Identifying Career Development Expectations – before the competition does

Development Expectations

This article on the 8 areas of employee expectation, and their impact on effective employee engagement and retention, looks at the career development expectations of the team and individual team members.

One of the major reasons for losing talented staff is that they are not being given the career development opportunities they often think they deserve or expect, and look elsewhere. So understanding and exploring employees career development expectations is another key factor for engaging and retaining top talent.

The organisational view

Employees generally want to be good at their job and the vast majority, some 76% according to statistics, are looking for some kind of career growth and development. This could include access to training, being given the opportunity to gain experience in particular fields and having the prospect of advancing in their career through promotion.

• What if an employee wants development but is not highly motivated or the business doesn’t have the right opportunities currently to promote them?

Understanding what makes up each team member’s individual career development expectations is essential to identify those who truly want advancement and a desire for self improvement. Some team members may be very enthusiastic for development, buy may not want the challenges that come with it.

For managers to develop their teams they need to know how expectations are made up so they can engage in meaningful conversations to identify a clear and achievable pathway for career development within the organisation.  For organisations they need to demonstrate development and staff mobility options if they are to retain their best people.

The group’s career development expectations

Organisational policies are great but how relevant to the group or team, and what is really important to them? Does everyone in the group have the same career development expectations and needs? Using Harrison Assessments engagement and retention analytics we can find out.

What can we interpret for this group?

• it considers career development to be very important and thus, it is very important to provide development opportunities.
• this group has a reasonable tendency to be clear about goals, so will probably have career development goals in mind. Discuss these goals to obtain a clear understanding before suggesting or creating a development plan.
• the group considers self-improvement to be reasonably important and may be reasonably willing to develop new competencies related to career development.
• career advancement is reasonably important and so it is important to provide information about advancement opportunities that are available and what is required to achieve them.
• the group is willing to pursue difficult challenges related to career advancement. If advancement is considered, they will probably embrace any challenges related to advancement.

The individual’s career development expectations

For line managers, understanding an individual’s development expectations, as well as their own expectations and behaviours, has never been more important to retain the best talent and develop their team’s full potential.

Asking the right questions, and analysing each individual employee’s real engagement factors ensures managers and the wider organisation provide an environment that retains the best talent. People want to feel recognised but there are many other factors that need to be understood if they are to further engage in their work and the overall success of the organisation.

What career development expectations do employees have?

Here are five career development elements that can be measured and reported upon from the Harrison Assessment:

Wants Development

• The desire to have work opportunities to learn new skills or increase abilities
• Many employees want to move forward with their careers and not remain stagnant. They realise there are many opportunities that could be taken if they just had the right skills set. While meeting this particular expectation is important for organisations that want more employee engagement it comes with a few caveats. The employee may want further development and expect it but they also need to have the personal qualities to take on new ways of thinking, accept challenging study, and potentially move into new areas.

Is Enthusiastic

• The tendency to be eager and excited toward one’s own goals
• Enthusiasm for career development and pushing forward down a particular career path can be a prime motivational key to success. If the employee’s enthusiasm is selective, however, it can be problematic particularly if there are certain areas that need to be developed that are a little too much like ‘hard work’. One of the reasons why employees often fail on the developmental pathway is that they don’t have a clear idea of where they are heading nor enough markers along the way to ensure that their enthusiasm stays high and their performance and abilities improve as a consequence.

Wants Self-Improvement

• The tendency to attempt to develop or better oneself
• An employee’s engagement with developmental processes such as study courses and new challenges are often part of their own ethos of self-improvement. Some will make their own choices and work towards personal goals such as undertaking a degree or Masters qualification. Supporting this desire for self-improvement is imperative for companies that want to show they are behind their staff but it can also be financially burdensome if many employees are following the same track.

Wants Advancement

• The desire to have work opportunities to expand one’s career or responsibilities
• Career minded employees will certainly want the opportunity of advancing within the company or elsewhere. If their expectations are that the opportunities will not come in their current position, top talent will eventually want to look elsewhere. Combined with the reality of what the company actually offers in the way of training and support, a clear way to advance is very important and needs to be demonstrated if the talent is to be retained for any length of time.

Wants Challenge

• The willingness to attempt difficult tasks or goals
• Career minded individuals will no doubt be relishing their next challenge but if their expectations of the organisation are that it offers the same fayre day after day then they may soon start to lose focus and even become bored. Also important is what constitutes a challenge to a particular employee. For some it may simply be about getting through a large workload. Others may want the challenge of project management such as helping to develop a new product or service and market it or being put in charge of other staff in their own department.

Using Harrison Assessments Talent Solution to understand career development expectations

Managers can measure employee expectations, the intrinsic behaviours that drive individual and group engagement, by analysing the 8 key expectation areas. This helps to understand any differences between an employee as well as looking at the overall group or team’s expectations. These insights facilitate the essential dialogue between employee and manager, fostering a shared responsibility for engagement to build a culture of employee engagement.

Managers can use the Manage, Develop and Retain report as a guide to getting the best performance out of an individual member of their team, and shows how mis-matched communication and management styles could potentially demotivate a talented employee. Instead the report suggests how best to develop and engage the employee, what type of tasks to delegate and behaviours to watch out for that could impede performance.

Employee Engagement White Paper

• This employee engagement white paper will outline why this is the case and what is needed to achieve a greater impact on organisational performance.
• It includes some key areas relating to engagement in the workplace and a crucial 3-step guide to assist with the application of engagement analytics.
• Written by Dan Harrison, Ph.D. – Organisational Psychology, developer and CEO of Harrison Assessments, this white paper is a must read for anyone involved in employee engagement.  Request your copy here –

Work-life Balance – what organisations do wrong

Work-Life Balance – Employee Expectations

In this second article on the 8 areas of employee expectation, and their impact on effective employee engagement and retention, we look at work-life balance.

Although much has been said and written about work-life balance, the focus has been on organisation-wide policies and initiatives, but what about individual employee’s real needs and those of their team colleagues?

The organisational view

Most organisations recognise their responsibilities towards their employees in maintaining a healthy work-life balance, and the long-term benefits that follow.  However, according to The Mental Health Foundation some 40% of us have neglected important parts of our lives because of work and slogging it out for long hours is likely to cause feelings of depression in nearly a third of people.

Today’s workforce obviously wants to earn enough money to live on and also have the time to enjoy the fruits of their labours. Previously its importance grew with one’s tenure; as we become more competent at our jobs our priorities also change, for instance, when we start a family or want to work closer to home. A new report from the Centre for the Modern Family, however, says only a third of UK families claim to have a healthy ‘work family balance’.

However, for young people joining the workforce today work-like balance is just as important. Millennials, globally, are more likely than other generations to say it is important to receive paid parental leave onsite or subsidised childcare and telecommuting 1-2 days a week according to the EY Global Generations survey.

So what are organisations doing wrong?

Traditional engagement surveys have evolved from the old style satisfaction surveys which tend to have answers quantified on a scale in relation to generic questions, and are usually anonymous which further undermines their reliability. Traditional engagement surveys can’t get into the specific expectations of individuals or groups in any detail, and so only measure broad perceptions of satisfaction.

To get it right the full range of expectations unique to every employee has to be captured, analysed and monitored on a regular basis. Proper expectation analytics in the hands of managers who believe in their people can start a meaningful, personalised conversation that can lead to high levels of engagement.

The group view

Organisational policies are great but how relevant to the group or team, and what is really important to them? Does everyone in the group have the same expectations and needs? Using Harrison Assessments engagement and retention analytics we can find out.

What can we interpret for this group?

• it considers having work-life balance to be only moderately important
• it considers having flexible work time to be reasonably unimportant
• it has a tendency to be moderately relaxed and easy going
• it tends to be moderately effective managing stress when it occurs
• it tends to be moderately willing to deal with the pressure of tight schedules and deadlines.

The individual employee view

In a recent report from Investors in People’s Job Exodus Trends a 34% of employees would prefer a more flexible approach to working hours than a 3% pay rise, and alarmingly 49% of the UK workforce are looking for a new job in 2016.

For line managers, understanding an individual’s expectations as well as their own expectations and behaviours has never been more important to retain the best talent and develop their team’s full potential.

Asking the right questions, and analysing each individual employee’s real engagement factors ensures managers and the wider organisation provide an environment that retains the best talent. People want to feel recognised but there are many other factors that need to be understood if they are to further engage in their work and the overall success of the organisation.

What makes up Work-life balance?

Finding out how employees think about work-life balance, and its importance to an individual, is the starting point to measure whether organisational strategies are having the desired effect, and more importantly for line managers to identify potential issues. Here are five work-life balance elements that can be measured and reported upon from the Harrison Assessment:

Wants Work-life Balance

• The desire to have sufficient time away from work for rest, enjoyment, or family
• Most individuals, unless they are confirmed workaholics, want to be able to maintain a healthy work-life balance but this does vary between people. Some may be working hard to forge a career and climb up the corporate ladder, others might just want to come in and get the job done as quickly as possible. Some will not even realise that their work-life balance is off kilter and may need someone to point it out to them so they don’t suffer from burn out.

Wants Flexible Work Time

• The desire to have adjustable working hours or holiday schedules
• One way of maintaining a good balance, of course, is offering flexible work time. This may important to certain individuals who have a family or are providing care for a sick or elderly relative, for instance. It could be less important to someone who is just out of college and is looking to push ahead with their career. Offering flexible working can be challenging for any organisation and implementing the right strategy is key to providing employees with the best option for their needs.

Is Relaxed

• The tendency to feel at ease or calm while working
• How relaxed an employee is at work can be an indication that they feel part of the team and are happy with everything that is going within the company. They get on with their work colleagues and have little in the way of issues that need to be settled. It is usually an indication too that they have a good work-life balance in place.

Manages Stress Well

• The tendency to deal effectively with strain and difficulty when it occurs
• We all encounter stress and for the large part this is a good thing. It’s part of the challenge of working in a busy office where a lot is going on. When that stress becomes unmanageable, though, things can become difficult. An employee who feels they are having problems coping with work and the stress that comes with it is likely to be less productive and unhappy.

Has a High/Low Pressure Tolerance

• The level of comfort related to working under deadlines and busy schedules
• Tolerance to pressure situations is another area where useful employee information can be collected to find those who perform the best when the work is the most challenging. Those who are able to maintain a good work-life balance and manage day to day stress are more likely to cope with high pressure moments whilst others might need more support to help them get through these periods.

How Harrison Assessments Talent Solution helps

Managers can measure employee expectations, the intrinsic behaviours that drive individual and group engagement, by analysing the 8 key expectation areas. This helps to understand any differences between an employee as well as looking at the overall group or team’s expectations. These insights facilitate the essential dialogue between employee and manager, fostering a shared responsibility for engagement to build a culture of employee engagement.

Managers can use the Manage, Develop and Retain report as a guide to getting the best performance out of an individual member of their team, and shows how mis-matched communication and management styles could potentially demotivate a talented employee. Instead the report suggests how best to develop and engage the employee, what type of tasks to delegate and behaviours to watch out for that could impede performance.

Employee Engagement White Paper

• This employee engagement white paper will outline why this is the case and what is needed to achieve a greater impact on organisational performance.
• It includes some key areas relating to engagement in the workplace and a crucial 3-step guide to assist with the application of engagement analytics.
• Written by Dan Harrison, Ph.D. – Organisational Psychology, developer and CEO of Harrison Assessments, this white paper is a must read for anyone involved in employee engagement.  Request your copy here –

Next Monday is Blue Monday. Are you ready?

Understanding Employee Expectations: the key to effective engagement and retention

Every year January is the month when job boards and recruitment agencies launch their “New Year, New Job” campaigns – why?

January is the busiest month for starters and leavers with the third Monday of January in particular known as Blue Monday, the one day when more employees hand in their letter of resignation than any other day in the year.

Two trends indicate 2016 will continue to be a busy year for UK recruiters:

• UK labour market statistics from the CBI show the employment rate is the highest since records began in 1971 (at 73.7%) with increasing business optimism for the economic outlook;
• However, research from HR Magazine suggests that effective employee engagement in the UK could be faltering with more than a third of us saying that we were not motivated at work during 2015.

Organisations with a good employee engagement and retention strategy can cascade retention and turnover KPIs to quantify the overall metrics and financial returns. However, even with these investments organisations still lose their best talent to the competition because of the limitations of high-level engagement surveys; specifically they do not look at an individual’s real engagement factors.

Asking the right questions, and analysing each individual employee’s real engagement factors ensures managers and the wider organisation provide an environment that retains the best talent. People want to feel recognised but there are other factors that need to be understood if they are to further engage in their work and the overall success of the organisation.

In this series of eight articles we provide detailed insights into each of the 8 areas of employee expectations, starting with:

Personal Expectations

Personal expectations can include areas such as being kept properly informed about what is going on in the company, having a strong and capable leader, access to help when needed and a clear career and development path. In isolation these cannot change performance and increase opportunity but combined with other engagement metrics can help managers develop more fulfilling job roles, set meaningful goals, leading to a more satisfied and productive team. Examples of personal expectations include:

Wants to be Informed

• Most employees who are engaged, or want to be more so, also expect to be kept informed of what is going on in the organisation they are working for. This can be particularly problematic during times of change when, for instance, departments are being reorganised or new initiatives and products being released.
• Meeting these expectations is vital for companies that want to promote better employee relations and a higher sense of well-being.

Wants Capable Leader

• One of the major reasons that top talent leave a particular company is the person in charge. That could be because the employee feels unappreciated or that they are being ‘held back’ in some way and it could mean that the person in charge is simply not very good at handling people, particularly those with obvious talent. The CIPD quote a survey last year by B2B marketplace of more than a thousand employees, over a third said they thought their manager was a bad boss.
• Most employees expect a manager or boss who is responsive, understanding and helps them do their job well.

Wants Personal Help

• Employees will have varying expectations of the kind of personal help they want or need. That may just be to ease things during busy periods with access to additional staff or it might be finding ways that fit in with their career expectations such as job development or a better work-life balance.
• It can also include employees who need additional help such as those with a disability.

Wants a Stable Career

• Employees who are constantly in fear of losing their jobs or being undermined in the office are likely, of course, to be less engaged than those who feel they have a stable career pathway.
• Top talent are usually looking for some way to progress their future employment prospects and have high expectations of a stable career pathway that meets their needs and those of the organisation they work for.

How Harrison Assessments Talent Solution helps

Managers can measure employee expectations, the intrinsic behaviours that drive individual and group engagement, by analysing the 8 key areas. This helps to understand any differences between an employee as well as looking at the overall group or team’s expectations. These insights facilitate the essential dialogue between employee and manager, fostering a shared responsibility for engagement to build a culture of employee engagement.

Managers can use the Manage, Develop and Retain report as a guide to getting the best performance out of an individual member of their team, and shows how mis-matched communication and management styles could potentially demotivate a talented employee. Instead the report suggests how best to develop and engage the employee, what type of tasks to delegate and behaviours to watch out for that could impede performance.

Assess employee engagement factors for individuals and groups with summary dashboards and detailed reports.

Employee Engagement White Paper

• This employee engagement white paper will outline why this is the case and what is needed to achieve a greater impact on organisational performance.
• It includes some key areas relating to engagement in the workplace and a crucial 3-step guide to assist with the application of engagement analytics.
• Written by Dan Harrison, Ph.D. – Organisational Psychology, developer and CEO of Harrison Assessments, this white paper is a must read for anyone involved in employee engagement.  Request your copy here –

Employee engagement is a shared responsibility

How Employee Engagement Analytics Help Create a Culture of Engagement

Employee engagement is a hot topic—and for good reason. Research studies from Gallup®, BlessingWhite®, and many more continue to demonstrate that employee engagement highly impacts key organisational metrics including talent retention, mission achievement, growth, and profitability.

Engagement surveys are commonly used to assess the organisation’s level of employee engagement.  While this approach has proven valuable in many organisations, it has limitations in terms of improving individual engagement and creating a culture of engagement.

• This employee engagement white paper will outline why this is the case and what is needed to achieve a greater impact on organisational performance metrics.
• It includes some key areas relating to engagement in the workplace and a crucial 3-step guide to assist you with the application of engagement analytics.
• Written by Dan Harrison, Ph.D. – Organisational Psychology, developer and CEO of Harrison Assessments, this white paper is a must read for anyone involved in employee engagement.  Request your copy here –

Are you being too harsh or too permissive?

Managers often fall into the trap of being either too harsh or too permissive.  Both of these traits are due to an imbalance in management style.  The secret of effective management is to understand a number of  paradoxes and the ability to balance two opposing behaviours.

A number of my clients have been complaining that their managers are not keeping their eye on the ball, and letting performance slip through a lack of following up on the goals and objectives agreed with staff.  I have also encountered a couple of organisations where there is a very strong culture of ‘compassion’ or ‘caring’ for service users, this means that many managers value ‘caring’ and want to ensure that they are ‘kind’ to their people.  Addressing underperformance can feel harsh and uncaring which creates a values conflict, especially when the managers believe that the only tool they have at their disposal is the disciplinary process.  They are reluctant to use it because it feels far too harsh to address the issue at hand, and in many cases they are right.  The Disciplinary process is only to be used after you have had a number of informal but important conversations that firmly address the underperformance.  However, it seems that many managers are reluctant to even give a reprimand or informal warning.  They end up being permissive and this serves no one because standards drop, targets are not met and management will be seen to be ineffective.  This can extend to the very top of an organisation.

I have also come across organisational cultures where there is a very firm line taken and any mistake or underperformance is dealt with very harshly.  These businesses tend to suffer from a blame culture.  It can also create high management and staff turnover because people want to feel that their line manager understands them and values them as a person.  Harshness comes from a lack of warmth and empathy and if the manager is too harsh people often feel that they are being treated unfairly.  It is interesting to note that neuroscientists have discovered that even a perceived lack of fairness triggers deep feelings of disgust in the brain and this can rapidly undermine working relationships and overall performance.

The paradoxes of good management

One of the paradoxes of good management is how to balance ‘Enforcing’ and ‘Warmth and Empathy’.  Enforcing is all about being able to ensure rules and standards are followed even when people don’t like it and may get defensive.  Warmth and Empathy is all about having an open heart and recognising the feelings of others.

These two traits may seem like oil and vinegar – they can’t mix and will always separate – but as any good cook knows if you get them in the right balance they can create a great flavour and if you add a little emulsifier like egg yolk you get deliciously smooth French Dressing.

I’ve recently started working with a very interesting assessment tool developed by Dr. Dan Harrison.

His background in Mathematics, Personality Theory, Counselling and Organizational Psychology has enabled him to make a unique and exceptional contribution to assessment methodology.

One of the reports available illustrates a number of paradoxes.  The ‘Driving’ Paradox is illustrated in the graph below.  It shows that if you are high on Enforcing and low on Warmth and Empathy your behaviour will be Harsh; highlighted in red.  If you are low on Enforcing and high on Warmth and Empathy you can become Permissive; highlighted in blue.  The ideal balance is ‘Compassionate Enforcing’ which reminds me of the proverb; “Only a person with a kind heart can administer discipline that is beneficial to others”.

However, any imbalance can also cause a ‘Flip’ when a manager is under stress.  So the Permissive Manager can suddenly become Harsh (“I’ve given you lots of chances and now you are going to see what happens when you take advantage of me . . .”).  The Harsh Manager can fall into avoiding the final difficult conversation and lead people to think that their “Bark is worse than their bite” so they get used to the harshness and continue to underperform, because there is no ultimate consequence.

Gain respect

There is now plenty of scientific evidence from recent psychological studies that show how Compassionate Enforcing is highly respected by people because it is perceived as fair and just.  This means that it avoids triggering defensive mechanisms that can be generated deep in our reptilian brain.  Once defensiveness is triggered, rational behaviour goes out the window, and people start thinking negatively and taking things very personally.  This is always far more difficult to manage.

It is interesting to note that being low on both of these traits leads to ‘Cool Permissiveness’ which is very ineffective.  The studies show that it leads to people having a lack of respect for their manager and treating them with a sense of pity and disgust.

Making a shift

When I drew this graph on a flip chart on a recent Management Development course with the caring Managers it became clear to many of them that they needed to keep the same levels of Warmth and Empathy while increasing the level of Enforcing.  This meant making a shift in their perception and recognising that being Permissive was not serving the organisation, its end users or the staff.

The concept behind these Paradoxes is the need to understand the principles of the opposing traits and exercise more of both.  It is not about doing less of what you naturally prefer; it is about looking at any imbalances and learning ways to improve the balance between them.  This can be achieved by greater self-awareness, being open to feedback and a willingness to improve.

If you are interested in exploring where you and your managers stand on this Paradox and the eleven other Paradoxes in the assessment just contact Amanda at info@InspiredWorking.com.

Remember . . . Stay Curious!

With best regards

David Klaasen