If anyone is seen to be blocking someone, they are called aside by senior managers and “named and shamed”. This is because if you get in the way of promising staff, why are they going to stay with us? All that happens is that they see the block and they leave because there is always a market for talent elsewhere.
Google also values internal coaching as a way of supporting staff and empowering them to take risks and even fail. For Google’s innovative environment to work, Liane Hornsey explains:
We allow people the freedom to fail and the freedom to keep their job if they fail because they had the guts to take the initiative.
Internal coaches play a vital role in supporting people to work in this way. Hornsey comments:
In an environment where there is a lot of trust, I don’t have an issue where people might be frightened to be open to internal coaches. That really helps.
Coaching is often cross-functional, and Hornsey believes that this helps break down functional barriers between engineers and sales people and also helps develop leaders:
One way of developing great managers and leaders is to get them to become great coaches. They learn listening skills, they learn not to be impulsive. They learn not to give all the answers every time.
Implications: personalised career management
The previous chapter outlined how some international companies are seeking to build talent by giving employees the width and depth of experience, especially in terms of international assignments, that will make them valuable to the business in the long term. Unfortunately for them, it seems that many talented people are not interested in staying with the firm long term.
Jon Ingham, a human resources and organisation development consultant, spells out the challenge to organisations but also provides a positive note:
Organisations are going to have to adjust or they won’t be able to recruit, retain and engage [generation Y] individuals. But organisations are going to have to appeal to older workers who have the same requirements.
The good thing is that the changes organisations are going to have to make to appeal to Gen Y are positive things anyway – being more collaborative, having a purpose, focusing on individual employees. It is all the things HR people in particular should be crying out in their organisations to create. This is a wonderful enabler for all of us.
If high-potential, high-performing employees are not lost to the business, through being poached by a rival or through self-employment, employers have to find ways of creating a compelling “employee value proposition”, which, in plain English, means supplying them with the right set of inducements to stay.
This means brokering a deal with the talented individual, such that the company can offer career opportunities that both satisfy the needs of the business and cater for personal circumstances and the set of values, goals and needs driving a talented individual. In a nutshell, the challenge is no longer to “manage” talent – it is to keep talented individuals fulfilled.
Career planning therefore needs to be highly tailored and personal for anyone whose contribution is crucial in the longer term. If the needs of people from generation Y, women and increasingly other groups of talented employees are catered for, personalised career management needs to incorporate the following good practices.
Open and honest career discussions
The purpose is to ensure clarity and alignment with what the individual wants and expects from the organisation in terms of career goals, and how this can fit with business goals. These discussions are a particular means of managing the expectations of impatient or overambitious employees from generation Y. They are also an opportunity for talented individuals to voice any anxieties and to look at any personal issues that might prevent them from taking advantages of career or development opportunities.
Google works actively to help graduates from generation Y to start to think differently about their careers and to have more realistic expectations. Their fixation with a vertical career is quickly challenged, as Liane Hornsey recounts:
These graduates come out of school and expect the world and expect you to give them a career path tomorrow. They are kids that expect it to be all planned out for them over the next eight years and then they are going to be chief executive. Well hey, let’s get real at this point. But because we do have kids of this generation, we present our programmes in a way that actually looks like it is progression … we do this so they can feel a sense of movement … We try to wean them off the career path idea – actually my view is that it is a jungle gym, not a career ladder.
The Boston Consulting Group says that these types of discussions are like “a very interactive, high touch kind of agreement”, and that it is seeing more corporate clients moving towards this. This is especially true in fast-growing markets where talented employees expect to move rapidly and will leave if they think there are better opportunities elsewhere. Jean-Michel Caye, a BCG fellow who heads the HR/people advantages and talent topics for the group globally, observes:
The more you are in a competitive marketplace as a company, the more competitive people are individually and the more people’s career management is individual too.
Personalised career opportunities
The purpose is to make plans that take into account the different career goals of talented individuals and to make sure that the organisation provides individuals with the right job experiences at the right time. In some cases, the organisation may be able to outline a specific career path; but in many cases, it may be a set of abilities that individuals need to acquire at that stage of their career.
Some individuals may want to progress rapidly to a senior role and the emphasis is on providing an accelerated career path. Others might want a senior role that lets them remain in the region and some will be looking for international or global roles. Other talented individuals might be happy to deepen their specialist skills and welcome opportunities for lateral moves rather than progressing upwards.
Sandra Schwarzer of INSEAD makes two points about personalised career planning. On the one hand, she says that a close partnership between the individual and HR is key to help manage expectations:
There is often hunger on the part of the talent to be recognised and it is difficult to manage that because in a corporate setting, you cannot advance people quickly. Communication is key.
On the other hand, talented individuals also need to recognise that it is not always possible for their companies to give them a neat series of career steps, given the complexity and uncertainty of the business environment.
Companies may be able to identify the skills and experiences that are critical at each career stage, but they may not be able to specify specific positions or roles. It is the individual’s responsibility to be self-aware and to think about what they want from their career. Schwarzer comments:
We have a couple of graphs that show students that there are 15 different ways to get to country manager because we have interviewed all our alumni who worked in that role. We have listed all the different stations that they have had in their career – and there is no one path. What we try to tell them is that in today’s life, you can look maybe one or two steps ahead, but you may be asked to step sideways too.
Students are encouraged to become more self-aware, says Schwarzer:
We make them aware that if they are in command of their career, they need regular time to think about what it is that they want and how do they get it, how do they maintain their learning and how do they continue to develop themselves.
The company needs to be aware of and take into account when the individual might desire (or require) extended leave, or a job closer to home with more regular hours. And career planning should identify what experience the individual will need to progress.
In the case of women, all McKinsey’s research points to the importance of making sure that women genuinely get the same access as men to stretching assignments, adequate line-management experience and sponsorship from senior lea
ders to increase their visibility and make sure they are considered for key roles in the organisation.
Emily Lawson says planning should be as early as possible for both men and women:
Most companies don’t invest in people until their late 30s and early 40s. You need to spot them much earlier. You need to get them on the right career path, learning languages and getting the right kind of experiences before they have families and children and they are stuck in one place.
Frequent career reviews
The goal is to make sure that the career of talented individuals is progressing as expected and is not being blocked by unnecessary barriers. These reviews should also make sure that talented people are not trapped in pockets of the organisation or that careers are not derailed at certain career stages, for example the transition from a regional to an international role. Line managers play an important role in making sure that their talented people are thriving, but in many companies a committee of senior managers and the HR/talent management function also hold regular reviews.
At Randstad, for example, senior managers and HR staff devote considerable time to talent reviews. Many parts of the organisation are involved in discussions to help build a shared picture of how talented people are deployed in the business. The process involves in-depth reviews by a board member together with the leadership team and HR staff, and line managers assess individuals at every stage of their career. Marielle de Macker, HR managing director, says:
A formal talent review takes place once a year, but the responsibility for spotting talent identification is certainly not limited to HR professionals only. Each and every leader in our company is always looking out for, monitoring, observing and developing talent, each and every day.
Career trellises instead of career paths
A career trellis offers multiple career options so that employees can alter the speed and direction of their career, whereas a career ladder focuses on vertical career moves. Career trellises work well for those who want to broaden their experience and for organisations where there are limited opportunities for promotion. They offer, for example, temporary assignments, lateral moves and stretching projects, which may be in unfamiliar markets or a role in a short-term joint-venture project.
Boston Consulting Group believes that career trellises give employees better opportunities for career advancement. Jean-Michel Caye explains:
There are two ideas there. The first is that organisations have become flatter and people are more energised and free to use their discretion. So there are fewer ladders to climb. Second, competence development has become more demanding. In many cases, you will have to get a variety of experiences to develop the right level of competence. So you sometimes move laterally and sometimes move diagonally.
Google sets great store on rotating its people between posts to challenge them and keep them engaged. Following talent mapping and reviews, it develops people through a global rotation programme, where people are circulated around different regional offices. Liane Hornsey says:
We do a lot of work to get people to sit down and think, “actually, what do I want to do?” And of course, in order to do that you have to give them a sense of what is available.
However, this method depends on employing what the company calls “general athletes”, as Hornsey explains:
I think this is important because if you select people who have general capabilities and you are willing to rotate them as we are, you can keep them learning, keep them happy, and give them broader experience.
By the time a person gets to a senior level, they have plenty of cross-functional experience and are “more rounded before they join the executive”. Moving people in this way is disruptive to the business, but Hornsey says it is worth it.
Apple
Apple’s approach to career management is clear: the company insists that its employees take complete control of their career management. The concept of having employees “own their career” has been in place for some years. Apple believes that if it constructs a career path for its staff, employees will develop a “sense of entitlement” and assume that they have a right to continuous promotion.
According to John Sullivan of San Francisco State University, Apple believes that career paths weaken employee self-reliance and indirectly make cross-departmental collaboration and learning less likely. In the absence of a conventional career path, he explains:
Employees actively seek out information about jobs in other functions and business units. In a company where creativity and innovation are king, you don’t want anything reducing your employee’s curiosity and the cross-pollination between diverse functions and units.
Apple rarely moves employees automatically up to the next functional job, because it believes this may also severely narrow the range of internal movement within the organisation. It thinks that less mobility will also reduce the level of diverse thinking in some groups.
Flexible working arrangements
Any company that is serious about diversity will enable employees with family commitments to work shorter hours or part time, job share, or take extended leave as part of maternity or paternity arrangements. It is not just parents who want more flexibility but also people from generation Y and older workers.
McKinsey’s research suggests that among women few managers or senior staff currently enjoy flexible working arrangements. American research in 2012, which involved interviews with 350 executives in 60 companies and a survey of 4,000 employees in 14 of those companies, noted that half of the women surveyed were both the primary breadwinner and principal provider of care at home. The majority of men who were the primary breadwinner were not the principal provider of care at home. The report said:
In this context, the fact that only 3% of managers (men and women) worked part time and that less than 1% of more senior executives work part time makes balance tough for mothers. While some companies have created flexible work arrangements, part-time plans remain elusive.
This is as pertinent in a 2012 study of 235 European companies, Making the Breakthrough, which suggested that “working less than full-time is still seen as a risky career move that can deter women from making it”. McKinsey recommends the following:
Flexible working is likely to catch on fully only when it ceases to be regarded as the preserve of women with dependents. In one company, when men began to take advantage of the flexible work programme, a tipping point was reached at which flexible working became commonplace, and over the course of five years, the senior management team was transformed.
Role models help. Senior managers, both men and women, who discuss their flexible working patterns can help demonstrate that it is possible to be successful and committed to the business and still work flexibly.
Tailored learning and development opportunities
The opportunity to develop further skills and learning is an essential means to make sure that talented employees feel engaged in their work and that their potential is recognised. Such development must be continuous if valued employees are to remain motivated at times when the opportunity for promotion or new responsibilities is minimal.
Stretching assignments play a critical role in helping people learn on the job. In the case of individuals who are unable to work abroad, companies are using shorter international stretching projects that focus on personal development.
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development research into the experience of belonging to a talent pool revealed that respondents to the survey rated the opportunity to develop new skills as the second most important benefit of being talent managed. They valued unstructured on-the-job learning more than formal programmes. The three most highly rated developmental opportunities were coaching (50%), mentoring (38%) and high-quality feedback (38%). The CIPD notes:
Self-awareness is a commonly perceived benefit from coaching and mentoring. The value placed on these less structured, more individually based development activities is consistent across organisations, s
ectors and grades of individuals.
Part of Santander UK’s talent strategy revolves around providing high-potential employees with many developmental opportunities early in their careers. These include apprenticeships, internships, internal courses to gain formal banking qualifications, job rotation, volunteering schemes and leadership development programmes. Caroline Curtis, head of talent, succession and leadership development, explains the rationale:
We ensure individual development plans are put in place, for example, we have a number of people working on internal projects where they have an opportunity to experience different parts of the operation – across a number of different geographies. This chance to develop real skills in a real life environment is hugely beneficial. I am also a huge fan of mentoring, coaching and buddying – with all parties gaining from the relationship.
Michael Stanford, executive director of IMD, says the business school is seeing more examples of companies that are taking a strategic view of both forms of development and successfully blending the two in their talent management work. He comments:
Many organisations recognise that while development work designed for the organisation might be an excellent source of organisation capability-building, it might not satisfy the desire of each individual to create and explore his or her own world of curiosity and learning without a specific organisational objective in mind.
Stanford says that the task of creating an integrated learning and development portfolio that includes “highly personalised development work” is difficult:
It is not always obvious how an organisation’s strategy can be translated into organisational capabilities and finally distilled to individual development plans … the task of creating such individualised development is time consuming and sometimes difficult.
Managing Talent Page 12
