According to Gallup, there are three types of employees in every workplace. For ease, let’s use the terms stars, sleepwalkers and saboteurs. We all know who the stars are. They are the handful of people who go the extra mile because they are intellectually engaged and care.
In the UK, currently, only around one in every ten people at work are stars. Then there are the sleepwalkers, who represent just over two-thirds of people who are intellectually engaged and go through the motions every day but without feeling connected to what they do emotionally. Finally, there are the saboteurs – the one person in five who has become actively disengaged intellectually and emotionally. As a group, they were probably stars who were treated badly, so they have become disaffected and potentially disruptive, too. When intellectual and emotional connection is missing, so is success and motivation. So, the question is; how do you hire potential stars and help them to shine more brightly? How do you ignite sleepwalkers, so they join the stars? And finally, how do you encourage saboteurs that it is in their best interest to move on?
Coaching for success
This is where working using a career development coaching approach can make all the difference. We can help you recruit and retain staff through a process which helps you to get under the hood of who they are, and what they want so you can ensure they are right from the start and build your success and their career development in partnership.
As research consistently shows, high-performing employees leave for several reasons. Often it is because: they no longer feel a sense of being appreciated which can often develop as a side effect of burn-out because of unclear goals combined with relentless deadlines; lack a sense of progression and so cannot develop and grow; are undervalued emotionally and financially; or because they are working under a poor manager. This is the point when a star can turn into a saboteur and cause unhelpful disruption to your organisation. Taking a career development strategy across your business can alleviate all of these. It can open the door for those sleepwalkers who are ready to develop into stars. Finally, it can help those who have become saboteurs to recognise where they are and lead them to take the initiative to move on. Of course, if an organisation makes use of career development coaching effectively early enough when there are signs of unrest, it can prevent relationships, and perceptions, from deteriorating to this point.
My research-proven career coaching framework, INSPiRED, for instance, helps individuals find inspiring work that lights them up. That same process can be used as a recruitment lens and give an employer a head start in avoiding hiring disasters and ensuring the retention of key talent critical to the success of the organisation.
The eight-part INSPiRED framework provides a means for employee and employer alike to: explore an individual’s identity, understand their needs and wants and how these connect with the organisation’s values; recognise their current strengths, talents and skills, develop interest and curiosity in their passion, (the rocket fuel of engagement), identify what impact, contribution and purpose their work holds for them, understand how they develop relationships and work effectively with others, particularly those who are different from them, empower them to set up a work environment which helps them to work most effectively, and teaches them how to set a clear direction and goals not least through developing a clearer understanding of neuroscience to help them achieve.
With five generations in the workforce, all with very different values and attitudes, taking this sort of values-led coaching approach gives managers and leaders the inside track on effective recruitment and retention. For a small and rapidly growing business, it can prove critical. Perhaps, most importantly of all, and from a management perspective, it also helps those who look after others’ careers to develop their own too. After all, it is all too easy to focus so much on developing others that we forget to do the same for ourselves. Investing time in your career development coaching ensures that you avoid the trap of your career falling by the wayside.
Carolyn Parry is an award-winning career and life coach, TEDx speaker, non-executive Director, and newly published author of Change Your Story: Escape From a Job You Hate and Create a Career you Love – on Purpose.
Find out more about Carolyn Parry at
www.careeralchemy.co.uk and purchase her latest book on Amazon UK – links below:
Paperback link:
www.amazon.co.uk/Change-Your-Story-Escape-purpose/dp/1739543211
Ebook link:
www.amazon.co.uk/Change-Your-Story-Escape-purpose-ebook/dp/B0CMBCMZKZ
Career Alchemy