Almost 12 years ago to the day, I began my MA in Career Development and Coaching. I was fascinated by how leaders shape their careers, and that curiosity has guided my work ever since, from creating and delivering leadership and career development programmes, to coaching senior leaders across the world.
Organisations that get career development right see higher engagement, retention, and profitability. The data speaks for itself*:
- Organisations with a high-development culture are twice as likely to retain employees and see 11% greater profitability (Gallup).
- Embedding a skills-based approach makes organisations 63% more likely to achieve results (Deloitte).
- Career coaching can drive a 77% increase in loyalty (LHH).
So why do so many organisations still struggle?
When Career Development Goes Wrong
Often organisations believe they’re supporting career growth, but in reality, they’re creating frustration and stagnation. Too often, there’s an overemphasis on short-term succession rather than sustainable development. For example, by ‘forcing’ everyone through the same career pathway instead of exploring individual strengths, or by promoting functional experts into leadership roles without the preparation, or in some cases, even the desire to lead.
The result? A decline in engagement, morale, productivity, and ultimately, trust.
So what does work?
3 Principles for Great Career Development in Organisations
1. Help leaders hold better career conversations. We hear it so often from both leaders and employees. Those last-minute rushed career conversations after a performance review often feel more like a tick-box exercise rather than genuine development. However, when leaders are equipped with the right skills AND create space for genuine career conversations, rather than adding them to the end of a performance review, the impact is huge.
Simple coaching questions can encourage rich career conversations:
- What are your top three values at work, and how do they show up day to day? Helps uncover what truly matters to someone and what drives satisfaction and engagement.
- Tell me about a project or piece of work you’ve loved, what made it so energising or fulfilling for you? Reveals strengths, motivators, and their conditions for high performance.
- Looking ahead, what kind of role, project, or function are you curious to explore next, and what’s drawing you to it? Opens space for aspiration, future growth and exploring development opportunities.
These conversations don’t just guide careers, they support engagement overall. At least 8 out of the 12 Gallup engagement indicators** can be directly influenced by effective career development conversations.
2. Equip Employees with Career Ownership Skills. The future of career development isn’t about job titles, it’s about skills. Every employee should be supported to build what we would call “Critical Career Management Skills” These include:
- Growth mindset– continuous learning, , actively seeking out feedback to develop
- Career action & accountability – proactive approach to development with a career action plan
- Wellbeing & resilience – balancing ambition with self-care, and how to navigate through adversity
- Networking & relationship building – getting the most out of mentors and peer support
- Agility & adaptability – learning new skills, adapt and pivot with organisational change
- Future-fit career strategy – strategic approach to exploring purpose, key trends internally and externally and how ‘fit’ you are to be ready for them.
When people own their careers,they stop waiting for permission and start driving progress themselves. This also supports individuals to move from a ‘roles based mindset’ to a ‘skills based mindset’
- Role-based = fixed ladders, siloed development, organisation-owned careers.
- Skills-based = transferable capabilities, flexible career paths, individual ownership, greater agility and inclusivity.
Organisations that embrace skills-based frameworks create more opportunity, attract top talent, and retain their best people.
3. Build a solid Career Development Framework. When career development is underpinned by a clear framework, it builds trust, clarity, and real momentum. The most effective frameworks I’ve seen share a few essentials:
- Firstly any framework needs to link to the organisational goals, needs, values and culture.
- It needs to have defined role levels/behaviour led competency criteria however this needs to have an element of flexibility rather than be too rigid.
- Career development skills training with a coaching approach is a critical element of the framework
- The framework is co-created with employees, there’s a strong communication plan endorsed by senior leaders and most importantly it’s reviewed and evolves over time.
In summary, career development must be woven into the fabric of your culture, not bolted on as a separate ‘tick-box’ process.
If you need more support with career development in your organisation, we can certainly help with this email me at steph@lifesworkconsulting.com and there are also many other great resources for support (see links below).
Final Thought, Career development is not about climbing a ladder, it’s about building skills, resilience, and opportunities that serve both the individual and the organisation. When you design it well, it transforms not just careers, but engagement, retention, and business results.
It’s the kind of transformation that sits at the heart of our work at www.lifesworkconsulting.com
*Sources and additional support
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/269405/high-performance-workplaces-differently.aspx
https://www.lhh.com/en-gb/insights/35000-reasons-to-keep-your-best-people
https://learning.linkedin.com/resources/workplace-learning-report
**https://www.gallup.com/q12-employee-engagement-survey/
https://www.amazingif.com/squiggly-careers-company-toolkit/
https://www.antoinetteoglethorpe.com/resources/confident-career-conversations/