This article is part of a 4-part series on aligning employee career growth opportunities with organizational talent priorities. Check out the other articles here.
No company can get top talent by pure chance or with minimal effort. Filling vital roles with skilled professionals demands a disciplined approach and connecting talent priorities with business needs and career growth is a challenge most CEOs struggle to tackle. Leaders often overlook some of the most important roles and forget to track them and understand how they generate profit and what affects their progress.
For instance, CEOs tend to disregard account managers for crucial customers because this position is not always evident in the organizational chart. Yet, that is among the most responsible functions, with an unyielding impact on future growth and business performance. Companies tend to neglect vital positions due to a lack of visibility and professional opportunities. In most cases, companies lack adequate tools to track all their positions, as well as effective succession planning and career growth programs.
But leaders must pay equal attention to all functions and ensure their talent priorities match available career growth opportunities for employees. Even the least prominent positions generate value and require dedication and chances for progress.
Companies tend to center career growth opportunities around their business goals and current trends. For instance, talent shortages were rampant in the past year, forcing employers to shift their talent priorities and invest in internal mobility. Investing in employees’ career growth and making it a talent priority is among the best ways to drive business objectives and ensure a talent pool of skilled people for critical roles.
Organizational talent priorities boost business success and performance and maximize employees’ potential and output. Talent priorities include various goals, such as implementing a thorough succession plan, increasing engagement, enhancing employees’ technology skills or reinforcing L&D initiatives.
If you leverage technology to connect and drive your talent priorities and career growth, you can unlock significant potential for your company. After all, a company is only as good as its workers, as it needs them to drive the strategic goals. Technology can help talent developers and employers blend talent priorities and career growth to make the most of their workforce’s potential and help them generate business value.
The role of technology in career growth and organizational talent priorities
Technology has been evolving increasingly fast, especially in the past three years. The world became more dependent on technology during the pandemic; 90 percent of the world’s data was generated within the past two years alone.
Companies implemented advanced AI-powered technology to address their workforce’s increased need for learning and development and track their progress and possibilities. That led to using more tech tools and platforms in employee training, L&D and identifying organizational needs and goals. Various tech platforms, tools and apps can help drive a growth-oriented culture, better assess employees’ skills and enable advanced L&D programs.
But how exactly can you use technology to tap into your workforce’s potential, augment their abilities, and ensure they have the necessary skills and mindset to help you meet organizational talent and business goals and needs?The following will help you connect your company’s career growth opportunities with talent priorities.
1. Harness data in AI-driven platforms to inform your career growth strategy and organizational talent priorities
Today’s AI-powered platforms can help you take workforce management and development to a higher level by compiling and assessing large chunks of data. Depending on the tool or software, you can set filters and identify what aspects you want to track, such as candidate sourcing, onboarding or employees’ skills development.
Harness data in adequate tech platforms to gain insights into how your workforce is performing, where their skill gaps lie, and where they have the potential to generate the most value. For instance, you may discover your marketing department is keen on using modern apps to drive engagement but requires training to learn to use the latest systems.
You can gain invaluable information to help you decide your future career growth strategies and organizational talent priorities, ensuring their effectiveness and long-term positive impact.
2. Leverage intuitive assessment tools to tap into employees’ skill gaps and strengths
Drive better-informed talent development decisions and point your strategies and initiatives in the right direction with AI intuitive assessment tools. These will help you intuitively track and understand your employees’ interests and skills, their potential and what you can do to ensure they adopt the right skills and knowledge.
You will understand whether you’ve neglected a specific function and the value they create and if they need an additional push or training to use the maximum of its capabilities. As a result, you can improve the outcomes of your company’s career growth opportunities, ensure they align with organizational talent priorities, and that they contribute to a high-performing workplace.
3. Use advanced video platforms to enable online training and career development
The insights about your workforce’s potential and skills gained from AI-powered platforms should help you create relevant and effective employee training and career development opportunities. But you can also rely on technology to enable these programs and ensure every employee can participate, regardless of their function and tenure.
Advanced video platforms are excellent for rolling out employee training and making it more accessible. Combine it with in-person sessions to maximize effectiveness and allow everyone to choose how to learn and adopt new skills.
4. Leverage VR/AR to visualize career growth opportunities for employees
Although investment in VR/AR technology is a significant step, it can benefit your company in multiple ways: increase your innovation, profitability, productiveness and provide more flexible and realistic environments for employees to learn. These technologies can help you visualize potential career growth opportunities and how each employee would perform.
That increases the odds of positive outcomes for your efforts, as you’ll have a clearer view of how each strategy and program would play out in real life. But career growth opportunities in VR and AR also help employees practice their skills and try on-the-job tasks in a safe, controlled space.
5. Leverage tech to accommodate and present the best employee career growth opportunities
Not every employee is interested in or aware of their career growth opportunities within a company. But companies can leverage tech to present available learning options, raise awareness and spark their employees’ interest in participating.
They can also use these platforms to accommodate different forms of career growth programs, such as online upskilling, that can help people get a promotion and move to a role with higher responsibilities. Besides, leaders and managers can use tech tools to improve succession planning and involve employees in the process.
Aligning organizational talent priorities and career growth development has a beneficial impact on workforce performance and its ability to reach its full potential and drive business goals and targets. Even though that’s a demanding process, technology can help you carry out initiatives, strategies and programs that tie your talent priorities and career growth opportunities, resulting in more effective outcomes.
