Why It Pays to Know Your Employee’s Professional Goals

You’ve always known that retaining talent is critical to the success of a company, and recent statistics fall in line with that idea. While retaining talent requires a multi-pronged approach, one huge component is to align employees’ professional goals with those of your business. First, however, you must know what these employee goals are. Here’s how to do that in ways that benefit both the company and your employees.

1. Present leadership opportunities for passion projects and team-bonding endeavors. For example, encourage employees to set up clubs; fitness groups and Earth Day projects are two ideas. For an approach that is more structured and reaches “wallflowers,” rotate the setup of team-building efforts to a different employee every month. What employees choose gives you great insight into their personality and goals, and shows them you care. It also increases innovation and employee bonding for a more solid workforce.

2. Enact cross-departmental training programs. This helps employees’ skill sets and their communication across departments for an immediate boost to the company. However, the main benefit might well be the fact that you and employees are sitting down together to look at their goals, interests and desires for training and advancement. Such meetings are necessary, as a mere 36 percent of employees see a clear vision for them at work, while a much higher 60 percent of human resources personnel see that path.

3. Invest in employees, and ask them to set goals. Because 41 percent of employees are willing to leave for enhanced career options, you must show you value their careers. For example, rather than saying, “Okay, you’re going to XYZ conference in March,” ask an employee what she’d like to get out of the conference. Even better, present a list of conferences, and chat about the pros and cons of attending each. This helps the both of you align your goals. Example goals from a conference might include making 10 new contacts and finding five potential clients.