13 Best Career Development Tools To Boost Employee Skills
An alarming 63% of workers who quit their jobs cited no opportunities for advancement as a deciding factor. But there’s good news — as an HR professional, you can mitigate this using career development tools for employees.
Career development tools for employees can promote individual professional growth, contribute to organizational success, and reduce turnover.
In fact, HR leaders predict that 30% of employees will likely resign within the next six months due to a lack of employer support for their career development. While, 59% of employees say their employers “rarely” or “never” support them in exploring company-wide career growth opportunities.
This article discusses why career development tools matter, offers 13 tools to consider, and provides practical insights on choosing and implementing the right tools for your workforce and organization.
Contents
What are career development tools for employees?
Why career development tools are important
How HR can select and implement career development tools
13 best career development tools for employees
How HR can choose the right career development tools for employees
What are career development tools for employees?
Career development tools include platforms, resources, assessments, initiatives, and techniques that help employees better understand their skills and aspirations, discover growth opportunities, and plot career progression. These tools also allow HR to effectively facilitate and manage training and career pathing to boost employee engagement and performance.
Although there is some overlap between career development tools for employees and general training tools, they differ in their intent. General training tools often target immediate or short-term learning needs, while career development tools focus on long-term growth and planning.
Why career development tools are important
While career development tools for employees mainly benefit workers, they also present advantages for employers and HR. The value derived from these tools includes:
- For employees: When employees have the tools and support to manage their growth, they set clear goals, build skills, and gain confidence in their careers. This leads to higher engagement and job satisfaction.
- For HR: Tools that support career development enhance certain HR functions. These can include simplified succession planning, improved talent retention, and increased internal mobility.
- For employers: Investing in employee growth allows employers to build a skilled, long-term workforce. This boosts DEIB efforts and productivity and lowers hiring costs through better retention and internal promotions.
How HR can select and implement career development tools
Here are some of HR’s key responsibilities when it comes to choosing and introducing career development tools in the organization:
Audit current development programs
Review existing programs to see what works and what doesn’t. Collect data on participation, satisfaction, and completion rates, and measure how these programs impact performance, retention, and career growth. Identify gaps where employee or business needs aren’t being met.
Identify tools to solve specific problems
Based on your audit and future talent needs, select tools that address real issues. Prioritize features like self-assessments, personalized career paths, progress tracking, coaching options, integration with learning platforms, and interactive feedback.
Implement tools that support business goals
Choose tools that help employees develop skills aligned with business objectives. Then, to maximize their use and impact, show employees how advancing their careers supports company goals, which opens new opportunities for both them and the business.
Collaborate with department heads
Work with department leaders to ensure the tools you select can meet different team needs and are easy to use. Plan for integration with current systems and scalability to keep the tools relevant and accessible across the organization.
Secure buy-in from leadership
Involve leaders early to secure support. Show them how career development helps employees grow and improves business outcomes. Highlight data and success stories, and emphasize how leadership support makes growth part of the company culture.
Communicate clearly with employees
Explain what tools are available, how to use them, and how they support career growth. Announce them in meetings, send personalized emails with demos, have managers discuss them during reviews, and encourage employees to share success stories internally.
Offer training and continuous support
Provide workshops, online courses, and webinars to help employees learn how to use the tools. Offer ongoing support through coaching, mentoring, or chatbots to guide them in setting goals, accessing learning resources, and tracking progress.
Learn to drive career development across your organization
Develop your skills in creating career development opportunities and facilitating effective career growth across your entire workforce.
AIHR’s Talent Management & Succession Planning Certificate Program teaches you how to access and nurture the talent your organization needs, modern mobility practices to engage and retain talent, and how to identify and develop potential leaders.
13 best career development tools for employees
Below are 13 career development tools for employees you can consider to boost your workforce’s capabilities, productivity, performance, satisfaction, and retention:
1. AIHR’s career progression framework
A career progression framework details how employees can progress within a particular organization. It describes the organization’s hierarchy by defining job levels and titles, and shows employees the criteria they must meet for career advancement.
AIHR’s free, customizable Career Progression Framework template provides a structure for creating a career progression framework. Giving employees a visual representation of how they can advance professionally makes career development feel more accessible, inspiring them to participate in career development activities.
2. AIHR’s employee development plan
An employee development plan is a formal document that summarizes how an employee can improve their knowledge and skills to perform better in their current role and prepare for future ones. It covers their development goals, the capabilities needed to accomplish them, and the steps they must take to acquire these capabilities.
AIHR’s employee development plan template gives you a starting point for creating a prototype employee development plan. Documenting how employees’ development will be achieved provides structure and accountability for the employee and their supervisor.
3. AIHR’s professional development plan
A professional development plan is a formal guide that helps employees progress at their company. It states their current experience and qualifications, goals, the best type of development for them, and the actions required to achieve their goals. The plan should also correlate with organizational objectives.
You can use AIHR’s professional development plan template to implement professional development plans, encouraging employees to expand their skills and grow within the organization. This will likely lead to improved performance, engagement, and retention.
4. AIHR’s HR career map
A career map is a visual representation of a career journey that consists of a starting point, a final career goal, and what’s required to progress through each stage of reaching that goal. While it’s similar to a career progression chart that generalizes the course of career progress, it differs in that it’s tailored to an individual.
AIHR designed this HR career map as a framework for HR professionals. This career map aims to provide context, clarity, and inspiration for pursuing a career path of growth and advancement in multiple aspects of the HR profession.
5. Chronus
The Chronus platform builds mentorship programs and employee communities. It automates the mentor matching process and creates a centralized hub for enrolling in employee communities, planning events, and participating in them.
The platform helps establish mentoring and community relationships, providing employees with important networking opportunities. This allows them to learn from and be motivated by their peers’ professional ventures and experiences.
6. Fuel50
Fuel50 offers an AI-driven talent marketplace for skills development, planning, and career pathing. It generates skill level descriptions and development actions, and tracks skill library modifications.
Employees can upload their résumés and connect their LinkedIn profiles to find relevant career growth and development opportunities. By matching employee skills development to organizational needs, companies can close skill gaps, drive talent mobility and retention, and improve workforce agility.
7. TalentGuard
TalentGuard is a workforce intelligence and talent management platform that automates HR processes with AI-driven skills and job taxonomies. In doing so, it enhances performance management, succession planning, and talent analytics and reporting.
It also guides employees’ career growth with skills-based learning recommendations and tailored career paths. At the same time, it aids HR in upskilling, career development, and workforce planning efforts to better manage and support employees and keep them in sync with business needs.
8. Mesh
Mesh is an AI-powered talent management platform focused on improving performance by enabling individual growth and development through direction and coaching. Managers can use it to set and track goals for team members, and employees can use it to help them set SMART goals and improve their core capabilities.
Making performance management conversations a timely, organization-wide practice and providing employees with individualized coaching will likely enable more effective and comprehensive talent development.
9. CliftonStrengths
Employees can take CliftonStrengths’ hour-long assessment to discover their strengths, abilities, and growth potential. A personalized report of the assessment results includes descriptions of each individual’s dominant strengths. This allows them to maximize those strengths for career advancement.
When individual employees become more aware of their unique capabilities, they understand more clearly what they have to offer their organization. They can then direct that toward suitable career opportunities.
10. Deel Engage
Deel Engage is an AI-powered suite of career development software that directs career growth, performance, learning and development, and workforce engagement. It automates and integrates talent management processes and data, plans detailed career paths, and manages training programs.
This tool could be particularly useful for streamlining HR processes. Integrating multiple functions increases HR efficiency, as well as your ability to make informed decisions about talent strategies and employee development.
11. MuchSkills
MuchSkills is a skills management and strategic workforce planning solution that provides a variety of useful features. These include skills gap and talent risk analysis, talent insights and workforce reports, employee progress planning, organizational chart generation, and a talent marketplace.
You can use this solution to help you visualize and better manage skills across your organization’s entire workforce. This will help you identify and cultivate employee upskilling and development opportunities.
12. Coursera
Coursera is an online learning institution that partners with hundreds of world-class companies and universities to offer over 10,0000 courses, degrees, and professional certifications for all experience levels. Individuals can enroll directly for these learning opportunities, or companies can register to give their employees access.
Encouraging employees to further their education and professional development shows that an employer recognizes their potential for a future with the organization and is committed to investing in their growth.
13. CoachHub
CoachHub is a digital coaching platform offering individual, collective, executive, and AI-powered coaching opportunities. Its network of over 3,500 certified coaches provides flexible, personalized coaching sessions supported by customized supplemental micro learning content.
Enhancing manager-led performance guidance with neutral third-party input grants employees richer development insight and support. The level of customization and personalization CoachHub offers can further drive this.
How to choose the right career development tools for employees
Selecting and successfully implementing the right career development software and tools for employees at your organization means having a keen awareness of relevant, practical, and strategic factors. Here are some key considerations to guide your decision:
Start with employee feedback
A career development plan for employees is inadequate without employee input. By surveying teams on their career progression interests and what growth support they seek, you can incorporate their needs into your tool selection.
Align tools with business goals
Make use of data from skills assessments and performance reviews to determine skills gaps. Then, match tools with your company’s current and future skills requirements. Platforms that support succession plans can help streamline this.
Assess integration, scalability, and flexibility
Tools that connect with your HRIS or LMS improve process flow and maximize HR data value. Avoid siloed systems that require duplicate input, which adds to the administrative burden. Additionally, prioritize user-friendly, scalable interfaces that can accommodate business and workforce needs without compromising on efficacy.
Prioritize data and analytics features
Tools should have comprehensive analytics that track participation, progress, and outcomes and provide reports. You can rely on this data for evidence-based decisions as you refine your employee career development strategy.
Test with a pilot program
Test shortlisted tools among a small team or group before rolling them out company-wide. Collect feedback from these pilot test groups to inform adjustments to your selections, which you should fine-tune based on their impact and versatility.
To sum up
Access to career development tools and resources empowers employees to be proactive in planning their career trajectory. When they can understand their strengths, identify growth areas, and set relevant objectives, they can envision their own professional growth.
As part of the HR team, your responsibility is to choose optimal career development tools and implement them effectively. This supports a learning and growth mindset culture and helps build a workforce that can strongly impact organizational success.
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