February 27, 2023
by Hanni Malka / February 27, 2023
Employees and HR leaders worldwide now recognize the role of professional development in employee growth and success.
However, ensuring employee success can be challenging without the right tools and time. To prioritize their human resources, many companies have shifted their focus to employee success plans that allow them to build a loyal, engaged, and well-trained workforce.
Employee success plans help companies invest in employee growth and experience while retaining them long-term. Incorporating an employee success plan is essential to keeping employees motivated and happy. But how do you create and integrate one into your business? Let’s find out.
An employee success plan outlines an employee's goals, development plans, and career aspirations. It serves as a roadmap for the employee to achieve their career goals and for the employer to support their professional development.
The plan usually includes specific and measurable goals, a timeline for completion, and steps for tracking progress. It can also outline the resources and support needed from the employer, such as training programs, mentoring opportunities, or other initiatives.
An employee success plan aims to provide clarity and direction for the employee and the employer and support growth and development. It increases employee engagement, job satisfaction, and overall organizational performance by aligning individual and organizational goals.
Employees make up most of your assets. Without them, you can't really develop a product, sell the offerings, build and maintain customer relationships, and keep up with day-to-day business tasks. Essentially, employees are the lifeblood of your company.
Employee success plans show you have a vested interest in employee success. Employees show higher engagement and productivity when they feel valued at the workplace.
A strong employee success plan makes a confident workforce more engaged in daily work. Engaged employees are naturally more productive, fully dedicated to their work, and willing to put in the extra effort to be successful.
In an engaged workforce, employees are more likely to take ownership of their jobs, be proactive in problem-solving, and have a sense of ownership of the company's success. This leads to increased productivity and better-quality work.
In addition, engaged employees tend to have higher job satisfaction and are less likely to leave their jobs. This reduces the costs associated with employee turnover and ensures continuity in the workforce.
One of the key components of an effective employee success plan is providing ample training and career development opportunities.
Employees can improve their skills and knowledge through intensive training and development opportunities, gain new perspectives, and master challenges. This, in turn, leads to greater job satisfaction, increased engagement, and improved performance.
Employee success plans can provide various training and development opportunities, including on-the-job training, classroom training, mentoring programs, and online courses. These opportunities can be tailored to each employee's specific needs and goals to ensure they receive the support and resources they need to reach their full potential.
Besides providing training and development opportunities, a success plan can provide room for growth and advancement. By setting clear goals and objectives, employees can work toward promotions or career changes and continue to improve their skills and knowledge.
If your employees aren't happy, your customers aren't happy. When employees don't like their job, customers notice. Employee success plans nurture and train employees, resulting in a better work environment and customer experience.
By providing opportunities for training, development, and growth, employee success plans help nurture and train employees. This leads to a better work environment and improved customer service.
When employees feel supported and invested, they have a positive attitude about their work, which translates into better interactions with customers.
For example, an employee who has been trained to deal with difficult customers is more likely to face challenging situations with professionalism and patience, resulting in a better customer experience. Besides, passionate employees are more likely to do everything they can to keep their customers happy.
High employee turnover can quickly become a costly problem. Every time you hire a new employee, you invest time and money in training them. This investment is essentially a loss if it only lasts a few months.
Training, education, and other parts of an employee success plan can result in a more loyal workforce. In fact, 94% of workers say they’re more likely to stay in a job long-term when employers invest in quality training and development experiences.
Employees realize how much you care about their success. If you take steps to show them that you have a legitimate interest in their well-being, they will stay with you. That means less employee turnover and a loyal workforce you can trust.
It all boils down to three basic rules that all businesses should remember.
These three rules may seem very basic, and they are. However, if you consider them when running your business, they’ll improve your bottom line.
Here’s how you can implement a meaningful employee success plan.
Get employees' opinions on what success looks like to them. Take the time to talk to your team about the inefficiencies they've found in their jobs and what you can do to make their work more enjoyable and better.
Creating an employee success plan requires carefully assessing the current business situation and understanding where improvements are needed. An effective approach is gathering feedback from employees, customers, and other stakeholders.
Once these areas have been identified, you can incorporate suggestions to make them more efficient. For example, after employees have expressed frustration with outdated technology, you may invest in new software or hardware to streamline processes and improve efficiency.
Or, if employees have expressed concerns about workload, you can look for ways to reallocate tasks or hire additional staff to reduce burnout.
Creating an employee success plan is an ongoing process that requires continuous evaluation and adjustment. Businesses should regularly review their plan and seek feedback to ensure it remains relevant and effective.
Employees can’t achieve goals they don't know exist. So the first step is to set some goals. A good practice is to make the goals challenging enough but not so challenging that your employees can't accomplish them. Finding the right balance is necessary.
Consider setting realistic goals, such as:
Goals should reflect your expectations and aspirations and meet business needs.
When employees don't understand what's expected of them, they struggle to achieve goals. It’s important to communicate your expectations promptly. The entire employee journey should also be documented for both new and tenured employees.
Clarify what you expect from employees in terms of productivity. Your productivity expectations should be reasonable and not discourage employees.
Additionally, document general business rules, like break times, employee fraternization, or various other parts of business operations. Make sure to communicate them clearly
Managing the responsibilities of multiple members is hard. There are various moving parts, and it’s easy to get confused.
When employees understand their roles and responsibilities, they perform with confidence and efficiency. They know what's expected of them and have a clear vision of the goals they need to achieve. Additionally, clear responsibilities reduce the likelihood of overlapping or duplicating work, which can lead to confusion and frustration.
Accountability is also critical to an employee success plan. When individuals and teams are held accountable for their actions, they take ownership of their work and strive to achieve their goals. Accountability practices may include setting performance goals, tracking progress, providing regular feedback, and recognizing and rewarding achievement.
An organization can create a collaborative culture by establishing clear responsibilities and accountability. When everyone knows their roles and is accountable for their performance, the team can function like a well-oiled machine, with each member contributing to the success of the organization as a whole.
“You learn something new every day” is more than just a cliche, especially in a business setting. Creating a learning culture takes time and effort.
Here are a few ways to impart new knowledge and train employees regularly:
Offer employees incentives and rewards for their achievements. Recognition-based rewards recognize employees for their contributions.
Contrary to what you might think, these rewards don't have to cost you money. They can even be free. Recognizing an employee for the week or simply showing appreciation for a job well done will surely put a smile on their faces.
To incentivize success, you can use:
These are just a few ways to inspire employees.
As you create plans for success, reassure employees that you care about their growth and needs. But, most of all, deliver on your promises.
Creating an employee success plan can be daunting, but it's important to remember that no plan is perfect. There may be areas that need improvement or adjustments over time.
Even with thorough research and careful consideration, unexpected challenges or unforeseen circumstances can still exist. It's essential to continuously monitor your plan's progress and make necessary changes.
One way to measure performance is to identify key outcomes you want to achieve from implementing your plan. The most significant results can include, for example, increasing employee engagement, improving productivity, or reducing turnover rates.
Once you've identified key outcomes, determine how you will measure them. This could include collecting data through employee surveys, tracking productivity metrics, or analyzing turnover rates. By regularly measuring your key results, you can gain insight into how well your employee success plan performs and identify improvement areas.
Use the information you've gained from measuring your program's performance to identify and fix inefficiencies. Keep the process continuous and roll out the changes to your team timely.
Remember that changes take time to integrate into daily activities. Your team may have many questions. So make yourself available to answer their questions and help them transition to new processes.
You can do each of these separately, but creating a cohesive plan will help chart the path for your people's future success. An action plan is a roadmap to ensure each step of your employee success plan is followed.
Ready to build a thriving company culture that drives success? Check out some actionable tips on creating a positive and productive company culture that empowers your team and drives your business forward.
Hanni Malka is the VP of Human Resources at Juno Journey. She's a highly experienced People and Organizational Transformation leader with extensive experience in change management and implementation and creating a company culture with the best business strategies.
As a sales leader, driving sales performance is a daily concern.
by Boris Mustapic
Performance reviews should be short or sweet, just like this article (I promise).
by Rob de Luca
Sales tools are the lifeblood of any efficient sales process.
by Gal Deitsch
As a sales leader, driving sales performance is a daily concern.
by Boris Mustapic
Performance reviews should be short or sweet, just like this article (I promise).
by Rob de Luca