Performance evaluations are common practice but tend to focus solely on the past. Leaders gain as much as their staff does when they anticipate employees’ needs and provide constructive feedback on how they can advance in their careers.

Managers should have future discussions with their staff for several reasons. First, there are many gains from talking to employees about their career goals, including fostering their personal growth and development, raising their engagement and productivity, and decreasing the likelihood of costly employee turnover. Why, then, don’t more supervisors engage in this practice?

Based on research findings, managers who don’t have conversations about employee advancement miss out on a critical opportunity to inspire loyalty among their staff. Employees with no idea when they will be promoted or paid more or who have no clue how they fit into the company’s long-term strategy aren’t likely to stick around for very long.

Use these guidelines as a manager to have proactive, fruitful conversations about employees’ professional futures.

1. Schedule consistent gatherings

During formal performance reviews, managers should have conversations about employee advancement more frequently than once a year. Why? The first reason is that reviews solicit your cooperation. A more significant percentage of employees, from research, want to have meetings with their managers frequently; some suggest quarterly, others monthly or twice a month. Either way, note these consistent gatherings are essential!

2. Inquire into their goals

The inability to aid team members in reaching their professional goals stems from ignorance of those goals.

Therefore, as part of performance reviews, you should meet with employees to discuss where they want to take their careers. 

3. Suggest and facilitate educational and training opportunities

Knowing an employee’s desired career path can help you determine the education and training they’ll need to succeed. For example, is there training they can take to improve their qualifications, new technologies they can study, or certifications they can earn?

Consider what your company can do to aid in acquiring these to help the company succeed. For example, does your company need any scarce skills? After finishing their training, would the worker be able to pass on what they’ve learned to their coworkers?

4. Promote and facilitate mentoring and networking

If you’re a manager, you might be in a position to put members of your team in touch with influential people within the company (especially those outside the team’s department) who can offer advice on advancing their careers and better understanding the industry as a whole.

To help up-and-coming professionals better understand the organizational politics, they’ll need to navigate to achieve their goals; your company may have someone in place that could serve as a mentor to your employee.

5. Do not pretend to be a guidance counselor

You should know that there is a limit to what you can do as a manager to help employees actualize their full potential in your company.

However, you can increase their chances of success and win loyalty by outlining the steps they need to take to reach critical checkpoints along their desired career path.

Employees who believe you value them will start caring about the company. One way to show this is to express optimism for the company’s future and the employees’ careers there.