Individual career development – expected roles

As with the HR professionals, individuals were asked to share their thoughts on the roles of each key stakeholder in terms of career and talent development. Whereas the HR and OD professionals described the roles of two stakeholder groups (individual and organization), in the second phase of research, line managers were included as an additional stakeholder group. In commenting on the career development roles participants were asked to think of what they wanted as individuals, but also what they expected to offer as line managers (26of the participants described their line accountability). Despite the differences in the organizational cultures and approaches (see chapter 7 for a full exploration), there was a consistency of views. These are summarised in Table 5.7 below.

Individual • Self-awareness of career aims, personal strengths and weaknesses • Focusing on personal development, seeking feedback

• Building a career network and instigating conversations about how you can add more value

• Keeping up to date with what’s happening within your profession and your organization

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Line manager • Understanding individual and organizational needs and matching them • Building self-awareness through feedback

• Providing ongoing learning and development opportunities on and off the job

• Managing expectations, being honest

KP: ’the line manager should be great at recognising potential, harnessing this and having great conversations – they need to guide, support and find opportunities and experiences – they have responsibility to help this to happen’ Organization • Articulating the future needs of the organization in terms of people and

opportunities and illustrating how people can get there

• Providing opportunities for people to build experiences and skills, e.g. access to secondments, training programmes

• Encouraging managers to develop their people

• Creating an environment that empowers and motivates people to develop

JD: ‘the organization needs to provide tools for the leader, support the leaders’ development and give them an armoury and mechanics to help them map successes’

Table 5.7: Perceived career development roles, individual and line manager

Participants were very clear that it was their responsibility to drive their own career development. Their aims were to achieve their own goals, fitting with the description of career responsibility by Mirvis & Hall, ‘to achieve goals that are personally meaningful to the individual, rather than those set by parents, peers, an organization, or society’ (Mirvis & Hall, 1994: 138). This personal accountability and focus on development through feedback, self-development and learning were consistent with the HR perspective described in Table 5.2. However, there were also differences with the HR perspective. Firstly, most of the individuals described networking as part of their role, using the network to explore opportunities. This compares with the HR participants’ responses where networking was only mentioned by a small number. Furthermore, they saw it as their role to be aware of developments within the profession and within the organization to enable them to prepare for any changes. This element of the role was not apparent in the HR participants’ description of the individual’s career development role. Some of the participants described this in terms of finding common ground between their own goals and the organizational needs. For example, IR said;

‘I see it as my responsibility to lead the discussion, to capture the information and to identify where there is scope for me to work and improve. My aim is finding the sweet spot between what I want and what the business needs’

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The degree of self-direction was seen to increase with seniority and experience. For example, in early career there tended to be a clear structure and more obvious development steps and support (such as graduate programmes). However, as people became more experienced they felt that the individual had to be the driving force. One person challenged this view stating;

‘I don’t fully buy that the individual drives their own development. They have a role in the execution and delivery – they can create that vision and take them and their family on that journey – but there’s a real problem because there can be self-limiting beliefs and that’s a flaw and there can also be some who are delusional [about their potential].’

IW

Finding common ground was also a theme of the way the line manager’s role was positioned. For example, GJ suggested that the line manager was the ‘broker’ with responsibility for finding a ‘match’ that satisfied all needs. This suggested a strong desire for alignment between individual and organizational needs. Furthermore, for the individuals and the line managers the ‘work’ of career development was seen as largely occurring between them, with the organization’s role positioned as setting the climate and providing some structured development opportunities for building skills and experiences. Some of the line managers were asked about potential conflict in their role. Some felt there was no conflict, for example, HD stated;

‘I don’t really see conflicts in my role as a line manager between what the organization and the individual needs. If I developed someone and they leave, then that’s a key measure of success’

HD However, others were aware that they could be penalised if they developed someone who left and their department’s performance subsequently dropped. This potential conflict of interests for line managers is further discussed in chapter 6.

Noticeably, very few participants mentioned formal processes or talent management as part of the career development roles. When this was explored in the interview the focus was on appraisal as a tracking process, but this was not seen as having any significant influence on career development. A few of the participants had been part of formal career development programmes which had been useful, but most people were not aware of such activities. Overall it was felt to be the informal conversations that were most important. This was summarised by FW;

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‘the nature of these conversations is all different – tailored to the individual and what they need. You can’t force the moment or the time’.

FW

The extent to which participants felt that the talent and career roles were being successfully delivered was explored in the interviews. Many recognised that they personally could do more, that despite understanding how to manage their own career, they did not actively engage in it. The success of line managers in delivering their role was seen as hugely varied with some line managers described as exemplars in supporting career development and others viewed as blockers. This was consistent with the perspective of the HR participants. Generally, people felt that the organization could do more to help them to drive their own careers, but this was not generally positioned as a breach of the psychological contract. In particular, they were keen to increase their understanding of the organization’s needs, helping them to identify the potential opportunities for common ground. They felt this information would also enable them to navigate their career with their current employer, providing the context for ‘how to get on round here’, the informal rules that govern career development in the workplace (Inkson et al., 2015). Recognised as a career skill, this understanding of informal rules has been described by Sternberg (2000) as tacit knowledge, but perhaps due to the changing career environment, participants were keen for this information to be more transparent. The theme of transparency will be explored in more detail in chapter 6. Many were also frustrated by the lack of opportunities for building experience through cross functional moves and secondments (however, this varied by organization as shall be discussed in chapter 7). Participants also expressed a view that the role of managers in developing their teams could be more explicit and could be encouraged. For example, they suggested training support and recognition for line managers who are very strong at developing people.

Perhaps the biggest frustration expressed by participants was the lack of information about future development and career opportunities. This theme is discussed in chapter 6. Confirming the observations of the HR participants, the perceived contradiction between the words and the actions was also raised. For example, thinking about his line manager role, CL stated;

‘The challenge is that we say we want people to take control of their careers but the culture is different because we don’t give control over people’s own job ‘

CL Overall, individuals expressed their desire to take accountability for their career. However, they wanted help and support to make the most of opportunities which would help them in their career

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growth. In summary, they expressed a desire for the organization to ‘facilitate their career development’’ (Inkson et al.2015: 343).