1 Simple Way to Help Employees Drive Their Career Development

Описание: During career development conversations, managers often ask broad, vague questions that rarely lead anywhere.

In this video, HR pro Jamie Resker explains that to have a conversation that yields results, managers need to weave in smaller questions about the employee's interests and development.

Get our Definitive Handbook for Creating Exceptional Experiences at Work, free to download here: http://bit.ly/2ovAsAM

-

Transcript:

My top tip for helping employees in your organization feel like they can drive their career is making sure that in the ongoing conversations that you have between managers and employees that you've woven in some sort of a section on questions about the employee’s interests and development.

I use a system I call “the 10-minute questions conversation”, and there's a section on the employee’s development. You can see here that there's questions that the employee gets to choose what they want to be asked by their manager, so the employee gets to pick the question.

For example, the manager might say, “Gee, I see you picked ‘What project or task do you wish you could spend more time on?’ Or, ‘What skill would you like to master or apply more often?’ Or, ‘As you think about your career and your development, what on-the-job experience would be most helpful?’ Or, ‘What do you think the team hasn’t accomplished that you'd like to help out with?’”

It's not a question of “Where do you want to be in five years?”, because those questions are usually too broad in nature. It's really helping the employee think about at this point in time right now, “What's something you'd like to focus on?”

Sometimes managers are intimidated by having a career conversation with the employee because they're thinking, “What if the employee is asking me something that I can't give to them?” Or that whole conversation of “Where do you want to be in two years?” Have smaller conversations about what does the person want to focus on right now?

What's one thing that they feel like they want to do or get experience with? One organization I was working with, the manager had said when he asked the employee, “What's one thing you want to get better at learn about or be involved in?”, the employee’s answer was, and this is a biotech firm, the employee said, “I'd like to get into the lab and see how small molecules are made”.

Again, a smaller question about at this point in time, “What's one thing that you'd like to focus on or be involved in?” is a much better question than waiting for an individual development plan or once a year talking about a career or maybe not even having a conversation at all. So, weave those smaller questions into your ongoing conversations that really help the employee articulate something about their career, something about their development that they would like to make their manager aware of.

-

Learn more about talent management on the Saba Blog:
http://www.saba.com/blog

Connect with us!

Facebook:   / sabasoftware  
Twitter:   / sabasoftware  
LinkedIn:   / saba  
Instagram:   / sabasoftware