As managers, we all understand the importance of establishing career progression paths for employees. The outcomes of higher employee retention rates and employee satisfaction also result in clear expectations of what it takes for an employee to be successful in their position.
Below I have outlined 5 key steps I believe will be helpful as you develop a career progression path for your customer success organization.
- Business Objectives – The first thing you need to understand are the key Business Objectives of your company and what objectives need to be established within the Customer Success organization to ensure achievement.
- Roles and Responsibilities – Once you understand the objectives of your Customer Success team you need to assess how your team members align. Alignment will include identifying the required skills, performing self-assessments and identifying skill gaps against your requirements.
- Human Resources – Involve your human resources department to assist in creating a “position profile” that would include market research for job descriptions and titles along with levels of compensation with incentive programs. Additionally, it is important to have a defined on-boarding program for all employees.
- Career Roadmap – Develop and share a career roadmap with all members of your Customer Success organization. It gives them the ability to see where they fall into the organization and the opportunities they have for advancement. A career progression path is an integral element toward achieving high employee retention rates. You might also consider posting this for visibility.
- Certification Program – Once you have developed a career roadmap the next step is to develop a training certification plan for your employees. This will consist of taking your career roadmap and under each position outline the required skills, duration in the present position and training requirements to get to the next level. Now you need to implement a training program for each employee to achieve advancement from their current position.
What I have learned from my experience leading a team is they want to know what is expected when they come to work, how they will be measured and what the potential is for advancement.
Without this, you are running a risk of turnover and not achieving your key objectives. And after you’ve invested in your customer success team, employee churn is just as detrimental as customer churn. Make sure they are on a trajectory to success and empower them to get there.
