There’s a whole new year ahead so aim to make the best of it for the organisation and employees. New Year is a great time to think what you want to achieve in the coming months and review talent planning and career pathways for your talent. From an employee point of view career planning is more likely to succeed when plans and goals are reviewed and adjusted on a regular basis.
The connected career conversation
In a web-enabled world we’ve grown used to having our say on the services we use and have come to expect that same interaction with our employers. The modern workforce expects to be able to give input to leadership teams, as a matter of course, to have voice and their input recognised; and smart employers welcome that investment and engagement.
The connected conversation opens this two-way street: it’s an open channel for feedback to flow. Done well, connected conversations offer chances to guide employees and help them improve-and at the same time, taking a health-check on the overall feeling in the organisation.
If you want to see real cultural transformation take root you need to understand what makes employees tick – what your top performers do, how your best managers create shared understanding and how the corporate culture drives productivity, innovation and agile performance in a super-competitive landscape. Think about employees and how to improve their lives at work to make the organisation more effective, collaborative and creative.
Talking shop
To help your staff manage their careers, there are three things needed to implement a process of meaningful, connected career conversations:
- What is important to the individual?
- What do they like doing and what are they good at?
- Who in their network understands their aspirations and is able to assist in achieving them?
If your organisation wants to engage and motivate employees, you need to sculpt employee performance around these key points using an employee-centric approach. Enabling an employee-centred approach means employees will be more motivated and committed, the long-term outcome is more profit and more value for the business.
From strengths to bench strength
The connected conversation concept facilitates the evolution of performance review over time, rather than as a one-off annual event; as a concept this is in line with research on making the process more relevant and effective. Quality, relevant feedback improves employee learning and task performance. At 10Eighty we think it’s really important that all managers learn how to deliver effective and constructive feedback.
A strengths-based approach focuses on identifying what is positive about individuals, organisations and communities. Research by Gallup found that doing so results in higher levels of productivity, customer loyalty and employee retention.
Starting the year with a focus on facilitating employee personal development is key to building an engaged workforce and a culture of learning and collaboration. Where the organisation can help an employee with development aims, including those that don’t perhaps serve the long-term aims of the employer, there are advantages for both parties. Encouraging staff in their ambitions and growth goals engagement and goodwill.