“Little
hope for career advancement or growth” was the second most
common reason why people left organisations according to a recent Kelly Global
Workforce study. Work is such an integral part of our lives that people need to
feel a sense of hope and optimism for the future and think that there are
opportunities for them in the future. Great organisations and great leaders
innately provide this, however, they are few and far between.The most common reason for this is a gap that I see is an inability of middle managers – team leaders, service managers, regional managers – to have great career conversations with their staff. These conversations don’t occur for two simple reasons. First, there is a culture of ‘busyness’ that pervades most industries. Yes, there is always too much to do but what could be more important than retaining and motivating your staff? Second, they lack the skill to have great career conversations coupled with an outdated understanding of what a career actually is.
Let me share an example. The first reaction of managers when they hear ‘career conversations’ is that they need to help everyone develop and be promoted. Yet viewing work as a career is just one perspective on work. Amy Wrzesniewski from the University of Michigan and her colleagues, identified three main perspectives: work as a job; work as a career; and work as a calling. Every organisation needs people who view work as a job as they are critical to getting the work done. They still need conversations, albeit not as frequently, to ensure that they are happy in their role and that their work motivations haven’t shifted.
We call career conversations, magnetic conversations, because it is fundamentally about understanding a person’s underlying motivation and then explicitly connecting this to their work.
Over the past month we have run a series of events focussed on this very topic. Each sparked a vibrant, wide ranging conversation about the nature of work. The consensus was that many organisations have made some progress but there is still a long way to go. And with the economy continuing to be tight, the need to reward without money is greater than ever.
