Page 160 - Successful Onboarding

Personal Progress and Prospect: Early Career Support • 147

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rise. A 2008 survey of more than 200 US employers found that almost half
“provide training to improve new entrants’ workforce readiness.” Yet these
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firms primarily offered job-specific and readiness training, spending less
than 20% of training budgets on career development. Among those firms
that didn’t offer workforce training, spending on career development ran a
bit higher—about a third of the learning budget.
To the extent companies across industries have invested in career devel-
opment, they have introduced a number of useful tools and techniques,
including formal and informal mentoring, career paths, career develop-
ment planning, goal setting, performance feedback, and formal sponsor-
ship within an organization. Yet these tools remain greatly underutilized for
new hires. Companies offer them only sporadically and do not integrate
them within formal onboarding programs. As a result, new hires still strug-
gle to understand what they should do to build their careers, whether
inside or outside the firm. Companies, meanwhile, fail to claim the full
value that early career support could provide.

Some Common Career Development Tools

• Formal and informal mentoring
• Performance feedback
• Personal development plans
• Goal setting
• Company developed/led training
• Financed secondary degrees and certifications
• Networking support
• Performance feedback and direction
• Functional and industry conferences
• Leveraging diversity and affinity groups
• Career path support
• Formal and informal sponsorship within an organization
• Career fairs
• Coaching
• Introspective skill and personality assessments
• Identification and support of high potential employees
• Career pathing