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Having described their approach to talent management, the HR professionals were then asked about career conversations. This related to RQ2, ‘In what ways do stakeholders see career conversations as an opportunity to align organizational talent needs and individual career goals?’ Within this, the sub questions related to the perceived contribution of career conversations generally and within the context of talent management.

Many did not use the term ‘career conversation’, but all participants described events where there was an opportunity for some or all individuals to talk with someone about their career and their future development. For the purposes of this research all such opportunities (formal and informal) were included under the umbrella of ‘career conversation’. Differences between these conversations are explored in chapter 6. Workplace career conversations were seen by most of the participants as an important element of delivering their talent management practices. Accordingly, the primary purpose of the conversations varied between organizations with some focusing largely on successors, others on developing skills for the future and others a combination. However, these conversations were consistently recognised as being applicable to all employees, not just those considered as ‘talent’. Three of the organizations without formal talent management practices were specifically focused on career conversations as their main organizational career development tool. For example, Ian summarised it by saying;

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‘It’s all about the conversations people need to have/should be having about talent, so really the approach needs to be all about how to get the conversation working rather than focusing on policy/procedure etc.’

Ian

Across the participants, few were fully satisfied with how these career conversations were currently operating. Most felt that whilst there were some very constructive conversations taking place, there was a lot of inconsistency and the way the conversations were enacted depended a great deal on the line manager. Five of the participants had taken specific action to improve the conversations either through targeted training, provision of briefing information or HR coaching before and during specific conversations. For example, Lisa said;

‘career conversations are a key part of this [processes and tools for talent management] and we’ve prepared guides to help people prepare and deliver them. The goal is for managers to have honest conversations with their team members. Some leaders are really good. Others aren’t.’

Lisa

Approaches to career conversations were hugely varied – from highly structured to highly informal; from line manager led to HR led; from a small part of an annual review to a separate career discussion; from completely open to highly selective sharing of information. Despite these differences, the participants saw common aims for the conversations. These are described in Table. 5.3 below, with each element identified by at least eight of the participants. The emphasis however varied depending on the organization’s strategic aims and culture, to be discussed in chapter 7.

Aspirations Exploring the individual’s aspirations, sense of direction for their career and their level of engagement in pursuing their career within the organization (sometimes done as a separate session as input to the talent review including issues such as mobility). This varied from a structured conversation on aspirations to a vague sense of ‘ask them what they want’, but this tended to be the least structured element of the conversations.

Ruth: ‘the conversation itself covers where they see themselves, what they’re interested in doing, how far they want to go’

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Feedback Providing feedback on how these aspirations matched the organization’s view on potential and future career options (often incorporating feedback from the talent review, assessment or calibration session). The level of feedback varied from sharing everything to sharing just some information. Much of this element was based on giving feedback from the organization rather than encouraging self- feedback.

Charlie: ‘honest feedback is fundamental if people are to have realistic expectations’

Planning Developing a plan to support the development of skills, knowledge and experiences to support the achievement of future career (the output, which may then be centrally recorded). The degree of planning also varied from a detailed development plan for the next 12 – 18 months to some ‘general’ areas to work on.

Marcus: ‘All this [understanding business needs, personal aspiration and current performance] leads into the development plan’

Table. 5.3: Aims of career conversations, HR participants

When discussing career conversations some identified that these conversations could be highly motivating for individuals. Furthermore, the absence of these conversations was seen as potentially demotivating. Some recognised that career conversations were a mechanism to connect individual and organizational agendas. This was in contrast to the limited interest in individual agendas when discussing the broader aims of talent management. For example, Peter spoke of ‘leadership conversations’;

‘We see leadership conversations as the opportunity to bring things together – you can have isolated conversations about goal setting, career, aspiration and development. We’re trying to encourage managers to take an holistic view of these things’

Peter This was seen to bring a benefit to the employer in terms of increased employee engagement and satisfaction. For example, Ruth referenced quality career conversations as a tool to respond to low employee satisfaction with career opportunities (as identified through an employee survey). This was a further perspective which had been absent in the earlier parts of the research discussions. However, on the whole, the rationale for conducting career conversations remained clearly within the resource agenda of finding, retaining and developing great people to meet current and future resourcing needs, or as Sue described it, ‘it all links to the resourcing plan’. This viewpoint was also emphasized by the

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HR and OD consultants. For example, Caroline described organizations being more concerned about being seen to provide support rather than the quality or value of that support.

Four of the HR participants described being committed to the value of career conversations operating largely outside any formal process. Jessica described these conversations as a core expectation of managers, with conversations involving all employees;

‘you know your team, you give them feedback, you manage them well and you help them to take accountability for driving their own career’.

Jessica Managers were described as having ongoing conversations about the future of the organization and asking people ‘what’s your part in making this work and how can we help you to develop towards this?’ Marcus and Jim also described ongoing conversations leading to moves and projects for people to further their careers. They both said that face to face conversations were key to how their businesses operated, but both also had a formal ‘wrap up’ in an annual appraisal. As Marcus put it, ‘the informal side is the most important’.

In the research discussion, some of the HR participants described how they ideally wanted career conversations to work within their organization. Some of this data emerged from describing the conversations they wanted to encourage and some emerged from describing the problems they wanted to avoid. There was a lot of similarity and a summary is presented in Table 5.4. Within the descriptions, the idea of ‘relationship’ was very evident. This indicated the opportunity for career conversations to provide a vital link between the needs of the organization and the individual. There was also reference to the role of informal conversations and approaches which had not been evident earlier in the research interviews. Furthermore, the described views of career conversations were largely consistent with the ‘mutual endeavor’ conversations described by Smith & Campbell (2011). However, this focus on mutuality was once again in contrast to the primary focus of talent management which had been initially presented as meeting organizational needs with no reference to individual needs (apart from the one participant, Jessica who referenced talent management as jointly owned). The vision for career conversations was described by many as feeling a ‘long way off’ (Hermione). A number commented that they had yet to come across an organization which ‘does this really well’ (Suzanne). This was consistent with Yarnall’s (2008) observation that there is a general lack of quality conversations regarding careers.

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Ownership Conversations to be owned by line managers without constant ‘nagging’ from HR and without HR ‘policing’ the conversations.

Sue: ‘We want them [career conversations] to develop to be more part of the DNA’ Partnership Conversations to embody a real sense of partnership between the individual and the

line manager/organization, creating the career plan as a joint project.

Hermione: ‘They [conversations] need to be collaborative – it needs to be open and honest so we can see how we can meet needs’

Relationship Conversations to take place as part of a genuinely trusting and open relationship where individuals feel free to talk honestly about their careers without concerns about any negative implications.

Julie: ‘The manager needs to quickly establish trust and confidence so people can be open’

Consistency Conversations to be carried out consistently by all managers for a target population, providing all these employees with the opportunity to benefit from great conversations about their future.

Lisa: ‘The goal is for all managers to be having these honest conversations [as set out in the conversation guide] with their team members’

Action Conversations to have a consequence - a clear commitment to action with things actually happening as a result of the conversation.

Charlie: ‘The career conversation is an opportunity to join up succession and career and close any gaps’

Table 5.4: Summary of vision for career conversations, HR participants

From the above it can be seen that career conversations were viewed differently to talent management. Whilst seen as a helpful mechanism within talent management, they were recognised as having a contribution to make to all employees, potentially leading to increased engagement. In particular, these conversations were seen as an opportunity to discuss individual needs, provide feedback and develop action plans. Thus, relating the findings back to RQ2, the HR participants viewed career conversations as a potential way to align organizational and individual needs.

The HR perspective has now been considered in terms of RQ1 and RQ2. A number of contradictions in the participant descriptions have emerged, and many of these were openly shared by the participants. For example, participants described a gap between policy and practice and a disconnect between individual accountability for career and organizational actions. However, the apparent contradiction between organizationally focused talent management goals and partnership

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focused career conversation goals was not on the whole raised by participants. This contradiction could be seen as an example of ‘doublethink’ as described by El-Sawad et al. (2004). This is explained as occurring ‘when one individual holds simultaneously two (or more) conflicting beliefs’ (El-Sawad et al., 2004: 1189), and importantly, the individual does not seem aware of the contradiction. El-Sawad et al. (2004) consider why such doublethink may take place. Citing the work of Giddens (1991), they refer to a process of ‘bracketing’. As such, it is possible that the HR participants have different ‘compartments’ for talent management and individual career development. Accordingly, they were able to consider them separately without a perceived need to resolve apparent contradictions. These differences could also be considered as an example of Truss et al.’s (1997) contrast between hard and soft approaches. In this scenario, talent management is managed through a hard approach and career conversations through a soft approach.