be at steering them toward roles that align with their particular talents.

Tip: Track your workforce’s skills with a skills matrix.

Institute training programs

Upskill and reskill employees by combining practical training exercises with structured programs that equip employees with vital education and essential skills to enable them to thrive at every stage of their careers.

Programs can take a hybrid approach—traditional couples with digital training—for increased engagement, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.

Learn more: Discover a new paradigm of workplace training—learning in the flow of work.

Offering career counseling

Leverage internal and external experts to offer strategic assistance to employees facing career challenges like stagnation and uncertainty about paths to explore. Or those looking to advance their careers or transition into a new profession but don’t know how or where to begin.

Provide access to learning resources

Encourage employees to continuously seek out knowledge and enhance their skills. Make it easy for them to do so by sponsoring or offering access to educational resources like webinars, conferences, workshops, online courses, training videos, job shadowing opportunities, and more.

Ideally, your L&D program should be tailored to meet the skill demands of your organization and the individual needs of team members, so that they can both grow side by side.

Complementary resource: Discover how AI-based learning platforms can support your L&D efforts.

Establish mentorship opportunities

Employees can benefit from someone more experienced showing them the ropes and giving targeted advice to help them grow. Create an internal mentorship program that matches employees with mentors based on their expressed interests or chosen career paths.

Equip your team with the right tools and technology

Invest in tools and technologies to help your employees proactively manage their careers and empower them to obtain new skills and knowledge to sustain their development efforts. Consider AI-powered technologies for personalized career management assistance and more streamlined processes.

By investing in their employees’ career growth, organizations can boost employee engagement, reduce turnover, and build a more skilled and capable workforce.

How can career management be integrated into performance management systems?

Synchronize performance management with career management by conducting performance evaluations that look at the future, not just the present. Do so by adding career conversations into the yearly appraisal cycle so that you’re not just assessing worker performance. You also ensure that an employee still wants to pursue a specific career path and that their current development plan is still right for them.

When employees define career goals and milestones, add them to their performance tracker. That way, when review season rolls around, you’re checking in on the progress of these goals alongside the usual role-specific KPIs. When your performance evaluations identify areas where employees excel or need improvement, you can use this insight to optimize their career development strategies.

This harmonization of knowledge will allow you to offer customized support to team members in developing the skills and acquiring the experience necessary for specific career moves.

What metrics can be used to measure the effectiveness of career management initiatives?

Consider using the following metrics to gauge the efficacy of your career management program and how it’s impacting both your workforce and organizational success.

1. Employee satisfaction and engagement scores: Use surveys to determine the number of employees who are happy with their jobs and the development or progression opportunities you offer—an increase in the scores after implementing a career management program tells you your initiatives are working as intended
2. Employee retention rates: If you’re retaining significantly more employees than you’re losing to churn, it could indicate your career management activities are yielding results—compare your retention numbers before and after your program went into effect for a clearer picture
3. Succession readiness: A robust talent pipeline or succession plans to fill 80%-90% of critical positions proves your career management strategies are adequately improving employee development and supporting your current and future workforce needs
4. Promotion rates: If you’re consistently offering internal promotions or your annual promotion rate increases, it means that you’re doing a great job of enhancing employee skills and knowledge in preparation for more advanced responsibilities or diverse roles
5. Completion rate of development programs: A high percentage of people participating in and completing development programs like training, certifications, and online courses suggests employees are highly engaged and invested in their career growth
6. Performance and productivity gains: Compare performance evaluation results and productivity rates following the launch of your program. Improved numbers show your career management initiatives are positively impacting employee work rate and organizational output
7. Goal completion rate: This metric tracks the number of employees who achieve their career goals or acquire new skills—the higher the percentage, the greater the effectiveness of your initiatives
8. Return on investment: Determine the ROI of your career growth initiatives by comparing how much the program costs with the benefits you’ve gotten from it, e.g., enhanced productivity, lower employee attrition, and reduced recruitment expenditure

Complimentary resources:

• Discover 90+ employee engagement survey questions for measuring workforce engagement levels
• Learn how to craft impactful job satisfaction survey questions that produce actionable feedback

What are the challenges of career management in a remote work environment?

Helping employees manage their careers can be challenging with a remote workforce. Some challenges that remote workers may face in the quest for career development and advancement include:

Reduced visibility

With fewer face-to-face interactions, remote employees might find it harder to imprint themselves on the minds of coworkers and managers. This can lead to them being overlooked or not getting enough opportunities to collaborate, progress, and demonstrate their capabilities.

Limited networking and mentorship opportunities

There is little to no room for remote team members to have impromptu conversations with colleagues and get to know them better. Interactions are scheduled and restrictive, which doesn’t allow for easy networking.

Similarly, remote workers may have limited access to guidance and mentoring from experienced coworkers, which could hinder their career development.

Difficulty accessing learning resources

Knowledge and skill acquisition mediums such as in-person training, workshops, conventions, and job shadowing are often out of reach for remote employees, potentially slowing career growth.

Hindrances to communication

Remote employees may struggle to communicate effectively, showcase their achievements, and build meaningful connections with colleagues and mentors. They may have a harder time getting recognition for their work because of this.

Decreased engagement

Lack of physical interactions and strong relationships with colleagues may cause remote workers to feel isolated from the rest of the team and detached from the company’s goals and culture. This disengagement can make them less motivated to champion their career development.

Organizations must address these challenges by providing virtual mentorship programs, online training, engagement initiatives, and regular check-ins to ensure remote employees have the support they need to manage their careers effectively.

What role does technology play in career management?

Even with only a handful of employees, implementing and monitoring career management will require significant effort from both employees and supervisors, and it will become more complicated as your team expands.

Investing in the right technology can help drive execution, efficiency, alignment, and consistency across career management initiatives and actions. Here are some of the ways technology can aid your career management efforts:

• Self-assessment and skill acquisition tools: For conducting skill assessments to identify skill gaps and improve competencies
• Networking and mentorship tools: To build professional networks and gain access to useful feedback and insights
• Workforce planning: For establishing and maintaining career progression paths and aligning employee development with the company’s goals and needs
• Performance tracking tools: To keep an eye on performance and guide career discussions
• Online learning tools: For deploying training curriculums, offering varied educational content, and managing learning experiences
• Career development software: To create personalized development plans, proactively monitor career moves, and simplify skill acquisition

Effortless career management with Deel Engage

Deel Engage combines performance, learning opportunities, and career management into a powerful platform.

Here are the features you can use for effortless career management in your organization:

• The career management module enables you to define career progression frameworks for all departments, locations, and roles in your organization
• The performance management module facilitates regular feedback with custom-defined performance review cycles—link company values, performance goals, or competencies
• The training module offers an LMS where you can build the resources your people need to grow (and the AI assistant will make the creation process even faster)
• Deel HR, our truly global HRIS solution, manages the entire talent lifecycle compliantly and is always included for free

Book a demo to see how our solutions will help you foster continuous improvement in your workforce.