Updated as of 5 July 2025

What if the goal of employee development was to plant roots and grow in all directions rather than to climb ladders? Research indicates that 94% of workers would prefer to work for a company that supports their education. “The best way to predict the future is to create it,” as Peter Drucker once stated. Humane approaches to professional development and advancement put people above procedures, acknowledging each person’s abilities, goals, and individual path. Leaders in this gathering of experts discuss how to develop potential through advice, empathy, and individualized career routes that benefit staff members and the companies they lead.

Align Individual Growth with Business Success

Balancing company goals with personal growth plans requires careful planning to make sure both are aligned. I begin by clearly setting our business objectives, then work closely with each team member to understand their strengths, goals, and areas where they can improve. We create personalized plans to help them achieve their career ambitions while also developing skills that benefit the company. Regular meetings help us track progress and make changes if needed. I promote open communication and offer resources like mentorship, training, and challenging projects. Focusing on both the business and individual development increases motivation and engagement, while also improving the team’s overall skills. By investing in our people and linking their growth to the company’s needs, we foster a workplace where individual success contributes to our collective success. This process is ongoing, but over time it helps build a strong, adaptable, and high-performing organization.

Matthew Ramirez, Founder, Rephrasely

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Link Personal Ambition to Business Outcomes

Balancing business goals with individual development is tricky—but essential if you want long-term alignment and retention. At spectup, I’ve found the key is linking personal growth to real business outcomes. One time, we had a team member passionate about AI in investor analytics, which wasn’t a current focus. Instead of shutting it down, we built a small pilot around it, framed within our capital-raising service line. It gave her ownership and us a new value proposition to explore. I always tell the team: “Your ambition isn’t a side hustle; it’s a growth lever—if you align it right.”

We use quarterly strategy syncs—not just performance reviews—where we openly talk about personal ambitions alongside team targets. This ensures nobody’s just ticking boxes; they’re actually building toward something meaningful. It’s not perfect, and sometimes the business pace outstrips someone’s development curve, but being honest about that helps avoid burnout. People step up more when they see their impact isn’t boxed into a role description. That mindset’s helped spectup stay lean while still stretching into new service areas like venture scout programs.

Niclas Schlopsna, Managing Consultant and CEO, spectup

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Invest in Staff Growth for Business Results

Balancing business goals with personalized development plans comes down to recognising that a well-supported team is a more productive one. At Ozzie Mowing & Gardening, I’ve always seen staff development as an investment, not a cost. With over 15 years in the industry and a certified background in horticulture, I’ve learned that no two people grow the same way. One example that stands out is when I hired a junior team member who had great enthusiasm but little formal training. Instead of throwing him into the deep end, I sat down with him to map out a personal development path that matched both his interests and the company’s long term needs. We combined on the job training with external horticulture courses and weekly check-ins to keep things aligned. Within a year, he was confidently running his own jobs and receiving fantastic client feedback.

This approach worked because I understood from my own journey that practical experience means nothing without the right guidance and encouragement. I saw early on what a difference good mentorship can make because I benefited from it myself. So I applied the same care I give to gardens to my team: understanding their individual needs, allowing time for growth, and giving the right structure to flourish. The result was not only a more capable and loyal employee but a boost to the business in the form of client trust and efficiency onsite.

Andrew Osborne, Owner, Ozzie Mowing & Gardening

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Scale People to Scale Your Company

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned leading Nerdigital is that you can’t scale a company without scaling your people. But here’s the challenge: business goals often push for fast results, while real personal development takes patience and intention. The only way I’ve found to balance the two is to treat employee growth as a strategic lever, not a side project.

For us, it starts with aligning development plans to actual business needs. We don’t just ask, “Where do you want to grow?” We ask, “Where can your growth have the biggest impact on the company right now—and where can the company fuel your long-term potential?” That creates a shared sense of purpose, not just a checklist of trainings.

One simple but effective approach we use is project-based development. Instead of sending people to theoretical workshops, we put them in real-world scenarios where they can stretch their skills—whether that’s leading a client pitch, owning a new product initiative, or mentoring junior team members. It unlocks potential because it’s practical, immediate, and tied to visible results.

At the end of the day, when your people see that their growth isn’t competing with business goals—but driving them—they lean in harder. That’s when real potential gets unlocked.

Max Shak, Founder/CEO, nerDigital

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Connect Personal Growth to Business Direction

The key to balancing business goals with personalized development is aligning individual growth with the company’s direction, not treating them as separate tracks.

We start by identifying the core competencies needed to move the business forward, whether it’s stronger leadership, better cross-functional collaboration, or deeper technical skills. Then, we sit down with each employee to understand where they want to grow — not just in title, but in skills, interests, and impact.

From there, we co-create development plans that serve both. For example, if someone wants to lead projects and we need more project ownership in a certain team, we’ll assign them a stretch project with mentorship. If someone wants to build communication skills, we tie that to leading a cross-functional demo or presenting data insights.

It’s not about saying yes to every learning request, it’s about connecting the dots so people feel their development fuels something bigger, and the business gets stronger in the process. When employees see how their growth moves the needle, engagement and performance go hand in hand.

Abhishek Shah, Founder, Testlify

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Find the Sweet Spot Between Goals

Balancing business goals with personalized development plans starts with understanding each employee’s strengths and aspirations. I make sure to have one-on-one conversations where we set clear, achievable goals that align with both their personal growth and the company’s needs. For example, one team member expressed an interest in leadership development, so we tailored their role to include mentoring newer hires while also giving them the skills and resources to step into a leadership position in the future. Regular check-ins help keep progress on track, allowing me to adjust their development plan as needed while ensuring it still aligns with our business objectives. By investing in their growth, employees stay motivated and feel valued, which ultimately drives business performance. It’s about finding that sweet spot where individual goals and business goals can thrive together.

Nikita Sherbina, Co-Founder & CEO, AIScreen

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Empower Employees Through Shared Business Goals

I always try to hold longer term business goals in mind when approaching development plans for employees. I am always striving to give even top performers some goals they can work toward as a way to keep them challenged and engaged. One thing I have found helpful here is to also draw the employees themselves into this, by asking them how they believe is the best way to pursue certain business goals. I’ve found this allows employees to feel more empowered and also that their voices are respected, and it does help me keep that balance between business goals and personalized development plans by incorporating those goals into the plans themselves.

Soumya Mahapatra, CEO, Essenvia

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Two Sides of Success: People and Profit

Unlocking Potential While Hitting Business Goals: The Balance That Matters

Balancing business targets with personalized development isn’t about choosing one over the other — it’s about aligning both so they fuel each other. I’ve seen that when people feel seen and supported, they perform at their best, and that moves the business forward faster than any quarterly target on its own ever could. At ROSM, we tie individual growth plans directly to the needs of the organization. That means we’re not just checking boxes on a training sheet — we’re helping people build skills that actually matter for where the business is headed. It takes regular, real conversations (not just annual reviews) to keep that alignment tight. In the end, unlocking potential and meeting goals aren’t competing priorities — they’re two sides of the same coin.

Colin Potts, Chief Operating Officer, Regenerative Orthopedics & Sports Medicine

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Create Win-Win Through Clear Alignment

Balancing business goals with personalized development plans starts with clear communication and alignment. First, we ensure that every employee understands the company’s vision, priorities, and key objectives. From there, we work together to identify each individual’s strengths, interests, and areas for growth, designing development plans that connect their personal ambitions with company needs. This creates a win-win, employees feel invested in, while their growth directly contributes to the business. Regular check-ins are key, allowing flexibility to adjust goals as both the business and employees evolve. We also emphasize mentorship and skill-building programs that not only sharpen job-related abilities but also nurture leadership, creativity, and collaboration, unlocking deeper potential that benefits both the individual and the company in the long run.

Qianqian He, Founder, BOXKING GAMING

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Balance Development Without Sacrificing Performance

Make sure that personalized development plans for your employees don’t prohibit them from getting their projects and tasks done as they’re needed too. If that starts to happen, you may struggle to meet your business goals as deadlines are missed or projects aren’t completed. So, don’t overload development plans with so much extra work that employees are taken away from their responsibilities. The two should go hand-in-hand – personal development and performing their job role.

Seamus Nally, CEO, TurboTenant

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Grow Better People for Better Results

At Ridgeline Recovery, we don’t treat employee development like a checkbox. We treat it like what it is—a direct investment in the heart of our business. You want better results? Grow better people. Period.

Balancing business goals with personal development isn’t complicated if you stop treating the two as separate. When you know your people—what drives them, what they’re good at, what they want to get good at—you stop wasting time trying to fit square pegs into round holes. You start aligning roles with natural strengths and real ambition.

Here’s what we do: We sit down with each team member quarterly—not just to talk KPIs, but to ask questions like, “What part of your role drains you? What lights you up? What do you want to learn next?” Then we build a plan around that. Sometimes it’s a new certification. Sometimes it’s shadowing another department. Sometimes it’s just having the space to lead a project their way.

That’s not fluff. That’s performance strategy.

The result? People show up with fire. They stay longer. They give more. And they trust leadership because they feel seen beyond the job description.

My advice? Ditch the generic performance reviews. Talk like a human. Listen like a coach. And don’t be afraid to tie someone’s growth to the company’s growth. When both rise together, you stop pushing people—you start pulling forward as one team.

That’s how we do it at Ridgeline. Real people. Real growth. Real results.

Andy Danec, Owner, Ridgeline Recovery LLC

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Turn Employee Growth into Strategic Advantage

Balancing business goals with personalized development starts by aligning individual strengths and aspirations with company objectives. At ICS Legal, we begin with open conversations to understand each employee’s career ambitions and skills gaps. From there, we craft development plans that contribute directly to team and business priorities.

This creates a win-win: employees feel motivated because their growth matters, and the business benefits from enhanced capabilities tailored to strategic needs. Regular check-ins ensure plans remain flexible, adapting to evolving goals. The key is treating development as a dynamic partnership—not a checklist—where progress is measured by real impact, not just hours logged. Unlocking potential means investing in people as individuals, which ultimately drives sustainable business success.

Amir Husen, Content Writer, SEO Specialist & Associate, ICS Legal

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Embed Development into Business Strategy

Unlocking Potential Without Losing Focus

Balancing business targets with meaningful employee development is less about trade-offs and more about alignment. I’ve seen the best leaders embed development plans into strategy itself, rather than bolt them on. When people grow in ways that directly fuel the company’s direction, everyone wins. That means getting crisp on what matters most, then mapping growth opportunities to those priorities. Personalized learning isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s a lever for stronger execution and better succession readiness. Let’s be real — nobody wants to pour time and money into development that leads to a dead end. If you build development into the heart of your business agenda, you’ll unlock both potential and performance.

Natalie Michael, Managing Partner, CEO Next Chapter

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Anchor Growth in Real Work Problems

We balance business goals with employee development by anchoring growth plans in real work, not abstract goals or vague promotions. Instead of asking, “Where do you want to be in 5 years?” we ask, “What kind of problems do you want to be trusted to solve?”

From there, we align stretch assignments with company priorities. If someone’s curious about strategy, we loop them into client pitches. If they want to grow as a leader, they co-lead a campaign with feedback baked in. It’s not about climbing a ladder—it’s about unlocking confidence and relevance in their current role.

This way, growth becomes a shared goal—not a side hustle—and it feeds both the team and the business.

Eugene Leow Zhao Wei, Director, Marketing Agency Singapore

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Build People Who Take Pride and Ownership

At Achilles Roofing, balancing business goals with individual development isn’t something I read in a book—it’s something I learned out on the job site. I don’t hand out development plans with fancy charts. I watch how a guy moves, how he thinks under pressure, and how he carries himself around the crew. That tells me everything I need to know about his potential.

Here’s how I run it. Every man on the team knows our business goal: clean, honest roofing work, done right the first time, no shortcuts. That’s the bar. But I also know not everyone on the crew wants to be just a laborer forever. Some guys want to lead a crew. Some want to learn how to quote jobs. Others just want to get better at their trade and provide more for their family. I talk to them one-on-one—not in some HR meeting—but on the way to a job or while we’re loading up the trailer. I ask them straight: “What do you want to learn here?”

Once I know that, I start putting them in position to grow. If a guy wants to lead, I have him shadow the crew lead on one job a week. If someone wants to quote jobs, I bring him along to an estimate and let him watch how I talk to clients. It’s hands-on. Real-life stuff. No training modules, no seminars—just opportunity.

The business wins because I’m building people who take pride and ownership in what they do. They’re more accountable, more loyal, and they stay longer. They grow, and the company grows with them.

You don’t unlock potential by handing someone a PDF. You do it by seeing their effort and giving them a shot. That’s how I do it—and it works.

Ahmad Faiz, Owner, Achilles Roofing and Exteriors

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Match Personal Goals with Business Needs

For me, the turning point was when we had a tech who was solid, but never took the lead or asked questions. Instead of pushing KPI goals harder, I sat down and asked what he wanted from the role. It turns out that he liked the work but had always felt unsure about upselling or making recommendations because he didn’t want to come across as pushy. We developed a concise plan focused solely on improving communication confidence, featuring low-stakes ride-alongs, script-free conversation practice, and feedback sessions that felt more like coaching than grading.

Within a few months, he was bringing in more upsells than almost anyone on the team, just by learning to speak from his own experience instead of a script. That’s when I realized you can’t unlock potential with a one-size-fits-all checklist. It’s about aligning what they want to improve with what the business needs. When those two match up, the goals tend to take care of themselves.

Matt Purcell, Owner, PCI Pest Control

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Spot Potential That Meets Business Needs

A few years back, I had a technician who was great in the field but clearly burned out on route work. Instead of pushing him harder to meet monthly numbers, I asked where he saw himself in two years. Turns out, he was interested in training and mentoring new hires. We started carving out a few hours a week for him to shadow me on onboarding and tech evaluations. Our business still hit our goals, but now we had someone growing into a leadership role who genuinely wanted it.

That one shift taught me you don’t have to sacrifice performance to support growth. You just need to ask the right questions and be willing to rework the path a bit. It’s not about making huge changes—it’s about spotting when someone’s potential lines up with a business need and leaning into that overlap.

Anthony Sorrentino, Owner, Pest Pros of Michigan

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Align Strengths with Real Business Opportunities

I’ve found the best way to balance business goals with personal growth is to tie training directly to real opportunities for advancement. One of our guys started as a tech with no industry background. We noticed he had a sharp eye for detail and a calm way with customers, so we put him on shadowing senior techs, extra classroom training, and eventually, his first route. That investment paid off for him and the business. Today, he’s one of our most trusted leads.

What made it work was that the development plan wasn’t generic. It was aligned with his strengths and interests, as well as with what the business needed: more leadership on the ground. We built him up for it. That’s how you get buy-in and real performance: by showing people that their growth matters as much as the company’s.

Chris Rowland, Owner, Rowland Pest Management

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Turn Employee Dreams into Business Success

One of the most satisfying experiences as owner of Mexico-City-Private-Driver.com was witnessing a driver driver become our top performer, just six months after I developed a driver development plan based on his dream of opening a private fleet; this driver had trouble with retaining any job.

In our company, we do not run drivers like the wind blows. We build trust when moving people, and in our case trust is important in some high-stakes situations, as we pick up international CEOs or families who are security-minded when visiting Mexico City. When I detected potential in a person his confidence had been reduced to tatters by prior employment, I knew I had the opportunity to identify his goals with our expectations.

Rather than standard training, I took the time to sit down with this person, one-on-one, so that I could better understand his wants for the future and what lifestyle he wanted or needed, and understand how he took feedback. Then we created a plan; learning the top rated routes, gaining some coaching in English conversation, and learning the basics of customer retention and upselling.

In six months his average tip doubled, his client rebooking rate was at 78%, and he began saving for his first vehicle. He is now a real resource; a model I still use, onboard other drivers.

In summary, balancing development and business goals is about treating each driver as a partner in growth as opposed to a piece of equipment that can be replaced. When they win, we win; and judging by our ‘s 94% retention rate, it works.

Martin Weidemann, Owner, Mexico-City-Private-Driver.com

About Humane HR Perspectives

Our round-up series “Humane HR Perspectives” examines the fundamentals of humanising human resources (HR) from the perspectives of top authorities within and relevant to the industry. Q&A sessions with founders, CEOs, HR professionals, business leaders, and other significant players who are influencing the direction of HR are included in every edition.

Throughout the employee life cycle, we address a wide range of subjects in this series, including recruitment and selection, onboarding, training and development, performance management, employee engagement, pay and benefits, and more. We also go over important topics like compliance, change management in the workplace, morale and welfare, workplace communications, and diversity and inclusion.

The “Humane HR Perspectives” series offers insightful advice and practical examples to help develop a more encouraging, productive, and successful workplace—whether you’re an HR professional, a business leader, or just someone who is enthusiastic about creating a great work environment. Join us as we explore the approaches, difficulties, and triumphs that characterise HR humanisation and acquire unique access to the knowledge and experiences of individuals spearheading the movement.

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