How to Overcome Career Development Challenges in the Workplace

The benefits of learning and career development in your workplace are obvious. Of course, this is not to say that it is easy to achieve. As you’re encouraging a career development culture, you must be aware of the preexisting challenges. These challenges may limit the way development occurs.

It’s important to overcome these challenges, as employee career development opportunities are a top priority to job candidates. Deloitte reports this is especially true with millennials, who make up a large portion of the workforce. You also create a culture of career development when your organization handles career development challenges well.

While you're here, get the free guide for employees: How To Find A Good Mentor (Accelerate your career & enjoy your work more).

To understand these challenges, you need to look at how individuals interact with each other in productive and nonproductive ways. You must also consider the communication needs and uncertainties that come with career development.

We have listed 3 career development challenges and how to overcome them:

1. Generational Communication

Trying to communicate with a person who speaks another language can be a challenge. The more of one language you both speak, the more productive the conversation will be. But if the language barrier leaves you with no potential for verbal communication, you are left exclusively with nonverbal communication.

Similar communication barriers can exist between generations. There are four generations in the workforce now, and it creates communication paths similar to four different languages.

Baby Boomers and Generations X, Y, and Z all have different views on:

• Technology and its role in the workplace
• Short and long-term goals and career development paths to achieve them
• Motivation and how to reach full potential

It’s imperative all parties understand these differences. It is not enough to simply speak the languages of the other generations. You need to comprehend and appreciate where their ideas are coming from. To do this, practice communication skills and learn that the dissimilarities are not always impediments.

A team that truly functions as a team finds strengths in their differences to fill the organizational gaps.

2. Uncertainty After Promotion

When individuals are promoted to higher positions, it is possible they won’t know what success looks or feels like. This is a challenge in your workplace because you need leaders to be productive and efficient as soon as possible.

Uncertainty after promotions can stem from:

• Switching roles from a peer to a leader
• Changing departments
• Moving to a different location

It’s important to address this career development challenge early. You can do this through mentoring or coaching.

Give newly promoted individuals a mentor that has been where they are. The mentor can teach them success with their experience as a guide. Better yet, introduce the individual to this mentor before they are promoted, so they can hit the ground running.

Coaching is another option to help newly promoted individuals. Coaches provide skills training in areas like leadership or communication. This boosts the individual’s abilities as well as their confidence. Like mentoring, you can also implement coaching prior to the promotion to give them a head start.

While you're here, get the free guide for employees: How To Find A Good Mentor (Accelerate your career & enjoy your work more).

3. Having the Career Growth Conversation

In order for career development to occur, you need to know your employees’ goals and willingness to develop. The challenge is there is no way to know this without having a conversation, which can be tough for some individuals.

To promote career development in your workplace, urge your managers to initiate this conversation with their team members. Taking the pressure off the individual by initiating this conversation could help them open up. These conversations are important, especially for increasing employee retention.

Urge individuals in your workplace to overcome this career development challenge and speak with their managers about their objectives. Not only will this show ambition on their part, but it will create a great company culture centered around communication and advancement.

This will allow growth and productivity to take place, and individuals will thrive.

Remember to get the free guide for employees: How To Find A Good Mentor (Accelerate your career & enjoy your work more).