Career Conversations

Hey leaders, when was the last time you had career conversations with your team ? How did the career conversations go?

Recently, I was asked to share my experiences and tips on career conversations with a group of leaders. I reflected and looked back to my 20 over years of people management experiences. How did I conduct my career conversations with my team? What was my own career conversation experiences with my managers? What were the best practices that I learned?

What was clear to me was career conversations is not a "check in the box" and most importantly, our employees must not perceive it to be another activity to meet deadline. Career conversations is the engagement between managers and employees where there are open and transparent communications on what are the goals, aspirations and skills. Managers play an active role to coach employees from where they are today to where they want to be tomorrow. Employees takes charge of their own career development, be at the drivers seat and take ownership of the actions to get there.

I learnt from many great leaders that the first step for a meaningful career conversation with your team is to GET READY.

The real question is "How do managers GET READY for the career conversations with their teams ?"

Here are the 3 simple steps :

Step 1: Be Prepared - Understand your team member's profiles and background, especially if this is the first career conversations with this team member. If this was your subsequent conversations, then look back on what were discussed before as you care on what were previously discussions. Know and be familiar with your company's strategy, focus, compensation philosophy as well as the hot skills demand in the market.

Step 2: Be Present - Be in the moment and 100% focused on your team member during the conversations. Active listening with your ears, eyes and heart. Coach instead of Tell. Use powerful questions in coaching will allow your team to think of the ideas, solutions themselves and they will feel more empowered to take actions. Stay transparent and candid on how their roles fits in today's market needs.

Step 3: Follow Through - Make career conversation an on-going dialogue and it can occur anytime and anywhere and throughout the year. You can have the conversations during the regular one-on-one, when there is a change in job roles or when there is a change in the organisation's mission and focus.

Every team member is unique and have different goals, aspirations and skills. Career progression is not only about promotions, rotations or having a new title in the organisation chart. It is about gaining a new experience and learning new skills that expands capacity, stay relevant and be more prepared to succeed in different roles.

Every interaction with your teams is a great opportunity for you to foster your engagement with your teams.

Want to know how does career conversations can make an impact to your team? Ask me how?