What does “managing your employees’ careers” mean today? We constantly hear talk of “making the employee the actor in his or her career“. Can we interpret this as a form of disengagement from the HR sphere in this area?
On the contrary, this critical dimension of HR policy consists in taking into account the varied expectations of talent and forging a culture, supported by instruments, that can enrich the company with the sum of each talent that makes it up.
In this article, we’ll define this practice, look at how it’s evolving, consider the issues at stake and how to bring it to life in the organization.
What is career management?
Career management is a pragmatic and efficient way of allocating skills . This strategy is designed to offer employees the means to project themselves into various roles and responsibilities, based on their aptitudes.
Contrary to popular belief, the main aim of this discipline is not to retain talent.
Its vocation is to shape a method that contributes first and foremost to the company’s performance and, secondly, to the development of its people.
The management of these career paths is therefore the operational expression of Jobs & Skills Management, since it originates in the major orientations in terms of know-how to be developed, working conditions, and the adaptation of skills to external developments.
Career management challenges and objectives
Justten years ago, supporting employees on their career paths most often meant entrusting them with more responsibilities, in the form of vertical development. At the time, this vision depended on the organic growth of companies that have since based their development strategy more on external growth. As a result, this transition is changing the way people evolve, calling for a modern conception of career paths.
What are the current challenges facing career management?
Thechallenges of career management are to succeed in reconciling formalized career paths acting as compasses for employees, while leaving plenty of options for the realization of unique trajectories. Moreover, these movements must also be based on reliable criteria so as to objectify evolutions and, subsequently, assess the viability of these itineraries thus created.
From the HR team’s point of view, the challenge is to make all options visible, whether horizontal or cross-functional. This form of virtuous constraint thus encourages HR departments to design a policy that no longer only takes into account performance and the political dimension relating to individuals, but above all their skills. These then act as a link between what the company needs and what it can mobilize today and tomorrow. Finally, career planning is no longer aimed solely at the company’s “talents”, but takes a more inclusive approach to supporting all resources.
Career management objectives
Everyone’s commitment
Symmetry of attentions is a Human Resources terminology used by Séverine Loureiro, to highlight the importance of keeping promises. Companies are finding it so difficult to recruit that there is a strong temptation to overemphasize measures that are not as satisfactory in reality. Along with the quality of management, the management of opportunities for internal mobility is the visible facet of a company’s recruitment policy, where there is no room for error. At a time when 20% of probationary periods do not come to an end, we can postulate that transparency of information on internal opportunities, together with an appropriate managerial stance, will be the pillars of greater involvement.
We develop these topics:
Enhancing the employer brand
Studies show the prevalence of flexibility, diversity of relationships and tasks in employees’ expectations, alongside the salary dimension. This freedom, often seen in terms of working from home and balancing work and private life, conceals a thirst for variety in the tasks and projects available to employees.
This plurality of experience also explains the growing number of freelancers. A company stands out from the crowd when it succeeds in creating ephemeral, plural micro-companies that claim to provide solutions to specific challenges. As a result, employees who benefit from this richness will promote their structure and recommend it to their friends and family. In fact, this dimension is one of the criteria used to rate companies such as Glassdoor.
We recommend various resources on these topics:
Anticipating and enhancing performance
Career management requires upstream assessment of critical skills, at-risk know-how and the obsolescence of certain aptitudes. In fact, it’s a good idea to direct teams towards activities that have been identified as promising for the organization. Ideally, this information should appear on the HR teams’ dashboard. This valuable information gives rise to a reorientation of human resources through the “HR strategic planning” mechanism, also known as Strategic Workforce Planning.
A tool like Neobrain offers these 2 essential parameters:
- The recommendation of skills emerging and new trades that our AI identifies from job boards and observatories
- Simplified visualization of mobility areas and job bridges to illustrate these changes
To complete our discussion:
Promoting internal mobility
Our May 2023 survey of 117 HR decision-makers reveals a marked increase in requests for internal mobility, whatever the size of the company. This appetite for mobility does not only concern vertical changes, but any type of movement based on a response to an employee’s desired development meets this strong expectation. This explains why we need to capitalize on both reorganizations and transformations to modify job outlines, or to go even further by structuring the company no longer on the basis of job descriptions, but of skills .
Essential mobility studies and guides :
Skills at the heart of career paths
In the current state of business transformations, a professional will have, at the very least, between 4 and 5 different jobs in his or her working life. The key to all these changes is the ability to renew oneself and acquire new qualifications. So, as a preamble to thinking about itinerary design, we need to be able to rely on the continuous assessment of our skills.
Ongoing skills’ assessment
This exercise enables the employee to become aware of his or her strengths and to take note of his or her initial level within the framework of the most relevant training schemes. A performance-measurement tool also guarantees employees lasting fulfillment in the missions entrusted to them. Several tools are used to measure skills levels:
- Self-assessment to empower employees
- Aptitude tests, which are most often designed for “hard skills”.
- The skills assessments, which are fairly formal and often used for retraining purposes.
- 360-degree feedback , which requires the involvement of several people and makes the above assessments reliable.
Find out more about these assessment tools:
Adapting skills
33 million euros are invested in training every year, including 15 million in vocational training. Yet survey results, such as the one conducted by Edflex with Neobrain, show moderate satisfaction among those concerned, with 2 figures to highlight:
- An average score of 6.4/10 for user satisfaction
- 40% are unaware of their company’s training offer
Even if training cannot be measured in terms of employee gratification, it remains essential to ensure that employees adhere to the company’s strategic orientations. A real overhaul of training is needed today, otherwise we will no longer be able to respond to the aspirations of professionals, 26% of whom now use free channels for self-training. It is therefore becoming urgent to re-index the development offer on the skills dimension.
Gather more information on adaptation skills :
Here’s the Replay of the Webinar with 360learning on training redesign.
Set up a career management system
What are the stages in the career management process?
To build a career management system, we distinguish 5 steps: first, we design a general orientation, then audit the skills that can be mobilized, develop them if necessary, set them in motion using an intelligent tool, and finally get your talents to adhere to it.
1. Establish a career management policy
- Defining orientations and objectives
- Identify the skills keys to achieving corporate objectives
- Determine the different models required: expertise, coordination, management, exploration/innovation
2. Identify the company's skills
- Mapping skills employee profiles
- Evaluate each individual in a spirit of continuous improvement
- Identify development needs to close observed gaps
3. Develop the necessary skills
- Set up personalized training plans for each employee
- Offer professional development opportunities such as cross-functional assignments, one-off projects or mentoring
- Encourage continuous learning and the acquisition of new skills skills to foster career development
4. Use intelligent tools to enhance internal career opportunities
- Set up a system to monitor skills and employee performance
- Use a common platform to disseminate information to as many people as possible
- Disseminate career management tools and make internal opportunities accessible
5. Involve the various company players and ensure their support
- Make managers aware of the limits and opportunities to be offered
- Encourage dialogue and communication between employees and HR managers
- Involve employees in planning their own path and the tools to achieve their goals
By following these steps, the company will be able to put in place an effective system that will enable employees to flourish and contribute to the company's success.
Conclusion
In conclusion, career management cannot be reduced to a simple talent retention tool. It’s a dynamic, evolving process that requires HR professionals to think outside the box and make bold decisions.
One example of the evolution of this career management policy is the criteria used to select managers. It is no longer the best performers or the most expert who are entrusted with the role of developing teams, but individuals who have the right know-how for the job. skill and appetence are becoming the most reliable vectors for career development.
We recommend being bold and offering opportunities to people who weren’t necessarily identified at the outset. It’s by breaking out of conventional patterns that unexpected talents can emerge and bring real added value to the company.
The dream of stable careers has been undermined by recurrent reorganization. Organizational attachment has been replaced by an attachment to career, leaving the employee alone in control of his or her professional destiny. From now on, it’s no longer a question of promising medium-term paths, but rather of making opportunities transparent – which is what the Talent Marketplace offers.
In an ever-changing world, rethinking traditional models and leaving room for innovation and experimentation is particularly stimulating.
So, are you ready to think outside the box and innovate?
