Why Career Development Discussions??

Individuals working for organizations have a pressing need to manage their own careers effectively. They need to do this to progress within their current employing organization towards more interesting, more responsible and more highly rewarded work. This is the conventional, and still often relevant, meaning of 'career'. But individuals also need to manage their own careers to make sideway moves as well. Organizations who manages these expectations effectively and create an engaging workforce will stands out from the rest.

The established annual performance appraisal process can be a good place to raise career issues but not often to explore or resolve them. A separate discussion on another occasion will usually be needed. Separate development reviews and personal development plans (PDPs) may allow more time but still may not enable genuine exploration of career development issues. More frequent one-to-one meetings between boss and subordinate may be a better forum in which to raise and discuss career issues as they arise. If the organisation plans for people's careers, this should be transparent to the individual. Thus a career development discussion becomes a crucial activity which supports the talent management process. Most organizations adopt career development programs in response to pragmatic human resource concerns and because they believe it will help ensure a continued supply of qualified, talented personnel.

A critical engagement piece most often overlooked by organizations is the ‘Career Discussion’ piece (as shown in the Fig above ) which if carried out effectively can yield great results in terms of employee motivation, engagement and retention. Although career discussions might happen between a manager and his/her employee which may not be done intentionally by both parties, a guidance to an effective discussion will help in bringing out tangible results for the employee as well as for the organisation. The change management piece shown above is crucial since it involves engagement of managers and supervisors in this process.

An understanding of ‘how to read and use’ the various tools of talent management (PDP-Personal Development Plans, Various Formats, Career Paths, Talent Tools), what to say and what not to say, how to manage expectations and handle difficult employees – all these will enable a supervisor/manager in making effective career discussions.

Responsibility for career management largely rests in a partnership between the individual and their supervisors, although supervisors receive little training to deliver effective career support which in most cases is the sole reason why they hesitate (or rather ‘afraid’) to have a frank and free discussion with their subordinates. A conscious effort on the part of organizations to empower their line managers to do effective career conversations for sure will pay dividend in the long run.