Why Organizations Should Care About Career Agility

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Career agility means having a mindset of awareness, curiosity and continuous learning as we go about our professional lives. This was how I defined it in the first edition of the Career Agility Newsletter.??

You’d think that it’s something that professionals must have for their individual benefit. Something that they must develop and nurture themselves, and on their own. After all, if employees had career agility wouldn’t that encourage them to seek or ask for something organizations might not be able to offer? Wouldn’t that encourage them to leave??

Valid questions, really.?

However, the perception that this mindset will only encourage people to leave is quite limited. It's actually career agility that will encourage people to move.

Move is a broader term than leave. It may mean to get unstuck, get involved, get creative, get going, and so on. And though there may still be a possibility for employees to move outside your organization, gearing them up to move can actually be one key reason for them to stay.?

?Let's break it down.

Career agile employees are curious

Curiosity is what makes employees ask questions, and yes even the tough ones. They might even challenge the status quo and ask, “Why are we doing this?”

This might raise red flags for you if you yourself aren’t curious and open. But hey, didn’t Einstein say that “we can’t solve problems in the same mindset we created them”?

So if you find yourself going around in circles with the same old problems haunting your team, then these curious bunch are what you need to innovate solutions.?

Career agile employees are creative

Creativity is not about being the next Da Vinci or Picasso. To me, it’s all about harnessing your curiosity, seeing and reimagining something new and different, and breathing life into it to create value. Career agile employees are able to see possibilities rather than problems, opportunities rather than obstacles.

According to Better Up , “Expressive, creative thinking helps us challenge our own assumptions, discover new things about ourselves and our perspective, stay mentally sharp, and even be more optimistic.”

So if you’re ready to take your organization to the next level and create new possibilities, then you’ll definitely need to harness your team’s creativity.?

Career agile employees are involved

Career agility isn’t just about the curiosity to seek and the creativity to think. It’s also about the willingness and commitment to try, and maybe even stumble along the way.

Career agile employees wouldn’t mind rolling up their sleeves to experiment with new ideas, learn a new skill, take on a short-term assignment or even rescue a failing project mid-way… Of course, as long as it aligns with their development or growth goals.?

For organizations, this means getting the support you need for your programs - whether it’s conducting a study on how to cut operational costs, organizing your next team building event, revamping your onboarding program or even filling in roles in a newly formed department.

This also means having employees who take full ownership of their careers, leveraging opportunities around them for their development. Thus you get highly skilled and self-driven members of your team.?

So how do you develop and nurture career agile employees?

Of course I won’t leave you just with reasons why career agility matters in organizations. Below are some ways you can develop and nurture career agile employees.

Give them space

Programs and processes do not have to be over-engineered. While having standard operating procedures might be necessary for some activities and tasks, there are surely other avenues where you can give employees the space to do things in their own way.

Giving them space makes them feel that they are trusted and gives them a sense of ownership and control. This can boost their confidence too!

Here are some ways you can give employees space:

• Encourage inputs on how to solve your team’s challenges. And no, don’t just do a survey, but sit down and have an open conversation with your employees.
• Assign projects or tasks with clear goals and objectives, and allow them to use their own strategy to plan and implement.
• Conduct simple activities like a “pitch fest” or a “hackathon” where the winning projects will actually be implemented

Co-create opportunities

Like I said in a LinkedIn post , employee engagement is not just an HR thing. It is very important for managers to know their employees, to see the unique greatness in each one, and to co-create career opportunities that will support their professional growth.

Here are things you can try:

• Internal job rotation
• Short-term cross-functional projects?
• In-house internship or management trainee programs

Get them coached

I’m pretty sure most organizations would have an abundance of mentors, through managers. Mentors are those who are more experienced in a particular field (ex. software development, customer service) who would, based on their expertise, tell or advise employees what to do.

Coaching, on the other hand, does not involve telling, but rather listening, enabling and empowering. Coaching conversations, with the support of a professional, becomes an avenue for building the career agility muscle.?

Here’s how coaching conversations can help:

• Creates a safe space for employees (It helps to partner with external coaches with whom employees might feel safer to speak, as the organization works on creating a psychologically safe culture).
• Powerful questions disrupt one’s usual train of thought and can trigger new insight.
• Provides opportunities for clients to learn about themselves and the situation.
• Creates accountability as coaching conversations close with client-driven action plans.

“Internal mobility boosts retention.”

According to LinkedIn Learning’s The Skills Advantage Report, internal mobility boosts retention nearly 2x more than companies who don’t.?

Would you rather have your employees in place and feeling stuck, or would you want to get them moving??

What if in the growing gig economy, your employees can find their own gigs within your organization instead of looking for options outside?

It’s time to make your employees more career agile. For themselves. For the organization.

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