Career Development Survey: Empowering Professional Growth

Successful entrepreneurs often say that talent is the most important resource a business can have. A supportive company culture and a high level of employee satisfaction means a thriving business.

If you want to avoid the pain of losing employees, a regular check-in with them is necessary. Collecting feedback helps you get to know your staff and learn what they need to get a sense of achievement and personal development.

Creating a clear career path for your employees is not always easy. It can be particularly hard for remote teams. 

You may wonder - what is the best way to approach my employees? What to ask, how to develop the right questions? In this article, we will discuss the practical questions to ask in a career development survey and help you bring your workforce to their full potential.

Work-life balance survey questions

According to Business Insider, for both Millenials and Gen Z, a high-value job is one that allows a healthy work-life balance. Work must not jeopardize play, relationships, and self-care. This means they may need a very strong motivation to spend precious free time on extra activities for career development.

So if you want to understand why your employees hesitate to invest themselves in professional development opportunities, you might want to add a few questions about their work-life balance in your career development survey.

You might want to ask things like:

• Do you think you are at risk of burnout at your workplace?
• How do you feel about staying longer at work if that would mean growing your professional skills?
• Are you satisfied with the support and training our organization currently provides?
• If you would have to choose, which of the two would you pick as a priority - job security or opportunities for career progression?

How to create a career development survey 

What you ask is important, but so is how you ask it. You will need to define whose opinion you need, what is the best way to formulate questions, and how often you want to ask them. 

Determine survey objectives

It is very important to know exactly what you want to achieve with a professional growth survey. Imagine the ideal type of data you would like to obtain and form the questions accordingly.

Career development surveys go hand in hand with action plans. Don’t ask your employees questions and then do nothing about it. Keep in mind that questions about career goals and aspirations are partially private. For that reason, if you want your employees to trust you, they need to see results for sharing important information with you. 

Experts agree that career development surveys go hand in hand with action plans. Don’t ask your employees questions and then do nothing about it. Keep in mind that questions about career goals and aspirations are partially private. For that reason, if you want your employees to trust you, they need to see results for sharing important information with you. 

For example, you want to see whether your employee satisfaction would improve if you would introduce training opportunities. In that case, try not to mix those questions with how satisfied people are with their managers. This topic deserves a survey of its own.

Decide on the survey’s target group(s)

It's recommended to conduct career development surveys regularly. In some cases, it is a good practice to automate delivering surveys and collecting data from your employees.

Once you decide on what you want to know, you want to ask yourself: who can give me the information I need? You can target lower or upper management, operations or sales department, male or female employees, etc. If you are using people management tools such as Peoplelogic, you can easily filter current positions and decide who gets the survey.

For example, it can happen that project managers get so caught up in their work that they don’t notice a particularly gifted team member. In order to spot such talented people and invest in their development, HR might occasionally conduct a survey among new employees.

In another situation, you may doubt that female employees in the sales department feel underprivileged when it comes to training opportunities. In that case, you want to craft a survey that will explore what type of education would make them feel equally engaged and competitive to their male counterparts. 

Select proper career development survey tools

Choosing the right tool for your career development survey is a very important step. Peoplelogic has a highly intuitive interface that will save you a lot of time creating surveys. In addition, it will help you get deep insights in only several clicks.

Moreover, Peoplelogic's additional features, such as goal-setting, skills assessment, praise, and one-on-one review tools will mutually complement and optimize your management process.

When thinking about the proper tool for surveys that should engage your employees' engagement, price is an important aspect to consider. Make sure to find the best price-quality ratio, depending on the needs and size of your organization. Peoplelogic recently changed pricing plans, and our features are now suitable for the majority of small and medium enterprises.

Decide on the frequency

It's recommended to conduct career development surveys regularly. In some cases, it is a good practice to automate delivering surveys and collecting data from your employees.

Within your people management software, you can set up recurring monthly, weekly, or even daily surveys to stay up-to-date with what's going on in your company.

Craft relevant and engaging questions

When crafting the questions, remember that your employees will answer them during work hours. That means you want to be clear and concise. 

Don't make wordy sentences or ask too broad questions. If you want to gain deeper insights, such as how your employees feel about various career paths, make sure to break down the topic into several shorter questions.

Analyze results

Finally, once the survey results are available, be attentive to details when extracting key results. A visualization of gathered and segmented data can help you understand the burning challenges and priorities for turning a survey into an action plan.

For example, a strategically smart career development survey will help you see which personnel is showing ambition to climb the ladder within their team, and which is feeling unmotivated and could use a transfer to a different kind of role.

The action plan can be to set a new milestone for Peter, a sales executive, to get him started on his promotion into a sales manager. And to have a one-on-one interview with Chloe in customer support and see if there is a more creative opportunity for her to thrive within the company.

AI-powered tools can be particularly useful for this phase of your career development survey. AI will take the data analysis to another level, and bring deep insights in a matter of seconds. 

What’s best, AI will save you the cost of contracting a data analyst. Peoplelogic recently introduced AI-powered features that allow users to engage with their employees on a deeper level and make better business strategies.

How to leverage career development surveys 

According to Gartner, employee experience and professional growth opportunities are among the top priorities for HR managers around the world. An organization that invests in employees' professional development is 30% more likely to experience outperformance, says research conducted by McKinsey.

Although the statistics clearly show that companies that invest in their workforce are more successful, only one in four employees is satisfied. HR teams often fail to recognize where staff need their organization to provide support, training, and additional resources to help them keep growing professionally. That means three out of four employees in your organization might be looking for another job as we speak.

In order to make your position an attractive option for job seekers, you want to go beyond a catchy job description. You want to regularly show your employees that their professional growth is an essential part of your organization and the company's development strategy. Make sure each team member gets an opportunity to acquire new skills and climb the career ladder, gaining a sense of accomplishment.

This is a complex task, and you will need a lot of consultations with your employees to understand their professional development needs and properly enrich the professional development activities that your company offers to employees.

One of the best tools to communicate this with your employees is a career development survey. With a variety of personalized development plans, mentorship programs, and learning resources, Peoplelogic is a perfect partner in creating a killer professional development survey for your team.

Survey template

Below you will find the career development survey template. That is a basic version for you to make yourself acknowledged with this type of template. 

1. Personal Information:

• Full Name: ___________________________
• Email Address: ___________________________
• Department/Position: ___________________________
• Years of Experience in Current Role: ___________________________
  
  

2. Career Goals: 

What are your short-term career goals (next 1-2 years)?

___________________________

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What are your long-term career goals (next 3-5 years)?

___________________________

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How do you envision your ideal role within the company in the future?

___________________________

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3. Skills and Development: 

What skills or competencies do you believe are essential for your current role?

___________________________

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Are there any specific skills you would like to acquire or improve upon? If yes, please list them.

___________________________

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How do you currently stay updated with industry trends and developments? 

• a) Attending conferences and workshops 
• b) Online courses and webinars 
• c) Reading industry publications 
• d) Networking events 
• e) Other (please specify): ___________________________

Are there any training or development opportunities you believe would benefit your career growth? Please provide suggestions.

___________________________

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4. Performance and Feedback: 

How often do you have performance check-ins or feedback discussions with your manager? 

• a) Monthly
• b) Quarterly
• c) Semi-annually
• d) Annually
• e) Rarely/Never
  

How would you rate the quality and frequency of feedback you receive on your work? 

• a) Excellent
• b) Good
• c) Satisfactory
• d) Needs Improvement
• e) Unsatisfactory
  

Do you feel your current contributions and achievements are recognized and acknowledged appropriately? 

• a) Always
• b) Often
• c) Sometimes
• d) Rarely
• e) Never
  

5. Professional Development Support: 

Are you aware of the professional development resources available to you within the company (e.g., training programs, mentorship, coaching)? 

• a) Yes, very aware
• b) Somewhat aware
• c) Not aware
  

Have you utilized any of these resources? If yes, please describe your experience.

___________________________

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What additional resources or support would you like to see offered for your career development within the company?

___________________________

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6. Work-Life Balance: 

How do you currently manage your work-life balance?

___________________________

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Are there any adjustments or accommodations you believe would enhance your work-life balance and overall well-being?

___________________________

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7. Closing Thoughts: 

Is there anything else you would like to share regarding your career development, aspirations, or any challenges you're facing?

___________________________

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Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Your input is greatly appreciated and will help us enhance our efforts in supporting your career growth and development.

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Keep in mind that the data you will get from your career development survey will largely depend on the type of question. According to St. Olaf College, open-ended questions will likely give you much more detailed information. However, there may be a lot of redundant information and it may be time-consuming to analyze the survey. Such questions are suitable when you want to learn how your employees feel in general and what their aspirations are.

Conversely, yes/no survey questions are to the point but may lack the context and the big picture. Therefore, use them to obtain simple answers.

Conclusion

Nobody wants a dead-end job, that's a no-brainer. People will choose to keep workplaces that value their skills and achievements while providing growth opportunities. In order to be satisfied with an organization, they want their managers to give them training and development they deserve.

Therefore, a regular career development survey is required to engage with your employees, understand their points of view, and decide on the best ways to invest in their growth. Sign up to start creating, distributing, and analyzing surveys easier than ever with Peoplelogic.