Developing a successful career strategy

As organisations streamline operations and seek greater agility, the best recognise that successful change depends on establishing a new ‘career deal’ with talented people. The predictable career ladders of the past have given way to a much more complex labour market.

Articulating this new deal requires careful alignment with business strategy, an understanding of how today’s workforce expects to be engaged, and clarity on how ‘the deal’ will be delivered. Only then can you promise and fulfil a coherent ‘value proposition’ for your people. 

If your challenge is to help your people make sense of changes, and to engage them with a compelling sense of purpose for their future with your organisation, our approach to creating and implementing a career strategy can help you. Typical challenges which highlight the need for a strategic approach to careers and resourcing include:

• Need to re-engage with staff after restructuring, downsizing, giving them a new sense of purpose and engagement
• Need to motivate talented people – lack of career development/career opportunity is a common reason for leaving an organisation
• Need to develop a coaching culture. Managers often lack confidence and skill in having future-focused development conversations - identified by Ci as a “significant conversation gap” and correlated with a three-fold increase in intention to leave
• Changing ways of working (eg new roles, new organisational structure, increased virtual working, contract vs employed workforce) which need new career deals which focus on agility
• Changing workforce demographics leading to different expectations about work and careers eg amongst ‘Gen Y’, dual career needs
• Outdated or unclear career paths which do not match business needs, or an employee ‘value proposition’ which has yet to become a reality

Ci's Agile Career System™ model provides an alternative – or complementary – approach to talent management, that helps organizations get the most out of all their people, putting the ‘career partnership’ between individual and organisation at the centre. Career Innovation offers a range of strategic and practical support to help you develop and implement your career strategy.