Career path planning is an effective way to build excitement and momentum among your team. It sets their sights on future opportunities and aspirations, plus designs an intentional framework to build out their skillsets and get them pointed in the right direction. This whole process ties in deeply to improved morale, loyalty, and retention too — all things we're constantly striving for!

With even a small rate of turnover being so, so costly — ranging from 21 percent of an employee's annual salary clear on up to 33 percent — anything you can do to reduce it will likely easily pay for itself tenfold. By using the START Method and a couple TEAM CL templates, you can jumpstart and streamline each employee's career planning process and reap the rewards that go along with it.

Speak Early and Often

Begin discussing career pathways early and often with your team — during the recruiting and interviewing stage, at performance reviews and weekly meetings, and everywhere in-between.  Your team needs to know about the entire range of internal career opportunities that are available, both managerial and non-managerial, and what skills and achievements would qualify them for each.

Career ladders and lattices are helpful tools and give employees a visual of the organization's overall structure and what a typical career trajectory may look like. If you haven't yet created a career ladder for your restaurant, download and customize our career ladder template here, or click the image below.

Take Note of Prominent Skills

Even at the hiring stage, and of course, the months and years that follow, take note of each employee's prominent skills and characteristics. While you don't want to pigeonhole anyone into just one type of role and restrict their growth, identifying who has a knack for leading versus managing, for example, allows you to begin stratifying realistic career pathways.

It's also worth documenting any key skills and traits that could use additional development, so you can begin to pull in resources to boost those levels.

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