6 ideas for career development (that don’t need a budget).

LinkedIn’s 2023 Workforce Learning Report found:

• People’s top motivation to learn is progress against career goals.

• The top 5 things people want in a job include: Challenging and impactful work, Opportunities for career growth and Opportunities to learn and develop new skills.

These findings reflect all the career development conversations I had throughout my HR / L&D career and most of the career coaching conversations I have now.

But what if your department or organisation has no budget for training? Or you have no time or motivation to go on courses? (Many people don’t like to go on courses; they may find them boring, or not know how to apply the learning, or suffer from learning anxiety in a formal setting, etc.)

The good news is that you have lots of opportunity to learn and develop regardless of the size of your company or training budget and without going on a course!

So, where do you start?

Step 1 is to be clear about what your career goal is. What do you want to achieve, by when?

Step 2 is then to identify what you need to learn and experience to be ready to achieve your goal. Think about technical knowledge and skills.

Step 3 is to identify how and when you gain that learning and the experiences.

Read on for some ideas, from simple to complex depending on you and the development you want.

Be clear about what you want and need

Develop within your role or team

This is probably the easiest development to arrange as it's within yours and your manager's power to agree and organise.

• Coaching / mentoring a colleague.

• Assisting a colleague or your manager with a task or project.

• Taking on some of your manager’s tasks.

• Collaborating with other areas on behalf of your team.

• Researching an issue or idea and presenting your findings to your manager.

• Agreeing with your manager how to redesign / shape your role (read about job-crafting).

• Receiving coaching and feedback from your manager.

Learn about other business areas / how your organisation operates

Learning about other areas of the organisation and how they each contribute to the business purpose and goals is a great way to develop your strategic awareness and business acumen.

This can be achieved through a range of activities such as:

• Shadowing someone to learn about what they do and how they do it. The duration can be tailored to the needs and complexity of the learning, eg it could be for a day, a week, one day a week, for a specific activity, etc.

• Working on a project within another team or business area; if you can act as the subject matter expert from your own team, even better.

• Secondment: can you arrange to spend formal time working in another team? This could be on a full- or part-time basis. (As an additional bonus this can allow someone else in your team to take on additional tasks and responsibilities as well, to cover the period you’re away).

• Job swap: like a secondment but someone from the team you go to will take your place in your team. It can be a great idea to talk weekly about what each of you are learning!

• Researching a business problem. This can help you to develop consultancy and collaboration skills and to show innovation. You can also present your findings to your leaders, particularly if you’re able to propose new ideas.

Each of these is a great way to build a network within, and understand more about, your organisation.

Learn more about your industry (or the one you want to move in to)

Reading / research:

Read industry publications, join your professional body and use their website resources, read the business news about issues affecting your industry and your organisations competitors.

Networking:

Get to know people who work in the industry outside of your own organisation. What can you learn from them?

Visits / placements:

From a short 90-minute visit through to a longer placement, this is an excellent way to learn how your organisation works with partners, suppliers, collaborators and even competitors! Usually sponsored or arranged by senior managers from each organisation who have a good working relationship, you can agree the objectives for and parameters of the placement, hopefully for the benefit of both organisations.

Work with your industry body

Does your industry body ask for people to work on things like research projects, capability frameworks, standards, etc? If so, the chances are they look for people who work within the industry to contribute ideas, take part in discussions, provide feedback, etc. This in turn provides opportunities for you to gain strategic knowledge and skills while building external networks and relationships.

Get a mentor

A great mentor will help you develop and achieve your career goals. From helping you to understand different career options available through to helping you regularly reflect on your performance and next steps, having someone focus on you and helping you to focus on your career is invaluable.

It's important to develop rapport, trust and respect with a mentor so you can be open and honest with each other about your career aspirations and development.

A mentor can be someone within your organisation. Benefits include helping you to navigate culture and politics, and being able to sponsor you for opportunities when appropriate.

A mentor can also be someone outside your organisation. Benefits include gaining a different perspective, potentially being able to speak more freely, and developing external relationships.

Moving to a new role – up, sideways or even down!

The best way to learn is to get a new job; and it doesn’t have to be a promotion. A lateral move can be as valuable as an upward move, especially if your company has a flat structure or you want to experience a different area of the business or industry.

And what about moving down a level?

If you want to move to a completely different role then it’s also worth looking at. While this may not appeal initially (it often feels like a backwards move) chances are if the move is the right one for you, you’ll progress upwards again pretty quickly as well as gaining the satisfaction that the new job brings.

When you lead a team and want to provide more development

Are you reading this as a people manager, looking for ideas to help your team develop?

With the fast pace of change we’re all experiencing it’s essential that we keep our own and our team’s skills and knowledge up to date.

You can talk with your people about any or all of the above ideas, and help them put them into practice.

Additionally, using team meetings or arranging a ‘development day’ is something within your control and can be a great success with some time taken for planning and preparation. For example:

• Ask a subject expert from another team to come and present to your team, or to lead an interactive session (this can also be a development opportunity for the presenting person!).

• If someone in your team has been learning something (maybe through one of the development opportunities above) ask them to share their learning with you all; how can it be utilised in your team?

• Find an online article or a podcast relevant to the development needs and ask your team to read or listen to it prior to the team meeting / development day, explaining why you’re asking them to do this. On the day ask each person to identify their key learning point and then discuss how you can apply this learning in your team.

• Use information published online by your industry body or in the news – maybe about emerging technology, legal cases, competitor developments, etc – and discuss it with your team. What do they understand about it, what does it mean for your company, etc? It's a great way to keep your people curious and learning about the wider business environment, and may lead to a game-changing idea!

Reflection and practice

Develop the habits of reflecting on what you've learned, and putting your learning into practice. Both of these activities will enable you to turn knowledge into capability, theory into practice.

Tell your manager and your mentor what you've learned and how you've applied it. Don't be shy to ask for their help in applying it, if needed.

Keep a record of your learning and how you apply it, especially the results / benefits to the team or organisation, ready for your performance review conversations.

As you learn, constantly review your career goal and development plan to update it.

Download my free Career Development Guide here

Hi, I'm Karen Felton

I love enabling people to understand their strengths and values, so they know what they want to do in their career and in their life, and know how to find work that makes them happy.

When you understand your strengths and values, everything becomes clear and you can take your next steps with renewed confidence.

Learn more about me, here.