Talk The Talk: How Ongoing Career Conversations Drive Business Success

It’s clear that converging economic, technological, and demographic changes are creating talent challenges for organizations, for managers and for individual employees. Skilled individuals, particularly those in short supply, have greater leverage to dictate terms of employment to their potential employers—how, where and when they want to work. They are trading employer-created job stability and traditional corporate pathways for an opportunity to chart and manage careers on their own terms, designing a “Career for Me.” In fact, 89% of respondents in a recent Right Management survey said “they are or need to be responsible for the development of their career.” As employees take greater control, they consistently report that they expect to move to other companies for growth and advancement opportunities to increase their value to future employers.
In this new environment of individually owned career management, an employer can participate in, influence, and gain value from an employee’s career journey but they cannot control it. 

So, how does an organization engage such an employee while meeting its own business objectives and goals? And, how does an organization manage employees who do not recognize their responsibility to maintain relevant skills, still believing they can keep doing what they have always done regardless of changing expectations, technologies and roles. The answer lies in reinventing the “Career Conversation.” Our research shows that a full two-thirds of individual performance drivers are tied to Career Conversations, making it the most important people process in an organizational culture that embraces career development.