Your HR team has a career development program for employees. There’s a learning platform, a line item in the budget, and maybe even several career paths mapped out in an internal document.
But a year later, only a few employees are using your learning resources. Managers talk about career growth occasionally, but those conversations aren’t planned. It’s also difficult to pinpoint employees whose careers have grown because of your organization’s learning program.
As a result, employees are resigning, with many citing a lack of career growth.
While dedicated learning resources can give employees opportunities to pick up new skills, those development tools must connect to an individual’s goals. In other words, a career development program must have individual career development plans for employees.
Our first article in this series explains why career growth is essential for retention. In this article, we focus on the practical side: how to build career development programs and plans that help grow and retain your employees.
TL;DR
The problem: Organizations can invest in career development resources without giving individual employees a clear idea of how those resources apply to their careers.
The fix: An individual career development plan that connects learning resources to an employee’s goals and gives concrete next steps.
A number to remember: According to a LinkedIn Workforce Learning Report, only 15% of employees said their managers helped them build a career plan in the past six months.
The missing piece: For growth conversations to be productive, managers have to understand what individual employees want, what internal opportunities exist, and what employees need to do next to progress toward their goals.
Next steps: Start by identifying the career paths that exist inside your organization. Ask employees where they want to go next. Then, align on a plan around those opportunities using existing learning resources.
What is a career development program?
A career development program for employees is the formal structure an organization uses to help employees develop skills and knowledge to progress in their careers. HR might map out possible career paths, provide training and learning resources, establish coaching and mentoring programs, and give managers guidance on how to handle development conversations.
While a career development program is organization-wide, a career development plan focuses on individual employees.
A plan should answer questions like:
Where does this employee want to go?
What skills or experience will they need?
What do they already do well?
What development resources would help them prepare for their next step?
What should the employee and manager do next?
You can give every employee access to a learning platform without really helping them understand which specific skills they should develop to reach their goals, or even which internal opportunities are available.
Why career development programs stall
A career development program can have dedicated resources and still have limited impact if employees don’t know how those resources connect to their careers.
If you're seeing limited results, usually one of three things is happening:
Employees have access to development resources, but they don’t have an individual development plan. Employees may have access to learning courses and tuition reimbursement, but if they can’t see how those resources help them grow toward their goals, they won’t see the value in them.
Managers haven’t been equipped for career conversations. Even though HR provides the resources and structure, career development usually becomes a conversation between managers and employees. If managers don’t know what the employee wants, what career paths exist, or how to have a constructive conversation, your career development plans will lack impact.
Your organization is measuring the wrong thing. Course completion rates and seminar attendance can be helpful metrics. However, they don’t gauge internal mobility or whether employees are developing the skills and capabilities they need to progress in their careers.
For a deeper dive into why generic development programs can fail even when an organization is investing in them, read “Employee Career Development: Why Growth Is Your Strongest Retention Lever.”
How to build a career development program
To build a career development program for employees, start by identifying the opportunities available inside your organization. Then, determine what each employee wants. From there, create an individual development plan, give managers a structure for constructive career conversations, make internal opportunities accessible, and measure whether employees are progressing.
Let’s look at each step in more detail.
Step 1: Map the paths that actually exist
Before promising growth, establish what roles exist and what possible career paths look like. Many organizations have this written down somewhere, but it’s not always visible to employees, so remember to make the information accessible.
Also, just because a career path is documented doesn’t mean those roles will open up anytime soon. Before managers can help employees think about what comes next for them, they need to know what “next” could mean, and that means which roles will be available in the short- or medium-term.
Step 2: Find out what each person is actually aiming at
Once you know what opportunities exist, ask employees what they want. This sounds straightforward, but many managers easily assume everyone defines career growth the same way, but not every career path has to lead to management.
For example, a software engineer may want to deepen their technical expertise and become a senior individual contributor rather than managing a team. Similarly, a customer support specialist might move into a quality assurance role and make a lateral move. Remembering this can help managers not feel threatened by their direct reports.
A motivation assessment can provide additional information about what drives an employee intrinsically.
Step 3: Create an individual career development plan for employees
Once the employee has a direction, define concrete steps and milestones.
Your employee career development plan should identify where an employee is trying to go, what they need to develop, and what specific actions will help them close that gap. For example, an employee who wants to become a team lead may need experience coaching peers, working with other teams, or analyzing performance.
Step 4: Equip managers to have growth conversations
Gallup found that 45% of employees who voluntarily quit had no conversation about their performance or future in the three months before leaving. While creating a career development plan for employees is a great first step, managers must be involved in reviewing and revisiting it.
So, give your managers the tools to succeed.
A simple career development discussion template can help during recurring conversations. It can cover:
The employee’s longer-term career direction
Progress on current development goals
Skills or experiences the employee still needs
New internal opportunities
One or two actions to complete before the next conversation
It doesn’t need to be tedious or time-consuming. The goal is to make career development conversations easier for managers so these talks can happen regularly, rather than once a year or after an employee starts thinking about leaving.
Step 5: Make internal moves visible and real
Consider posting new roles internally first, and make sure managers aren’t penalized for losing good employees to other teams. Career plans will always work better when employees can see real opportunities inside your organization, rather than outside.
Step 6: Measure the right things
Finally, decide how you’ll know whether the program is working. While course completions and participation rates can tell you whether employees are learning, consider measuring metrics that gauge how employees are advancing in their careers, for example, the number of employees with current development plans, the number of internal role changes and internal hires, progress on development goals, and whether employees can explain what they’re working toward.
GRAPHIC
The Six Steps of a Career Development Program
Step 1
Map career paths
Document available promotions, lateral moves, and other internal opportunities for employees.
Step 2
Understand employees’ goals
Find out what each employee wants before recommending any development activities.
Step 3
Create individual career development plans
Connect an employee’s career direction to specific development actions.
Step 4
Support manager-employee conversations
Give managers the information and structure they need to discuss career growth with their direct reports.
Step 5
Prioritize internal mobility and make opportunities accessible Prioritize recruiting for new roles internally, and help employees find internal roles, projects, and assignments that support their goals.
Step 6
Measure progress
Track whether employees are developing and moving into new roles.
What goes into an individual career development plan
A good individual career development plan should explain what an employee wants to work toward and establish concrete next steps. Most plans should include a career direction, capability gaps, development actions, organizational support, timelines, regular review dates, and clear ownership of each action.
Here’s one way to structure it:
Component
What it answers
What good looks like
Career direction
What is the employee working toward?
A specific role, new responsibility, or an increase in scope
Development gap
What does the employee still need to develop?
A few specific skills, experiences, or deeper subject-matter expertise
Access to projects, manager coaching, tuition reimbursement, mentorship, introductions, or dedicated time for development
Timeline
When should each step happen?
Specific dates for milestones
Review cadence
When will progress be discussed?
Scheduled conversations throughout the year
Owner
Who is responsible for each action?
The employee, manager, HR partner, or another named person
Sample career development plan for an employee
Here’s a simplified example of an employee career development plan for a customer support specialist who wants to become a team lead:
Plan area
Example
Career direction
Prepare for a customer support team lead position when a role becomes available
Development gaps
Needs experience coaching peers, working with cross-functional teams, and resolving difficult customer escalations and support cases
Development Action 1
Be the main contact for two multi-team projects during the next 90 days. Manager will provide feedback after each one.
Development Action 2
Shadow the current team lead during two escalation reviews, then lead the third review with support from the current team lead or manager
Organizational support
Manager identifies relevant projects and coaching sessions
Review date
Revisit progress in 90 days and determine the next development steps
Owners
Manager and employee
Career development program examples
There are many ways to structure career development programs for employees. The best format depends on the roles inside your organization, the opportunities and resources available, and what employees are trying to achieve.
Here are a few approaches that don’t require a giant L&D team or a complicated program.
1. An engineering team creates multiple paths from the same role.
As we’ve mentioned, career growth doesn’t need to mean one standard promotion path. You can map out multiple paths for your direct reports, including senior individual contributor roles, adjacent roles, and management roles.
For example, your engineering team can create opportunities for experienced employees to take on more complex projects, develop deeper subject-matter expertise, own important functions, or mentor colleagues.
2. Connect existing learning resources to a customer support rep’s career goals
If you already offer tuition reimbursement, coaching, or an online learning platform, you may not need more resources. Instead, use the employee’s plan to determine which resources you have that actually support their goals.
For example, a customer support representative who wants to move into customer success might need to build stronger relationship-management or communication skills. A good program would connect those goals with relevant courses and opportunities to shadow customer success calls or help with certain account issues.
3. Using mentorship and stretch assignments to prepare an employee for a future role
Employees often need real experience before they’re ready to move into a new role. Mentorship and stretch assignments can help them build that experience while they’re still in their current position.
For example, an employee interested in becoming a team lead could work with an experienced manager to take on more responsibility in a supervised way, like leading team meetings, onboarding a new hire, or running a small project.
How to tell if your career development program is working
Here are some metrics you can use to gauge the success of your program:
The percentage of employees with a career development plan. This gives you a baseline for whether your career development program is reaching employees.
Percentage of employees who can articulate their next growth step: How many employees can explain what they want to do next and what they need to do to get there?
Internal mobility rate. Track how often current employees move into different roles or functions.
Internal fill rate. Measure how many open positions are filled by current employees.
Time in role before progression. This tells you how long it takes employees to progress into new roles.
Progress against development plans. Look at whether employees are completing the actions they agreed to with their managers.
Retention among key employee groups. While many factors influence retention, career development is a big one, which means retention can still be a useful metric for your career development programs.
How Wonderlic helps you build development that sticks
Creating a meaningful career plan requires understanding what your employees are good at, what motivates them, and what they still need to work on.
Wonderlic Develop gives employees and managers job-specific insights into strengths, motivators, and development opportunities. Managers can use those insights alongside Wonderlic’s employee growth plans and Action Planner to have more meaningful development conversations and plan concrete next steps, while employees can take ownership of their development, relieving the burden on managers.
However, even with development tools that support personalization and growth at scale, the best technology can’t replace a career development program. Your employees need organizational structure and dedicated learning resources, real internal opportunities, and regular manager conversations.
Creating a meaningful career plan requires understanding what your employees are good at, what motivates them, and what they still need to work on.
Wonderlic Develop gives employees and managers job-specific insights into strengths, motivators, and development opportunities. Managers can use those insights alongside Wonderlic’s employee growth plans and Action Planner to have more meaningful development conversations and plan concrete next steps, while employees can take ownership of their development, relieving the burden on managers.
However, even with development tools that support personalization and growth at scale, the best technology can’t replace a career development program. Your employees need organizational structure and dedicated learning resources, real internal opportunities, and regular manager conversations.
Create a high-performing career development program
Your organization may already have many of the pieces needed for a successful career development program. The next step is to simply connect those resources to employees’ goals and create individual career development plans that match interests with opportunities. Then, give managers the tools and resources they need to help employees follow through on their development plans.
Want to learn more about how investing in career development can help retention? Read: “Employee Career Development: Why Growth Is Your Strongest Retention Lever”
FAQ
What is the difference between a career development program and a career development plan?
A program is organizational, and a plan is individual. The program is the overall organizational structure for internal mobility. It includes defined career paths, a dedicated budget, access to learning resources, and a defined cadence for manager conversations. The plan is for individuals. It defines their goals, the gaps in their knowledge or experience, and what they need to do next.
How do you create a career development plan for employees?
To create a career development plan for employees, start by understanding what the employee wants to work toward and which opportunities actually exist inside your organization. Then identify the skills or experience they still need, choose a few specific development actions, and decide what support the manager or organization will provide. Assign owners and review dates so the plan stays current.
What should a career development plan include?
A career development plan for employees should include the employee’s career direction, specific development gaps, actions to close those gaps, organizational support, a timeline, regular review dates, and clear ownership. Each component should help the employee understand what they’re working toward and what needs to happen next to reach their goals.
What are examples of career development programs for employees?
Examples include formal career paths, mentoring or coaching programs, stretch assignments, rotational opportunities, technical or individual-contributor tracks, and learning resources connected to specific career goals. Organizations often combine several approaches rather than relying on one type of program.
Who is responsible for career development, HR or the manager?
HR typically creates and supports the broader career development program, while managers help individual employees turn that structure into individual career plans and development actions. Employees also need to communicate their goals and follow through on the development plan.
How long should a career development plan cover?
Usually six to eighteen months. A career development plan should look far enough ahead to give the employee a meaningful direction, while remaining flexible as role availability and opportunities change. In practice, organizations may set longer-term career goals while focusing the actual development plan on actions that can be reviewed and updated throughout the year.
Why do career development programs fail?
Career development programs can stall when employees have access to learning resources but no individual career direction, managers aren’t equipped to have useful development conversations, or organizations measure learning participation without measuring internal mobility. Connecting learning programs to individual career plans gives employees and managers something concrete to work from and toward.
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