Connecting Career Practitioners and Employers: Making the Case for Career Management Services

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Connecting Career Practitioners and Employers
Making the Case for Career Management Services

• Presented by
• Deirdre Pickerell, MEd, CHRP, GCDF
• Life Strategies Ltd.
• Deirdre_at_lifestrategies.ca
• www.lifestrategies.ca

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Overview

• The career practitioners role
• Benefits of career management services
• For employees and employers
• Proving it
• Case examples
• Increased engagement
• Increased productivity
• Increased efficiency
• Increased satisfaction
• Career management services across the lifespan

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Goals

• Increased understanding of
• Corporate career management services
• The role(s) career practitioners can play in
  diverse sectors
• The language of business (e.g., ROI)
• Inspiration to offer career services across the
  lifespan
• As a self-employed practitioner
• As an internal CMP for a corporate employer

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• Career management
• within organizations
• helps individuals to define their own careers
• and creates an environment
• that allows them to grow

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Emerging Roles for Career Practitioners

• I would love to work in private practice
• and work with highly motivated people
• who actually appreciate my
• insights and assistance
• but who is going to pay the price?
• There just isnt a viable market out there
• for most career practitioners
• Posted on BCWorkInfoNet listserv

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Emerging Roles
The changing world of work requires that career
practitioners be both specialists and
generalists Hall and Moss (1998)
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The Career Practitioners Role?

• In considering corporate career management
  services
• How many roles can you identify,
• for the career practitioner?
• What services can be offered?

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• Its a tumultuous period
• that has many workers
• and the organizations that employ them
• struggling to adapt.
• For organizations working in a
• globally competitive marketplace,
• the need to find new ways
• to recruit and engage top talent
• is becoming essential
• Pankratz, 2005

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Career Management at Work

• Identifies effective employee-job connections
• Results in the right people doing the right jobs
• Enables strategic management of staff
• Recruitment
• Promotion (or demotion)
• Termination
• Increases employee engagement/performance
• Supports a motivated, high-performing culture

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Benefits for Employees

• Career Management
• Identifies career opportunities
• Today and in future
• Provides a map
• How to get there from here
• Provides a focus
• Benchmarking skills
• Personal and professional development activities
• Lifelong learning

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Benefits for Employers

• Increased employee satisfaction and productivity
• Less employee turnover
• What is the cost to replace high performers?
• Sometimes as high as double annual salary
• Fewer claims for stress related illness
• Better opportunity to recruit and retain top
  talent
• Improve career fit with current workers
• Dont lose qualified workers, with intellectual
  capital, because of poor career fit
• Employee development can be aligned with
  projected organizational needs
• Help employees prepare for future opportunities

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Return on Investment (ROI)

• For any project, organizations need to know ROI
• ROI is a simple calculation used to determine
  whether a proposed investment is wise
• What is the amount gained versus lost in relation
  to the status quo?
• Career management isnt about selling more
  products or building more things
• It isnt a tangible investment
• ROI isnt easy to track

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Training Investment Losses

• On average, it costs approximately 25,000 to
  train someone to full productivity in a job
• Thus, the average cost of 40 people changing jobs
  can directly and indirectly impact employers up
  to 1,000,000.00
• Annually, more than 4,000 people change jobs,
  after 1 year or less in any moderate sized
  Canadian city
• Direct and indirect costs could conservatively
  add up to more than 100 million, in a single
  city alone
• Source Stats Canada as cited in Jarvis (2004)

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Health Care Funding

• Governments (all levels) invest over
• 76.9 billion / yr
• Consider the impact on physical and emotional
  health (lost work days/stress) for citizens
  spending 1/2 their conscious life in work
  environments they dislike
• If only 1 out of every 100 people availing
  themselves of health care for potential stress
  related illness were happier and healthier in
  their work
• 769 million annually could be saved
• Source Stats Canada as cited in Jarvis (2004)

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Education Funding

• Governments (all levels) invest over 64.1
  billion
• Primary, secondary and post-secondary
• Almost 50 of post-secondary students drop out or
  change programs at the end of their first year
• Almost 25 of secondary level students drop out
  of school prior to certified completion
  nationally
• Poor recognition for school relevancy is the most
  commonly cited reason for at risk youth
• A 1 savings through increased efficiency
• Equates to 640 million per year
• Source Stats Canada as cited in Jarvis (2004)

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What Is Your ROI?

• We all know the benefit of
• attending this Career Practitioners
• Conference, but
• have you considered the potential for
• Return On your Investment?

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Increased Engagement

• Striving to increase employee engagement rate
• Currently 52
• Target 80 by 2007/08
• Employees currently perceive minimal opportunity
  for career future within the organization
• Working with an external consultant to identify
  services across employee life-cycle

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Increased Satisfaction

• Customized in-house system, incorporating
• Career management
• Employee learning and development
• Performance management
• Succession planning
• 80,000 budget over 4 years
• 14 to 11 employee turnover
• 24 increase in employee satisfaction
• 11 million ROI
• Source Pankratz, 2005

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Increased Efficiency

• Telus Communications
• Established an in-house Career Transition Centre
  during period of significant restructuring,
  mergers, and acquisitions
• Partnered internal HR professionals with external
  career practitioners to
• Equip displaced managers to find positions within
  the organization or externally
• Assist displaced managers through transitions to
  school, self-employment, or retirement

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Increased Productivity

• West Coast Flower Grower
• Challenges with
• Leadership communication styles
• Stress and work-life balance
• Clarification of roles
• Who is responsible for what?
• Inefficient / unclear job activities/processes
• Sales and performance tracking
• Demonstrating ROI on each product being sold

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What Services Can Be Offered?

• Considering the
• knowledge, skills and competencies
• of todays career practitioner,
• what services can we offer
• to todays employer/employees?
• Consider the full worker lifespan

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A Final Thought

• Pan Canadian-Symposium, November 2003
• 3 priorities were identified from 15 issues
• A coherent strategy is needed to deliver career
  development services to individuals who need it
  when they need it
• Career development skills for employers and the
  workplace
• Strengthen roles for career development in
  contributing to labour force and skill shortage
  issues
• What can you do to help?

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Additional Resources

• Michele Pankratz, 2005
• Corporate Career Management Programs Emerge as
  Benefit for Both Organizations and Employees
• Contact Point Article, in press, available at
  www.contactpoint.ca
• Phil Jarvis, 2003
• Career Management Skills Keys to a Great Career
  and a Great Life
• Available at http//206.191.51.163/blueprint/compo
  nents.cfm
• Dr. Jack Phillips, expert on HR measurement and
  evaluation
• Return on Investment in Training and Performance
  Improvement
• Available at www.chapters.ca

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Additional Resources

• William Rothwell
• Beyond Training and Development State-of-the-Art
  Strategies for Enhancing Human Performance
• Effective Succession Planning Ensuring
  Leadership Continuity and Building Talent from
  Within
• What CEOs Expect from Corporate Training
  Building Workplace Learning and Performance
  Initiatives That Advance Organizational Goals
• Books available at www.chapters.ca