Keep employees engaged with expanded options

By: Beverly Kaye & Sharon Jordan-Evans
From: USA Today - Careers Network - – August 2002

Do you get a knot in your stomach when a valued employee begins a conversation with:

I'd like to talk to you about my career.
I really want to understand what my career options are.
I don't understand why he got that promotion. I thought I. ..

Feel the knot? It's understandable. You value employees with superb skills who have mastered the current job and want more. They may get calls from recruiters. They want a chance to run the project. They're in your office, looking to you for a much-needed, much-deserved conversation about moving up in the organization. You want to keep them. And \"up\" is in short supply.

You may lose some of them. However, our 20 years of research reveal that not all those who say they want vertical moves will leave if they don't get them. But they will leave if they are not challenged, growing, and having new experiences.

Sometimes you can prevent turnover by helping your employees identify several career goals. If employees see that you can support several viable alternatives, they will picture a future for themselves within your organization.

Right person, right place, right time

We believe that there are five possible moves in addition to moving up. We also believe that the more specifically you can outline those moves, the less likely your talented employees will see other grass as greener. Consider talking with your employees about moves in several of the following directions:

Lateral Movement: Moving across or horizontally.
Enrichment: Growing in place.
Exploration: Temporary moves intended for researching other options.
Realignment: Moving downward to open new opportunities.

Lateral movement

Lateral moves offer much-needed breadth of experience. Taking a lateral move should mean applying current experience in a new job at the same level, but with different duties or challenges. Help employees see that lateral moves can improve skills or shift them from a slow-growing function to an expanding part of the organization. As you hold this discussion, be sure your people understand that you're not trying to get rid of them but to retain their talent for the organization.

Enrichment

Most folks think they need to move out of their current position to develop. Never has this been less true. Most of your employees' work is changing constantly. Enrichment means that employees expand the job, refine their expertise, or find depth in areas they really enjoy. You can help.

What can employees do, or learn to do, that will energize their work and bring them closer to achieving their goals and the goals of the organization?

Exploration

It happens. We reach a stage in our careers when we aren't sure of what we want or what choices are available, or even what's appropriate. We need information to decide if the grass is indeed greener elsewhere. Encourage your people to consider

Taking short-term job assignments in other parts of the organization
Participating on project teams with people from other departments
Scheduling informational interviews (These are interviews with people whose job your employee thinks he or she wants.)

Giving a talented person whose expertise you need the chance to explore other teams isn't easy. But people are less likely to feel trapped in their current jobs when they have other choices. They may find out that the grass isn't greener.

Realignment

Sometimes the path to a career goal involves a step backward to gain a better position for the next move.

An excellent technical contributor was promoted to manager. At first he liked the work. It still had some technical components, and he managed other bright individual contributors. But he moved more into managing those bright others, searching for ways to bring more work to the unit, and fighting administrative battles. He felt he had made a mistake and longed to return to a technical position. He had outgrown his previous position but longed for something with the new hardware group. He went to his manager to admit his mistake and request a move. His manager resisted, suggesting he give it more time or that he enroll in a training course to improve his management skills. Instead, he applied for and got a job that was precisely what he wanted, with a competitor.

This company lost a talented person because neither he nor his manager discussed realignment.

When up is the only way

Sometimes, it's the only choice. Your job is to identify and communicate what a talented employee's vertical options could include. Of course, advancement is most likely when an employee's abilities match the needs of the organization. You must interpret the organization's strategic direction to your team so that they select assignments that will prepare them for coming changes and openings.

Bottom line

Helping employees reach their goals often means helping them consider moves they may not have taken seriously before. Ask key questions to help them see what they could gain by trying a move that isn't a simple vertical step. You might surface choices they had not previously considered. The more options you can offer, the more you will increase your organization's chances of keeping the employee.

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