Does your talent culture facilitate Self-Management?

I’ve had an interesting discussion about this with my dear friend Ingrid De Backer, who recently started her own business ‘HRwheelworks’. She supports organizations in the realization of their talent strategy and in the development of the desired talent culture.

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Ingrid shared the following dialogues from Talent Review Meetings (TRM) she  facilitated:

• Manager: "employee X does not have the ambition to grow, she has three small children, so no time for a 'career' ”. Facilitator of the TRM: "Have you discussed career expectations with this employee?" Manager: "That is not necessary, given that the situation is clear"
• Manager: "I want employee Y to take on a new project within his field of expertise. Facilitator of the TRM: “He has indicated that he wants to expand his horizon and take on other types of assignments.” Manager: “Employee X is highly specialized and of great value for my department. I can’t run the project without him.” This intervention leads to a consensus among the participants in the TRM that the employee has to do the project for now. Possible different assignments are dismissed to ‘sometime later’.

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Do you recognize these dialogues? Would you take the same decisions in your organization? Both decisions indicate that the aspirations of the employees are not taken into account, whether the employee has spoken up or not.

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Which talent culture do you strive for in your organization? What written and unwritten rules apply to deal with talent in your organization? The above statements and decisions determine the real talent culture of the organization, no matter what was put on paper.

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IF, as an organization, you propagate that careers are (also) the responsibility of the employee, and at the same time people are not encouraged or challenged to make clear what it is they want … or if they do manage to make this clear, their interest is overruled by organizational needs without consultation,  ... THEN employees, especially the high performers, will leave your organization. Since these decisions are not in line with your desired talent culture, you are in fact breaking the psychological contract with the employee.

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Ingrid and I come to the conclusion that HR, together with the management, has an important role to play when it comes to building a talent culture that leaves room for self-management.

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Talent Review Meetings are an excellent lever to give self-management its rightful place.

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Some tips to realize this:

1. Discuss, in little groups of executives and employees, what ‘taking responsibility for your own career’ really means and why this is important, given the current labor market with its strong focus on employability.
2. Set up workshops or e-learning modules for employees and executives to make them aware of the necessity for self-management and the development of career management attitudes.
3. Define, where necessary and in cooperation with the executives, actions to evolve to a talent culture with more room for Self-Management.
4. Above all, be consistent in your talent decisions - take these in line with your desired talent culture and in line with your 'promises' to external candidates.
5. Make sure that the director who chairs the Talent Review Meeting, is a role model in terms of developing self-management within his/her employees.

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Is your Talent Review Meeting today a clincher or a lever for Self-Management in your organization?

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Contact us for more information about the Career Discovery Trajectory and the Talent Review Profiler.