Managing for Knowledge: HRs Strategic Role

Help people reframe their view of a career

My experience of running career workshops is that individuals are often unhappy with the career options on offer within organisations, yet they do not have any other models to work with. Providing examples of different ways of thinking about a career, like those set out in the introductory chapter, can help to shift people’s thinking. This is particularly important for individuals working in more flexible ways with the organisation. Individuals who opt to work part-time can often feel excluded from career discussions, as it is often assumed that they are no longer interested in pursuing a career. However, this assumption is based on a particular view of a career.

Provide career workshops

These provide opportunities for individuals to take stock of where they are, connect, or reconnect, with their own personal values and career drivers, take stock of their current skills-set, carry out a stock-take of their existing knowledge, and likely future demand, as well as make some tentative plans for how they would like their career to take shape in the future.

Help people prepare for roles, not jobs

Flexible and adaptable organisations need people who can be flexible and adaptable too. For this to happen individuals will need help in thinking through how they might apply their skills and knowledge to different roles, either within the organisation, or possibly outside, albeit temporary. They may also need some space to ‘try out’ different roles, to assess the fit.

Provide dual career tracks

This will enable technical specialists to develop a career that fits with their model of career success, without feeling that their only career option is to pursue a management career (Holbeche, 2000). Without this, organisations are in danger of facing the ‘Peter-out Principle’, i.e. where individuals rise up until such point as they stop having fun and then, when that happens, choose to walk out (Pink, 2001).

Help people learn from transitions

One of the key career development tasks in organisations, according to Peter Herriot and his co-writers (1998), is that of helping individuals make effective transitions so that they are better prepared for making even bigger transitions in the future. The manager’s role is crucial in providing the right support, particularly that of helping individuals learn from different transition phases, which they define as preparation, encounter and adjustment. In the future it is likely that individuals will need to become more adept at ‘transitioning’ as careers become more fluid and ‘boundaryless’, e.g. employment, time out to build new skills and knowledge through full-time education, employment, followed by self-employment, prior to retirement.

Make it easy for people to move around the organisation

This is crucial if the organisation wants to ensure that existing knowledge is shared and reused. Lateral career moves can be more motivating for some individuals, provided that the role that they move into provides scope for challenge, knowledge building and personal growth.

Ensure that career management systems do not give mixed messages

If you have a skills database make sure that this is used for matching individuals with posts and/or career opportunities. In one former public sector organisation there was a conflict between using the skills database as a vehicle for matching resources to projects, and the open job-posting system (introduced under the umbrella of Equal Opportunities). As the skills database wasn’t being used in the way that staff anticipated, they could see no personal benefit in keeping their skills entry up-to-date. In this example neither the organisation nor individuals were deriving the full benefit from the system.

Develop managers’ ability to hold meaningful career discussions

Increasingly line managers are expected to provide career support and coaching for individuals within the organisation, both direct reports and others, and yet few receive any formal training for this task. Equally HR needs to play its role in providing independent and skilful career guidance. Research carried out by Wendy Hirsh and colleagues (2001), on behalf of NICEC, identified that in order for line managers to provide effective career discussions at work they need support and back-up from HR. The research concluded that HR can make a valuable contribution by acting as a ‘career lubricator’, advising some individuals directly, particularly in situations where line managers had recognised that they were dealing in areas outside their own comfort zone.