Career Road Mapping for Enterprises and Professions – Part 1

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Full utilization and retention of human resources is one the most strategic areas that companies need to improve. This will include providing employees a clear picture of rewarding career paths that can be built within the corporation or within an operating unit. Can employees see career progression of current successful employees in the enterprise and then connect the dots to see how these examples apply to them? Are they then afforded the encouragement, career planning and skills building activities to grow their careers?

I have developed a unique and innovative approach of building career roadmaps within an enterprise or a profession group that will fully engage participants. The first step is to identify 20 – 30 successful professionals currently within the job area. The pool should be diverse representing a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and routes to their current positions. Participants create one page career maps that highlight their job progression and very importantly, the skills their built with their various roles. (Or I could create the maps from resumes and interviews with participants.)

The second step is for me in my consultant role to analyze and “data mine” the collected maps for 5-7 key career development themes which can be packaged and presented to employees or professionals within a job area. Overall career development concepts can then be added to the presentation to provide a foundation, concepts such as:
• The importance of each individual taking ownership of their careers and taking the time to assess their own strengths and ambitions
• Combining both short term and long term career planning
• Making job decisions analytically instead of emotionally
• The importance of engaging a good set of diverse mentors

An additional step can then be taken. All the skills developed by the road map participants over their careers can then be groups into categories, and then learning activities identified for the skill groups for professionals to add into the career development plans.

I will continue to expand on some of the concepts within this blog in future entries.

School Yard Bullying. Workplace Harassment. What’s the Connection?

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Late last year I wrote a blog on the macroeconomics of gay bullying, arguing that not only are individual children harmed by bullying, but our entire country and our economic system suffer as well. When kids are bullied in school, whether LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) or for any other reason, they often react by engaging in destructive behavior including turning to drugs and alcohol, and dropping out of school. This in the long term harms our country within the competitive global marketplace.

And now I am in good company. Earlier this month, I was very pleased to see our nation’s president, Barack Obama even address this as a critical national issue. (Link to newspaper article.) This article states that 13 million children a year are bullied, which puts them at much greater risk of falling behind in school and engaging in destructive behavior. President Obama highlighted the need to “dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless right of passage or an inevitable part of growing up. It’s not.”

Laura and Kirk Smalley weep in the background while listening to President Obama talk about their family's tragedy. Their 11-year-old son shot himself after being bullied at school.

But let’s take the next step. What happens with the bullies when their bullying is not addressed? They often can grow up and become bullies in corporate America. There is a fancy Human Resources term for this bullying in the extreme – it is called harassment. There are laws as well as corporate policies against harassment. But the bullying can be more subtle and take forms such as employee intimidation and threats of job loss or promotion blocking. This greatly threatens employee productivity as they operate from a sphere of fear instead of freely being able to offer their best to their businesses. Corporations really need to address all forms of employee bullying, blatant and subtle, if they hope to build the highest performing team. A fully inclusive and executed diversity policy that creates a welcoming environment for everyone coupled with “zero tolerance” of any form of workplace harassment, bullying or intimidation will maximize employee job satisfaction, loyalty and productivity.

Thanks to Katie Gailes of SmartMoves International who provided some ideas and inspiration for this blog entry.