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Developing Entry-Level Talent: How to Invest for Success

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Imagine you’re a hard-working entry-level employee who’s been in your current position for less than a year. Your skills are solid, but they don’t help you stand out from other entry-level talent. You know which skills could help you advance, but you’re not sure what resources are available to you or how to get support for a growth plan. You don’t see a pathway to expand your skill set. You just feel stuck.

Sadly, this isn’t unusual. But scenarios like this can have serious consequences for employee morale, mobility, and retention across an organization. For example research says:

It’s no surprise that people look elsewhere when they believe their skills aren’t seen, valued, and nurtured. But this doesn’t need to happen. As an employer, you can avoid losing entry-level employees by investing more effectively in their future with your organization.

Where Employee Development Fits In

A comprehensive professional development program is one way to demonstrate your commitment. Upskilling, reskilling, cross-training and continuous learning practices help employees keep existing skills fresh, develop new capabilities, and expand their career potential over time.

Future-minded employers know that developing entry-level talent is not just good for employee engagement and morale. It’s also a smart business strategy because it builds “bench depth.” By encouraging employees to embrace new responsibilities and growth opportunities, you can create a more diverse internal talent pipeline that will adapt with you as your business needs change.

A commitment to developing entry-level talent also sends a powerful message from the highest levels of your organization. It tells people that every member of your workforce is important, and you’re invested in their future success.

What’s at Stake for Employers

Organizations that invest in entry-level talent realize significant benefits:

1. Higher ROI

When you’re facing workforce skill gaps, recruiting qualified talent may seem like a faster, cheaper, easier solution than employee development. But this is a short-sighted approach that doesn’t necessarily lead to a stronger team. Bringing in new talent requires multiple costly, time-consuming steps, from recruiting to interviewing to hiring. And there’s no guarantee new hires will onboard successfully and become committed contributors.

Why bet on an uncertain outcome, when you already have a team in place that you’ve worked so hard to recruit and onboard? If you spend the same amount of time and money helping existing employees grow, you’re more likely to achieve a higher return on investment.

2. Less Brain Drain

The value of institutional knowledge is also important to consider. The lower your commitment to development, the higher your turnover rate is likely to be. And as employees leave, they’ll take away “insider” intelligence about how your organization gets things done. For example, you’ll lose insight into strategies, tactics and processes that worked, as well as those that didn’t. This kind of information can make or break operational efficiency, effectiveness, cohesion, and more.

By developing entry-level talent, you can equip employees with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in your environment. Along the way, you’ll build and reinforce institutional knowledge, rather than eroding it as disenchanted employees leave.

3. Stronger Employee Value Proposition

We know people are drawn to employers that emphasize continuous professional development and growth. If your loyal workforce sees you turning to new hires instead of investing in existing employees, what should you expect to happen? Morale will sink, the desire for professional growth will vanish, and skills will stagnate. Eventually, employees will look for growth opportunities outside your organization.

Instead, why not reinvigorate your team through learning? Focus on reskilling, upskilling, and cross-skilling. It’s a more sustainable way to strengthen employee satisfaction, commitment, retention, and performance. To get started with a successful entry-level employee development program, consider these five steps:

5 Ways to Develop Entry-Level Talent

1. Establish a Reasonable Budget

Start by defining the key elements of your employee growth plan. Identify the professional development topics and skills your program should address. Any development model will involve both direct and indirect costs, and these should align with market value.

However, expenses aren’t the only consideration. You’ll also want to estimate the value of potential benefits. For example, you may choose to establish a mentorship program that pairs new hires with veteran employees. This is a relatively low-cost way to support a culture of learning, but it can lead to significant tangible results.

2. Provide Time and Resources for Employee Participation

Simply put, employees need dedicated time and support to engage in professional development. Allocate a specific number of days for this purpose — perhaps even paid time away from the office, if possible.

A little workplace flexibility goes a long way in helping talent feel valued, and giving employees choice in managing their schedules encourages accountability and self-regulation.

3. Tap Into the Power of Work Relationships

Ask entry-level employees what kind of development support they feel would be helpful. Then ask managers to co-create a roadmap with their direct reports, based on the knowledge and skills they want to develop.

Managers are likely to know how to leverage connections among team members so they can learn from one another. Research shows that these relationships matter. For example, McKinsey found that 91% of people supported by mentors are satisfied with their jobs. In addition, cohort-based learning enhances workplace communication, overall.

4. Include Team-Building Opportunities

Besides mentorship programs, consider other ways for entry-level employees to learn from teammates. Cross-departmental collaboration, for example, is an underused resource. When employees work with others and learn from one another, they can sharpen both interpersonal and job-related skills. They’re also more likely to understand the company’s inner workings and see the value in individual workplace roles.

5. Showcase Progress

For any program that demands time and energy, employees and employers alike want to see results. To reinforce the benefits of participation, plan to demonstrate how development efforts lead to professional growth, improved performance, and team success. For instance, one study of U.K. reskilling programs resulted in positive economic returns and improved morale. These are the kind of concrete results everyone appreciates.

Summary

These suggestions are intended as launching points to help you make the most of your investment in entry-level talent. With these development factors as a framework, your learning programs can make a measurable and lasting difference in workplace communication, productivity and innovation. Most importantly, this kind of investment can help you build a stronger team that will be invigorated and inspired to move forward together. Everybody wins.

Employee Development: 5 Flexible Approaches That Work

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Over the last three years, flexible and agile work models have been at the forefront of workplace disruption. Emboldened by work-from-home standards enforced during the pandemic, companies across numerous industries stopped requiring employees to be present at the office everyday. Now, many of these organizations are enjoying improved productivity and performance. But how does employee development fit into these new work scenarios?

Recognizing it’s time for large-scale change, more business leaders are willing to try new work methods, tools and solutions. With agility and flexibility at the heart of this ongoing workplace transformation, an increasing number of firms are now turning to flexible development strategies, so they can help members of their workforce realize their full potential.

With widespread talent shortages still posing recruitment obstacles, personal and professional development has become a strategic priority. But organizations that embed flexibility and adaptability into their development process will fare better at retaining people and equipping them for the future.

The Case for Flexible Development

Flexible employee development makes it possible to combine diverse learning methods that meet individual and organizational needs. This is gaining traction for several reasons:

1. More organizations are embracing inclusion as a core value. As a result, respect for individual needs and preferences is being reflected in business practices of all types. For development, this translates into personalized training and resources that accommodate diverse learning habits, skill requirements, and professional interests.

2. Key characteristics of the Industry 4.0 era include broader skill gaps, increasing automation, shifting workforce demographics, hybrid jobs and the rise of non-linear careers. A one-size-fits-all approach to employee development doesn’t address these factors.

Indeed, within modern work environments, rigid development paths are counterintuitive. They leave people feeling bored, disengaged, and ultimately excluded. In contrast, flexible learning options are the most effective way to enhance the value of every employee.

Ideas for Implementing Flexible Development

Over the last 12 months, we have been watching the various ways companies in different sectors are implementing flexible employee development, as well as its impact on talent acquisition, retention, and performance. Below are several noteworthy examples:

1. Design an EVP for Every Discipline

It’s easy to find companies that rely on a generic Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to recruit and retain top talent. But smart employers know this isn’t sufficient. Instead, define compelling career pathways and clearly communicate how employees actually grow and progress within your organization. Also, keep in mind that employee motivations often vary across different professional disciplines.

This was the strategy of Atom Bank – the UK’s first digital bank – during its campaign to hire more senior engineers to deliver core services. In the highly competitive tech talent market, a unique EVP enabled the business to stand out from the crowd and attract highly qualified people.

2. Build Depth Across Functional Roles

The ideal way to expand anyone’s capabilities is to challenge them to complete tasks and projects outside of their standard responsibilities. The objectives are twofold:

  • Offer experiences that help individuals add desired skills that align with their career aspirations.
  • Fill organizational talent gaps and ensure operational continuity.

In the beverage manufacturing industry, for example, Coca-Cola identified an HR staff member’s interest in manufacturing operations and created a hybrid HR/plant management role in response. The outcome was so successful, it became a catalyst for broader implementation. The company began moving more employees into different roles and establishing lines of progression for other career opportunities across the local business unit.

3. Offer Job Rotations and Stretch Assignments

Employees in similar functional areas can learn new skills by rotating jobs and tasks. This method is popular in food manufacturing. For instance, at Nomad Foods, plant managers encourage production workers to gain engineering skills so they can perform basic machine maintenance. Nomad says it not only helps people build new skills, but also improves cross-functional teamwork.

At more senior levels, stretch assignments are a highly effective way to help employees push the boundaries of their current role, so they can improve and expand their professional skills and become better prepared for next steps. In the tech industry, for example, organizations are challenging developers to step out of their comfort zone and take on project management and other client-facing responsibilities.

4. Support Academic Learning

Often, employers lose strong talent when younger workers resign to continue academic studies on a full-time basis. Employers are responding with a variety of attractive alternatives. For instance, some companies pay educational expenses for people who remain onboard. They may also reduce an employee’s work hours. And some employers are offering these options even if people are seeking qualifications that don’t directly relate to their current role.

Here’s how this is working at consumer goods retailer, Iceland. A recent job share arrangement made it possible for two staff members to work reduced hours, so one could return from maternity leave and another could continue university studies. Building flexibility like this into the employee experience demonstrates a serious commitment to employee wellbeing and ongoing development.

5. Emphasize Shared Leadership and Mutual Accountability

Shared leadership and accountability can help different divisions work together more effectively. With this approach, organizations assign common objectives to separate functions or business units, and then measure their collective impact. This enables division heads to gain important skills, knowledge, and experiences that help them become more agile leaders.

Nomad Foods firmly believes in encouraging different division heads to work together, while giving them flexibility in how they achieve mutual objectives. According to Nomad, expanding a leader’s influence in this way tends to drive employees’ overall willingness to take ownership and accountability for outcomes.

Conclusion

These examples are only some of the ways organizations are successfully introducing more flexibility into their employee development strategies. If you’re just starting to implement these methods, first try a limited test case or pilot program and evaluate its impact before committing to wide-scale change.

Regardless, it’s important to recognize that organizations are moving aggressively in this direction. So, the sooner you can identify flexible alternatives that will enhance your classic development offerings, the better.