How Career Pathing Impacts Employee Retention: 3 Tips

Nonprofits and small businesses always strive to do more with less, and it’s easy to get stressed when you have to replace a valued team member. Retention is essential at organizations of any size, and it’s especially impactful at small businesses and nonprofits that only have a handful of employees. 

Of course, small organizations often doubt they have the resources to maintain employees long-term. Fortunately, there is a wide range of retention strategies you can enact, regardless of your budget. For instance, your organization can offer clear advancement pathways. 

Employees who feel they’re advancing in their careers are more likely to stick with your organization long-term. In this guide, we’ll explore three tips for creating and helping employees follow career development paths. 

1. Have open conversations about advancement. 

To help employees take advantage of advancement opportunities, ensure they are aware of them. Have transparent, open conversations about your development pathways, and work with employees to make personal advancement plans. 

For example, you might make discussions about employees’ futures at your organization a part of your routine performance evaluation. Ask employees what roles they could see themselves moving into or how they might like to evolve their current position. Then, at your next performance evaluation, check in with them about progress they’ve made toward their goal. 

This is also an opportunity to have frank conversations about compensation changes associated with advancement. Discuss with employees how their salary, bonuses, and benefits will change to correspond with new responsibilities and expectations. 

Additionally, ensure you have these conversations with all of your employees. If you have remote or hybrid workers, make a deliberate effort to check in with them and set up advancement plans you can observe even without them coming into work physically. 

2. Provide advancement resources. 

When helping employees set development goals, offer resources that will help them upskill and gain the experience they need to advance their careers. Astron Solutions’ guide to employee recruitment and retention shares a few ways organizations can support employee growth: 

• Host training seminars. Provide in-office opportunities for employees to develop skills they might not otherwise get the chance to improve in their day-to-day work. For example, you might bring in an external consultant to host a training session or ask a senior member of your team to create a presentation about how they accomplish some of their more complex responsibilities. 

• Invest in online training courses. When it comes to modern skills development, many employees look toward the internet for training and professional advice. Research and invest in online courses, webinars, and guides that provide employees with the specific skills they need to advance. 

• Attend industry conferences. Conferences are an opportunity for employees to talk with other professionals in their industry, allowing them to make connections, gain a broader perspective, and get updated on industry trends. Find opportunities to help your team members attend conferences, such as purchasing group tickets or helping cover travel expenses. 

Along with helping employees prepare for the next step in their careers, training resources can also engage employees. Employees will look for opportunities to apply their new skills and knowledge to their current work, encouraging them to take a greater investment in their day-to-day responsibilities. 

3. Create clear pathing structures.

Some organizations have career pathway development built into their training processes. Structured pathways can help organizations intending to scale up, train, and manage numerous employees at one time. 

For example, some organizations have job rotation programs. This initiative involves employees trying out a number of different roles for a short period of time. For instance, at a nonprofit, an employee might cycle between marketing, fundraising, and mission-related activities teams. 

Job rotation is especially effective at retaining new employees, as it allows these team members to see all parts of your organization and decide which departments most interest them. Plus, job rotation helps employees build a number of skills, allowing them to move between departments or lay the foundation for future advancement. Changing up employee responsibilities can prevent burnout and make their work more engaging. 

For employees to stick with your organization, they need to see a potential future with you. By offering career development paths, you can engage employees and keep them invested in your organization long-term. Be sure to update job descriptions as employees’ roles change, maintain transparency about job advancement opportunities, and encourage employees to take an active role in mapping out their career development.