Career conservations - Manager's guide

Career conversations Manager’s guide

Introduction What is a career conversation?

A career conversation is time spent with an individual to explore where they might want to head and how they might get there.

What are the benefits of career conversations?

Career conversations are extremely beneficial to your team members and to the organisation. They can increase job satisfaction, engagement and loyalty, and help the organisation to build, motivate, develop and retain a highly skilled, professional workforce.

Typically, there are five things that an employee might hope to gain from a career conversation: 1. An understanding of ‘what is out there for me?’ and possible paths to getting there 2. The opportunity to sit down and talk to someone who can offer a different perspective 3. Confidence in their skills or knowledge and support in making effective career decisions 4. Support in making ‘unusual’ career moves, for example, to less obvious areas of the business 5. An understanding of their perceived potential relative to others within the organisation and an idea of whether their aspirations align to this

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When to have career conversations Career conversations can take place at any time, but should be regular and ongoing.

Your monthly one-to-one meetings provide a good opportunity to do this.

Short, unplanned conversations can be a useful addition to your more structured meetings as they are a good way to share new information, find out whether someone’s circumstances have changed, and to strengthen the relationships that you have with your team members.

Your role in the conversation Managers should inspire, guide and support career conversations. As a manager, your role is to ask questions that will help your team members to better understand themselves, have a clear understanding of what career development opportunities exist within the organisation, and identify instances where their interests correspond to the needs of the organisation.

It is important that you are committed to helping your team members achieve their potential, but never to promise things that you can’t deliver. You should always explain that this conversation is exploratory and is designed to help them get the best out of themselves. It is not a promise to promote them.

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Establishing trust It’s important to establish trust at the beginning of any career conversation and to maintain this throughout the conversation.

Listen actively As a manager, listening is probably the most crucial skill that you can develop.

Active listening is a communication technique that requires the listener to fully concentrate, understand and respond. The ability to focus fully on what another person is saying, without becoming distracted, is an art. By not listening properly to what is being said, we can’t possibly know what the other person wants or needs. Active listening is therefore key to an effective career conversation.

Be honest Whenever something comes up in a career conversation that you don’t know the answer to, tell the truth and turn your lack of knowledge into a joint exploration exercise.

Work together to find the answers, or speak to your Head of Department or someone in HR. Where appropriate, share your own concerns and challenges – while this will help to engage your team members as partners, it might also open up thoughts about your own future choices.

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Preparation How to prepare It’s a good idea to start by thinking about the person that you are going to be having the conversation with. Ask yourself: • What have I observed about this person’s behaviours or characteristics recently?

• When have I seen them fully engaged at work? What skills were they demonstrating?

• How are they contributing to the organisation’s strategic priorities?

• Where do I see their future in the organisation?

• What can I do to support them in developing their skills and abilities?

• Do I know of any opportunities in other areas of the organisation that might be relevant to them?

It’s also a good idea to prepare for tough questions by putting yourself in the shoes of your team members and anticipating their concerns. Questions such as “Will my job be here in six months?” or “What options do I have to be secure at work?” may come up in these types of conversations. If you don’t have the answers, be honest. Depending on the nature of the question, you may want to postpone answering or suggest revisiting the question at another time, once you’ve had the opportunity to seek an answer or find out more information.

If you feel that you are being asked any questions that are outside of your comfort zone, responsibility or remit, be prepared to be honest and explain that you’d like to speak with your Line Manager or HR before continuing with the conversation.

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The process There are five key stages that you should follow to help ensure a great career conversation.

These are as follows:

1. Set up the conversation At the beginning of the first conversation, you should start by talking about what a career conversation is, the purpose of having one and the role that each of you will take.

You should then outline where you hope to get to by the end of the conversation and the sorts of things that you’d like to discuss.

It’s important to make it clear to your team members that they are the owners of their career development and that you are there to provide support and guidance.

Remember, not everyone will be ready to talk about their plans for the future or career aspirations, so be ready for them to opt out if they wish.

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2. Explore the situation As a manager, your role in a career conversation is to help your team members recognise their unique talents and skills, discover their capabilities, anticipate the future and ensure that they see how their aspirations align to the goals and priorities of the organisation.

The best way to get to know your team members, and help them examine their ideas about themselves and their possibilities for the future, is to ask powerful questions. Doing this not only shows that you are prepared, it also shows that you care.

If you don’t know what someone’s interests, skills, passion and aspirations are, you won’t be able to help them to develop. Start by using open-ended questions that begin with ‘What’, ‘When’, ‘Where’ or ‘How’ to elicit information. If you follow these up with great probing questions, you will find out a lot more.

Using the GAPS framework will enable you to work with your team members to help them identify what they might need to learn and what has the greatest value for their professional development. By focusing on the questions in each quadrant and discussing these, they can start to think about development opportunities, learning activities and priorities.

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The questions in each quadrant are as follows: Goals – what do I want to achieve?

• What do I want to do that I’m not doing?

• In what ways do I want to contribute effectively at work?

• What do I hope to accomplish?

• What will give me the greatest sense of satisfaction and reward?

• What will motivate me to succeed?

Abilities – what can I do?

• Where do my key strengths lie?

• How could I apply my knowledge and skills more effectively?

• What have I been successful in recently?

• What additional skills would be helpful to me?

• In what areas am I most likely to offer my expertise to others?

• What is my learning style?

• In what areas do I turn to others for assistance?

Perceptions – how do others see me?

• What have I learned from any feedback that I’ve received?

• How do the perceptions of others fit in with how I see myself?

• What coaching do I receive regularly?

• What do others say about my strengths and development needs?

• What is my reputation with different groups or at different levels of the organisation?

Success factors – what is expected of me?

• What are the expectations for me in my role?

• What is the success criteria for my role?

• What competencies (skills, knowledge or attitudes) will I need to achieve my targets?

• What does my manager value most from me?

• How might expectations of my role change in the future?

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Now

Future

My view

Abilities:

Goals:

What can I do?

What do I want to achieve?

Others’ views

Perceptions:

Sucess factors:

How do others see me?

What is expected of me?

3. Share information Try to present your team members with options to accelerate their learning, inside and outside of the organisation, by connecting them to mentors, networks and learning opportunities that will help them to achieve their goals.

Sharing your own experiences, or those of others, can also provide inspiration.

But don’t expect your team members to necessarily want to follow in your footsteps.

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4. Identify career milestones If someone in your team has career aspirations that seem quite stretching in relation to their current situation, it might be worth agreeing some milestones with them. Having a long term plan is good, but it can be demotivating if there aren’t any planned points along the way to review progress and recognise success.

Rather than looking at what specific roles they might want to have along the way, it might be better to think of what skills, knowledge and experience they want to acquire instead.

There might be some quick wins or development opportunities that would add real value to them and to the organisation.

5. Agree actions The most important part of any career conversation is the action plan – agreeing what your team members are going to do, when and how. You should ensure that they make a written note of their actions and when you’re next going to meet to review their success.

You should also make a note of what support is required from you and from others, by when and how this will be provided.

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Summary Career conversations provide individuals with an opportunity to explore where they might want to go in the future and how they might get there.

Following this 5 stage process will help you as a manager to ensure that the career conversations you have with your team members are helpful and motivating, and that you continue to get the best from them without promising them things you can’t deliver.

Your role as a manager is simply to help your team members take responsibility for their own career development and to support them in acquiring the knowledge, skills and experience that they need to achieve their career aspirations.

“ A person going nowhere can be sure of reaching his destination. Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase – just take the first step.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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