Onsite Career Development Coaching: Options for Every Business

Investing in full-time professional career development coaching isn’t feasible for all employees or companies. However, businesses can build systems and frameworks to create an internal, onsite career coaching and mentoring program. When employees take agency over their career trajectories, everyone in an organization experiences the benefits.

Although most individuals actively seek to further their careers, employees usually only have a vague idea of what success looks like. Furthermore, they typically don’t plan out a path of attainable goals or executable actions to reach their desired position or salary. This lack of planning is a leading contributor to disengagement and occupational burnout.

Who should be the coach?

Whether self-monitored, led by mentors, or crafted by a third-party professional, career plans for all employees benefit both the individual and the company. For employee-monitored coaching, learning how to self-manage a career teaches them to learn from others, recognize opportunities, and become adaptable to rapid changes. These transferable skills are highly marketable in all sectors of the business world and can benefit any organization. 

Some organizations may choose to pair senior employees with juniors to create career mentorship programs. Others might not know how to begin their career coaching program and could get a boost from professional career coaching whether onsite or online.

Employees (self-managed)

Employee-led career development is possibly the most viable option for most businesses because they won’t have to pay someone to mentor their employees. When employees start managing their career trajectories, they learn to improve their critical thinking, nurture interpersonal relationships, and balance their ambitions with their life goals. Additionally, when a career coaching program takes advantage of a mentorship system, the employee can gain new perspectives on management and work styles. The increased sense of agency gained by self-monitored career progression can also grow confidence, drive innovative thinking, and improve quality of life.

Onsite career coach (internal mentorship programs)

Another form of onsite coaching is to have a dedicated person or senior mentoring their juniors. Monthly or quarterly meetings are arranged so that mentors can set aside time to help set career objectives and give insights on how to elevate productivity. Mentees get valuable knowledge from senior employees with similar past experiences. Mentors for career development also gain experience in helping employees become career coaches — when the employee succeeds, so does the mentor. Also, leaders within an organization acting as mentors can learn through teaching and providing helpful advice to their juniors. Even more so, mentors gain valuable insights into the current company culture and can use said knowledge to improve or build upon it. 

Enterprise-led coaching (third-party)

In-person or online career coaching services provided by professionals bring decades of experience along with custom programs to get your teams up to speed. By outsourcing career development services, employees are more engaged on the job because they don’t have to find a clear-cut path toward career development on their own. Workers also waste less time due to burnout from pursuing unattainable or dead-end career paths. Moreover, companies that invest in third-party onsite career coaching often have a higher talent retention rate when compared to businesses without. 

The case for self-managed career development

Now that we’ve covered methods for coaching employees, let’s talk about why self-managed career coaching is gaining popularity. Historically, corporations were responsible for planning an employee’s career success. Currently, it’s more sensible to place that responsibility on the individual rather than the company. A few reasons why employees should become their own onsite career coach include:

• A lack of organizational resources – an organization might not be strategically positioned to hire a professional career coach. Sometimes money is best invested elsewhere to move a company forward.

• The job turnover rate is rising – younger generations switch careers at an unprecedentedly high rate. This comfort in changing jobs has obscured the image of the lifelong employee and diminished the value of an unrequited investment in an employee’s career development.

• Restructuring and downsizing – due to rapid technological advancements, jobs and skill sets applicable a decade ago may not be relevant today. For this reason, organizations dissolve departments and positions, and outplacement becomes essential over career coaching.

How employees can start self-coaching

Contract experts in career coaching to come onsite or meet virtually with individuals and advise them in constructing a tailored, self-managed career plan. We recommend starting with lower-level departments if you’re unsure where to begin implementing your career coaching framework. Once the plan is in place, it can help eliminate knowledge gaps on the journey between an employee’s current occupation and their goals. Business leaders and owners can have employees take a few simple steps to expedite developing career decisions, such as:

• Discover passions and motivations – rediscovering lost passions and motivators can increase employee engagement — this is also useful to see if employee passions align with company values or goals.

• Look to past experiences – have employees review their past work experience and note where they succeeded and what they could have done differently — this can help create a game plan for targeting weak points and creating stronger leaders.

• Set job satisfaction criteria – how an employee retains an interest in an occupation is extremely important. Why a job is enriching and what makes it worthwhile extends beyond a paycheck — employees should write down what occupational benefits they enjoy and how to expand upon those experiences.

• List occupational options – think about the current state of affairs and the ideal state of affairs. Have employees envision their desired promotions or occupations within or outside of the organization and rate them on attainability.
• Create an action priority matrix – create a list of goals and objectives designed to get the employee from their current position to their desired occupation. Then, organize those goals into four categories: quick wins, filler (recurring) tasks, long-term projects, and high-effort, low-impact goals. This will help to organize objectives and finalize an actionable timeline for career development.

Looking for expert career management services?

Self-managed career development can be tedious not only for employees but also for management teams monitoring the program’s progress. Outsourcing the brunt of this workload to professionals in the field and getting customized frameworks unique to your business can save valuable time for everyone involved. Keystone Partners has decades of experience helping businesses find tailored solutions to everyday HR and management issues. Starting an onsite self-coaching program is a great first step toward reaching your business goals. However, professional career management services can help take your career development coaching to the next level. Contact us today and start developing your leaders and helping your teams discover new levels of efficiency and engagement.

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