How Lack of Career Development May Be Hurting Your Company

Leaders should be alarmed with the lack of employee engagement. Action is needed now.  

The numbers are in and they’re not good. 

Globally, 85% of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work, according to a Gallup report. That means the vast majority of employees in any given organization would rather be somewhere else doing something else. 

This finding has staggering implications. Research shows a powerful link between employee engagement and critical business success factors, including productivity, profitability, customer loyalty, brand strength, and employee retention. Engaged employees are the engine driving innovation and growth, and when they’re vastly outnumbered, that’s a problem. 

Leaders of a company should be alarmed with this news. Companies, however, can’t seem to get employee engagement right despite the time and money invested in surveys and flavor-of-the-month motivational tools and programs. And that’s the crux of the problem. Sustainable improvement is impossible at the programmatic level; it requires a fundamental shift in the employer-employee relationship and a conscious focus on promoting careers within the organization. 

That’s the focus of the white paper Fulfilling Careers Instead of Filling Jobs: How Successful Companies are Winning the Competition for Talent in the Human Age.  

The paper discusses the critical role that career development plays in employee engagement. In fact, research shows organizations that provide meaningful career development are six times more likely to engage their employees.  

Embedding career development in culture sounds like a monumental, big-ticket undertaking – one that might slow a company down before it speeds it up. It doesn’t have to.   

Meaningful gains can be made in a modular process over time. In fact, the white paper lists more than 10 things to do now to begin integrating career development into hiring strategies, people management practices, and learning opportunities. ManpowerGroup has helped companies large and small take that first step, using a customized blueprint for action that delivers results without draining their internal bandwidth. 

Organizations need to take action – meaningful action – now.