Episode 864 - Career development is becoming part of the retention strategy

0:04 Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of performance through strong human relations, team building, and goal achieving. This is the 7-Minute Leadership Podcast with your host, Paul Falavolito.

0:22 Hello, everyone, and welcome to the 7-Minute Leadership Podcast. It's episode 864. There's a question your employees are asking that probably isn't showing up on your employee engagement survey. They may not ask it during their performance review. They may never bring it up in a staff meeting. They might not even ask you directly. But eventually, almost every ambitious employee looks around their workplace and wonders, if I stay here, where can I go? And your answer to that question may have more to do with retention than you realize.

1:00 We spend a lot of time talking about employee retention, pay more, improve benefits, fix the schedule, offer incentives, improve the workplace. And all of those things matter, but there is another piece of retention that I think is becoming much more important, and that's career development. The hospitality industry is giving us a great example of this right now.

1:26 The American Hotel and Lodging Association has been promoting an initiative called A Place to Start, A Place to Grow. Think about the language there. A place to start, a place to grow. That second sentence changes the entire employment conversation. There are more than 2.2 million people working in hotels across the United States and And the industry is increasingly trying to communicate that hospitality can be more than a temporary job. It can be a career pathway. Radisson Hotel Group is sending a similar message through its 2026 Career Fest with a focus on career mobility, learning, leadership, AI, and careers that don't necessarily follow the traditional straight line up an organizational chart. And I find this interesting because

2:23 I worked in hospitality earlier in my career, and hospitality has always had something special going for it. You could start somewhere relatively low in an organization and learn the business from the inside. You could learn customer service. You could learn operations. You could learn how to deal with difficult situations. You could eventually supervise people. run departments, manage properties, or move into an entirely different part of the organization.

2:54 The lesson here goes far beyond hotels. Every leader listening to this episode should ask themselves a question. Can my employees see a future here? Because telling somebody there are opportunities for advancement is corporate jargon. Show me. If I'm one of your employees today, where could I realistically be two years from now? What position could I move into?

3:21 What skills would I need? Who is going to teach me? What experiences do I need before I'm ready? And this leads to what I believe could become one of the most powerful retention conversations a manager can have with an employee. Imagine sitting down with somebody on your team and saying, Here's where I think you could be two years from now, and here's what I need to teach you to get there.

3:46 That conversation changes things. Now the employee has a destination. They can begin connecting today's work with tomorrow's opportunity. That boring assignment may suddenly have a purpose. That training class may mean something. Taking on additional responsibility makes more sense when they understand that where it could lead. And their current job starts becoming part of a bigger story. This is where leaders need to understand something important. Career development does not always mean promotion. That old model is becoming less relevant in many workplaces. You get hired, then you become a supervisor, then a manager, then a director, then maybe an executive. It's a nice, clean ladder to climb.

4:36 Real careers... are often messier than that. Somebody might move sideways before moving up. An employee may become a trainer without becoming a supervisor. They might become a subject matter expert. They may move into technology, quietly improve their education, operations, compliance, sales, customer experience, or another specialty they didn't even know existed when they were hired. That is why career development needs to become a leadership responsibility. You need to know your people well enough to see possibilities they may not see yet.

5:17 I've talked before in this podcast about spotting your next leader and sponsoring rising stars. I've talked about rotating leadership opportunities because growth sometimes happens when we put somebody in a different seat. Career development connects all of those ideas. Sometimes the employee standing in front of you has no idea what they could become. You might see it before they do. That's one of the greatest privileges of leadership.

5:47 You get to look at somebody earlier in their career and say, I see something in you. Then you have a responsibility to back those words up, give them opportunities, teach them what you know, let them sit in on something They normally wouldn't see. Explain how decisions get made. Let them take responsibility for a project. Help them understand the business beyond their current job description. And when they make a mistake during that development process, coach them through it.

6:18 Because if you keep talented people trapped inside the boundaries of their current job, eventually somebody else is going to offer them a bigger future. That's the retention problem. We sometimes act surprised. When good employees leave, then we conduct an exit interview and discover they accepted another job with more opportunity, and everybody says, I wish we would have known.

6:43 Maybe we should have asked sooner, what do you want to do next? That question should happen long before somebody gives notice, and leaders need to be careful about another mistake here. Do not assume every employee wants your job. Some don't. They may want more responsibility without managing people.

7:02 They may want additional education. They may want a specialty role. They may want a schedule that allows them to pursue something else. Career development starts with understanding what the employee considers development. This is also why your frontline manager matters so much. Career development cannot live exclusively inside HR. HR can build programs. Your organization can create tuition assistance, leadership academies, mentorship programs, internal job postings, and even career maps. But somebody still has to look an employee in the eye and have the conversation. And that somebody is usually their immediate leader. So I want you to try something here.

7:55 Pick one employee, not your entire workforce, just one person. Think about where that person is today. Now ask yourself, where could this person realistically be in two years? And then ask the harder question, what am I doing to prepare them? Because seeing potential is easy. Developing potential requires effort.

8:20 Maybe they need to improve their communication skills. Maybe They need exposure to another part of the organization. Maybe they need to lead a small project first. Maybe they need you to explain the financial side of the business. Maybe they need somebody to tell them what they're doing well and what is holding them back. Whatever the answer is, give them something they can work toward. Retention gets easier when employees can see a future inside your organization. And I want leaders to really think about that sentence. People don't always leave because they hate where they are. Sometimes they leave because they cannot see where they are going, and there's a huge difference. An employee can like their co-workers,

9:06 respect their manager, enjoy the work, and still leave because another organization showed them a path forward. That means your competition for talent isn't always offering more money. Sometimes they're offering a future. And if you want good people to stay, You have to make that future visible. Talk about internal opportunities.

9:28 Introduce employees to different parts of the organization. Explain what advancement actually requires. Stop hiding career information inside job postings that people only see after they decided to leave. Development should begin while people are still excited to stay. So sometime this week, find one person on your team with potential and have the conversation. Ask them where they want to go. Tell them where you think they could go.

10:07 Then answer the leadership question that matters the most. What am I doing to prepare them? Because your best retention strategy might be helping people realize they don't have to leave your organization. to find their next opportunity. This has been the 7-Minute Leadership Podcast, and I thank you for listening.

10:30 For more Paul Falivalito podcasts, visit paulfalivalito.com.