The Career Ladder has fallen over; a new way of managing careers is essential for the future. Both the “employer” representatives and the employees need to approach career management differently. Different conversations are needed and better levels of transparency are essential so people feel engaged and committed to their future. We are putting up with at least 40% of our workforce being actively disengaged and this is not sustainable – personally or organisationally!!
The old ladder with hierarchical rungs signifying career progression has fallen over and the BRW Report written by Leo D’Angelo Fisher in the August 8-14 edition on pages 15 to 20 captures some brilliant points.
He starts the report by claiming very validly that with “…..flatter organisational structures and fewer management rungs on the corporate ladder, keeping ambitious employees satisfied and motivated is a bigger challenge than ever.” This has certainly been our experience of working with Australian corporates in recent months – in fact they often state that one of the goals of the leadership development programme we facilitate for them is to provide exciting and rewarding experiences for their emerging leaders – keeping them motivated to stay and find career experiences within the organisation that satisfy their personal aspirations.
Sam Sheppard, Director of HR in Wesfarmers Insurance, claims in this report that “people need to be a lot more flexible and adaptive in thinking about careers.” She claims the old concept of a single and dominant career is over! We concur that people are increasingly seeking lateral moves and looking outside of the traditional career paths for career transition alternatives.
Sam goes on to say that they seek to enhance existing roles rather than create career paths based on promotions – they look for ways to develop and grow people, and especially seek ways to make it easier for people to learn how to lead more constructively, improve their productivity and manage others more effectively to achieve great results.
We see people looking for meaningful experiences and wanting to feel significant and engaged with what they are doing and who they are doing it with – it is no longer about the title and it is not about the money. So all of this means existing leaders are being called upon to engage in transparent conversations and Bruce Watt from DDI claims that “poor workplace conversations are creating career path roadblocks and frustrated workplaces.” In fact there are far too many people within corporate Australia feeling uncertain and stressed about their future – what a waste of energy and all because we don’t have existing leaders who are skilled enough and prepared to BE vulnerable enough to engage in real conversations about the future – especially when they don’t have the answers.
For successful career management in the future we absolutely need existing leaders to engage in very real conversations with the emerging leaders – transparency and honesty are vital so expectations and needs are shared and then managed. This takes emotional and moral courage and in our experience not enough existing leaders are ready for this. It was so much easier to let the ladder do all the hard work wasn’t it?
Emerging leaders must take complete responsibility for the direction of their careers and the experiences they are accumulating. It is no longer going to be as easy as climbing the ladder one rung at a time and hanging on to one rung for long enough until you are pushed up to the next by the people below you. It has all changed and the COURAGE to engage in the real conversations is essential – courage to speak and the courage to listen!
