Audrey Hametner argues that supporting early career talent means moving beyond one-off training to guided pathways that build career literacy, mentoring and experiential learning. By treating young employees as partners, organisations can boost engagement, widen opportunity, and cut turnover, turning L&D into a deliberate ecosystem across the employee lifecycle today.
As a business professional who has spent the last decade applying over 20 years of corporate knowledge to education and youth development, I want to share with you some deeply effective ways to support the younger employees in your organisation. For people development professionals, stronger career guidance for young people is a signal that workplace learning must shift from ad‑hoc training to a more intentional, lifelong development ecosystem that starts before hiring and continues across the employee lifecycle.
Treat early career employees not as “finished products” but as partners
This type of thinking urges HR, L&D, and direct line leaders to treat early career employees not as “finished products” but as partners in an evolving, guided exploration of skills, roles, and identities at work. It is the expansion of life-long learning that allows employers to guide in developing real engagement and motivation in the workplace among younger employees.
I will share a few ways, borrowed from effective career guidance practices, that have worked with organisations across the globe. These programs have helped to create better opportunities for young workers, thereby increasing engagement, reducing turnover and contributing to a richer culture.
From one‑off training to guided pathways
Times have changed and the design of how young people attain and retain knowledge needs to be addressed differently. Stand-alone courses that address skills in a linear scope need to give way to clarity on how the training will help them in the long term, and the present.
- Traditional corporate learning programs often assume that employees join with clear career goals and stable job structures. In reality, many young hires are still forming their career identity and their understanding of the ever-changing labour market.
- People development strategies need to better mirror effective youth guidance: by providing structured pathways, clear milestones, and ongoing conversations that help young employees understand options, trade‑offs, and how today’s learning links to future roles.
- This shifts L&D from being merely catalogues of courses to becoming effective pathways that integrate skills mapping, career coaching, and experiential assignments connected to transparent career pathways
Building career literacy inside organisations
Roles and professions are changing at an alarming rate, so building career literacy in young employees helps them see that the roles they are doing now have growth potential within the organisation. It also helps them understand the leap between roles within the organisation and assess what additional training they may need to reach their personal career goals.
- Just as students need better information about education and work, early‑career employees need “career literacy” about internal job families, capability frameworks, and emerging roles.
- People development professionals can design onboarding and early‑career programs that teach how the organisation creates value, which skills are portable, and what different paths actually look like over a three to five-year period.
- Internal career guidance (internal career hubs, talent marketplaces, or mobility programs) helps all employees make better informed choices, reduces misalignment, increases engagement and manages unnecessary turnover
Embedding coaching and mentoring as core infrastructure
While coaching and mentoring are mainstays for many organisations, it is typically reserved for the development of senior professionals. Yet it has an incredible impact on young employees by allowing them the opportunity to understand the lessons that often go unnoticed. This has been proven, especially in remote or hybrid work environments where face-to-face contact is often limited. It also increases the understanding required by line managers to properly assess and address the needs of their younger employees.
- Research on youth guidance highlights the importance of having trusted relationships with adults who help young people clarify their values, strengths, and realistic career options; the workplace comparison is high‑quality coaching and mentoring by leaders and L&D Professionals.
- People development leaders can institutionalise career conversations by equipping managers to act as development partners, not just task supervisors, with tools and prompts for regular, structured discussions.
- Cross‑generational mentoring, peer mentoring, and sponsorship programs give early‑career employees access to the social capital and informal insight crucial for widening their perspectives.
Using experiential learning as “workplace career guidance”
We all know that everyone learns differently, and it has been proven that experiential learning is the best way to have the biggest impact on the widest demographics of workers. Especially with the younger generation of newer employees, when learning is taken out of a classroom environment and the link to real life work is apparent, it is more impactful. This increases attainment of information and helps bridge the gap between the idea and implementation.
- Workplace learning should connect formal training to meaningful stretch assignments, projects, and rotations. Many people learn and retain knowledge by doing, and this method allows the organisation to reap the benefit and assess the impact of training quickly
- People development professionals can expand apprenticeships, rotations, internal gigs, and cross‑functional projects so employees can test different roles, industries, or technologies in low‑risk ways
- This makes work itself a guided exploration space, where experiences are deliberately sequenced and debriefed to surface insights about fit, motivation, and future moves
Designing for equity and social mobility at work
Many people have hidden disabilities in the workplace. Some of which have been undiagnosed with the employee themselves. When a company designs for equity, they open the bridge for all employees to engage, grow and develop. Being mindful of these small but important shifts, this approach increases the employees’ feeling of belonging and deepens their appreciation for the organisation.
- In organisations, development design can either amplify or reduce opportunity gaps for underrepresented or first‑generation professionals
- People development teams can audit participation in high‑value learning, mentoring, and stretch roles, then proactively open access to those who might lack informal networks or “insider” information
- Framing development as a structured, transparent system, rather than a relationship‑driven privilege, helps the organisation act as engines of mobility, not just employers
Practical implications for L&D and HR
Oftentimes learning and development professionals feel like they hold a “doer role” in the organisation. By re-imaging the growth and transformation of the people within the organisation, this approach helps highlight their position as a strategic business partner. One who can help provide a strong link to help the company attain the goals that it is striving for, with the resources that they have. You foresee gaps in learning and bring clear solutions to reskilling and upskilling within the organisation, which is more economical than replacing or hiring.
- Re‑architect learning portfolios into clearly named pathways that provides real guidance (e.g., “Emerging Leader,” “Digital Product Specialist,” “Client Advisor”) including entry criteria, typical timelines, expected outcomes, and next‑step roles
- Build a simple, visual internal labour‑market map that shows families of roles, core capabilities, and progression options, and integrate it into onboarding and performance conversations
- Train managers to hold forward‑looking career dialogues at least twice a year, supported by tools that link career interests to specific learning resources and stretch assignments
- Introduce early‑career academies or graduate programs that combine foundational skills, role rotations, mentoring, and explicit coaching on navigating ambiguity and non‑linear careers
- Use data from engagement surveys, internal mobility, and performance to continually refine development offerings, mirroring how education systems use evidence to improve guidance
(There’s also information on the UK Government’s Skills for Life campaign, which promotes lifelong learning and technical education, helping people of all ages understand their options for training and qualifications, including T Levels, apprenticeships and Skills Bootcamps – Ed)
These programs allow people development professionals to view themselves as extending and deepening the career guidance young people should receive at school, turning the workplace into a structured environment where learning, identity formation, and performance are deliberately developed together rather than left to chance. Ultimately, enhancing the experience for young workers, building deeper appreciation for the organisation and deepening a culture that retains great talent by building the person.
Audrey Hametner is the founder and CEO of The Bedrock Program
