Rethinking Career Development Strategies for the Remote Workplace

Remote work is here to stay: It opens up a list of benefits to both employer and employee, including greater flexibility, a larger talent pool, and daily conveniences. 

But even with positive change can come unexpected challenges. Work in the remote world creates more physical distance between team members, threatening how well organizational leaders can support their teams’ career development needs and wants. Suddenly, training, mentorship, and career planning initiatives that would normally happen in-person need to be rethought for the remote work environment. 

To adjust to the rising trend of remote work, organizational leaders have the chance to transform how their employees grow by implementing remote career development strategies that support their professional aspirations. 

Here’s everything you need to know to get ahead.

How does remote work affect career development?

Developing a career doesn’t happen in a vacuum of opportunity. Nor does it happen without the right amount of support and guidance from trusted mentors. So, in thinking about how remote work affects career development, these two elements—opportunity and collaboration—are most important to consider.

One of the chief challenges inherent to remote work surrounds the ability to collaborate. What could once be accomplished by walking over to a coworker’s desk for a quick huddle, now requires a different approach. As many as 36% of remote employees say that collaboration suffers in a WFH situation, according to a recent report. 

However, the data shows that remote workers are conflicted about how working from home impacts their career growth. According to a 2023 report:

• 36% of remote workers said career growth is easier as a result of working remotely
• 28% of remote workers said career growth is more difficult for them
• 36% of remote workers said remote work has no impact on their career growth

This uneven experience sends the signal that there is both optimism in the potential of helping remote employees grow their careers, as well as work to be done in creating career advancement strategies that help remote workers thrive.

Why does career development matter to the remote workforce?

Helping workers grow in their careers is one of the best tools managers and HR leaders have to engage and retain employees. Although remote work has dramatically changed the way many organizations look and operate, it has not changed humans’ natural hunger for progress and growth.

Employees are the most valuable asset of any workplace. Investing in them through career growth opportunities should be a top priority for organizational leaders. 

However, strategies that worked in a traditional working environment don’t always translate to the remote world. So how can you design initiatives that help employees grow while working from home?

Tips for career development strategies in a remote workplace

Challenges inherent to teams working remotely don’t make career development impossible. Using the following strategies, organizational leaders can overcome hurdles by rethinking their approach to helping their team members advance their careers.

Conduct an employee assessment

Before launching full throttle into career planning, help employees understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of their professional trajectory so they can move forward with intention.

Ideally, managers who know individual employees well will conduct an assessment to lay the foundation for a personalized career development plan. Schedule a short meeting to discuss topics like:

• What areas do you think you are strongest in?
• What areas would you like to develop more?
• What opportunities for growth within the organization do you see yourself supporting?
• Who are your professional role models? What do you like most about them?
• What interests you outside of work? Is there a way to apply these interests more at work?

With this groundwork laid, managers and employees can work together to create short and long term plans to support their goals.

Connect employees to your EAP’s services

You may think of EAPs for their ability to support employees around matters of mental health and wellbeing. But did you know some can also help employees with their career aspirations? 

A comprehensive EAP like Carebridge offers personal growth and training as well as work life counseling to support employees along their career growth journeys. These services can help employees focus their daily habits while achieving greater balance between work and life. 

Not only is it free and confidential, but support from an EAP is also personalized for each individual. Together, your employees and EAP can work together to create an individualized plan that gives them the resources they need to succeed. 

Launch a mentor/mentee program

In traditional office settings, employees have abundant opportunities to rub shoulders with more senior members of the team, Informal, often impromptu interactions can lead to unexpected conversations about work, ideas, and ways to think about things differently.

Remote work and the digital tools that support it encourage more intentional interactions, making chance encounters more difficult to have. No longer can you “run into” someone in the breakroom, or notice something interesting on a coworker’s computer screen that you want to learn more about.

Recapturing this dynamic in a remote working environment isn’t impossible, it just takes greater intention. Consider launching a mentor/mentee program that pairs junior and mid-level employees with senior team members based on their interests and career aspirations. Don’t limit these pairings to members in the same work function—allow employees to explore different interests! When you allow employees to grow in surprising ways, your organization can grow in surprising ways, too.

Offer access to online education and career development training

We live in the golden age of education. Countless online academies and training programs exist to teach us about nearly any topic under the sun. 

After counseling with employees to help them identify how they’d like to develop their career, support them in identifying the online courses and certifications that will help them achieve their goals. Importantly, make sure to carve out adequate time for employees to complete this training as part of their normal, daily workload. Career development activities shouldn’t be considered an “add-on;” they are essential to creating a thriving workplace where employees don’t feel overburdened.

Give and get real-time feedback

Learning and career development are dynamic. Interests change, priorities change, and aspirations change. Create an open channel for feedback between employees and managers/HR to continuously support their career development goals in real-time. 

In the remote world, it’s important to carve out intentional space to discuss topics like career growth. Consider scheduling standard check-ins with employees to discuss their career roadmap, training progress, and overall sentiment about how they’re developing. In addition to learning more skills, they’ll also learn how much your organization cares about their growth and feel more engaged at work in general.

Help employees grow with people-first support.

Carebridge EAP supports employees how they need it most. Reach out to learn more about how we can help transform your organization: Get a Quote

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