3 Ideas to Retain the Young & Talented When Career Paths Are Scarce

Creating career paths for the young & talented

Of course, there are obvious reasons why this may be, including those employees who would typically retire at 65 remaining in the workplace much longer due to the recent recession and loss of planned retirement funds. Regardless, the reality remains the potential lack of career path for those who typically at this stage rapidly advance in their careers.

If you can’t offer a clear career path, what do you do to keep these young, highly motivated, talented employees on board and engaged with your organization? This article offers a few ideas, but I don’t think they go far enough.

Here are three more ideas to create career paths for young, talented individuals.

1. Ensure all employees understand very clearly the value they and their efforts bring to the organization with frequent, timely recognition and detailed feedback.
2. Continue to train and develop employees in the roles they are in. Skills can always be improved.
3. Allow employees to invest some increment of “work time” in creative ideas and outlets that could bring benefits to your organization, e.g., Google’s “20 percent time.”

By Derek Irvine - Vice President, Client Strategy & Consulting Service at Globoforce