Career & Development Conversations Training
Increase employee engagement by teaching your leaders how to have great growth & development conversations.
In a recent LinkedIn study, 94% of respondents said they would stay longer at an organisation longer if it invested in their career development.
82% would feel more engaged.
In another survey, 82% of respondents indicated that they would feel more engaged if their manager just had more regular career conversations with them.
Other studies suggest that up to 70% of people are dissatisfied with career opportunities within their company. Indeed, LinkedIn’s research named a lack of advancement opportunities as the #1 reason for people changing jobs.
For leaders, this means that career conversations are REALLY important for keeping your best people from looking elsewhere.
Why do these conversations really matter? Watch this video to hear some of my thoughts…
Career conversations can feel a bit tricky.
For leaders, these conversations can actually feel a bit tricky at times. Some of the most common concerns and questions I’ve heard from leaders are these:
What if there are no real opportunities?
What if their goals seem a little too ambitious?
What if they are actually in the wrong job?
What if they aren’t self-aware enough to see the gaps?
What if it turns out that they want MY job? (awkward…!)
While there ARE ways to deal with all of these fears and challenges, many leaders simply aren’t explicitly taught how to tackle these conversations.
They aren’t provided with the tools, skills or frameworks - and instead, just try to ‘wing it’!
They aren’t always ‘done’ very well…
The other problem is that career and development conversations aren’t always ‘done’ very well. Some common mistakes?
These conversations simply don’t happen. Why? Usually the issue is time, capability, or avoiding them (see above!)
Performance reviews are mistakenly believed to be career conversations (but actually aren’t)
Development plans aren’t meaningful, realistic, or tied back to individual differences, making them a ‘tick the box’ exercise.
Sound familiar? Most of us have experienced this at some point. We’ve been the employee who is feeling completely disengaged and unfulfilled - OR the leader who is struggling with the ‘how’ of truly building, growing and fostering talent.
Some common mistakes and problems - have you encountered these?
About the Career & Development Conversations Program
This program provides leaders and managers with the practical frameworks, tools, and guidance to have more meaningful career, growth and development conversations.
They’ll learn to navigate these conversations more confidently, using key coaching skills to gently encourage ownership, explore relevant development pathways, and handle common challenges and dilemmas. They’ll also walk away with a toolkit of resources to help them apply their learning on-the-job.
“The career conversation training was an absolute game changer for me and my team. We had previously created development plans but we decided to start from scratch to trial your format and we all found the experience way more fruitful and inspiring. Thank you so much for this!”
— Team Leader in a leading Tech Company, 2020
A little taste of the program topics…
Why it’s SO important for leaders to have regular career conversations with their team members
The WIIFM - how can regular career & development conversations help leaders?
The 4 major problems with many career and development conversations
A practical, 4-step framework for having meaningful, robust career conversations (as used in awesome companies like Google!)
Uncovering your team members’ motives, drivers and strengths - what really makes them ‘tick’
Uncovering your team members’ goals and aspirations - what really matters to them, and why?
How to help your people identify relevant, meaningful & targeted career & development goals
Performance vs. development goals - what’s the difference and why does it matter?
How to create robust development plans & pathways (using the 70/20/10 principle)
Becoming more ‘coach like’ - gentle strategies for encouraging greater initiative & ownership
Steps for evaluating progress & momentum
What gets in the way? What the research says about common barriers to learning & development
Common concerns - what leaders often worry about (and what to do about it!)
Tools & resources to support success
One of the key aims of the program is to set participants up for success after the training.
As such, they’ll have access to a broad range of resources & tools to help them confidently go away and have career and development conversations in ‘real life’. These include conversation guides, resource sheets, and content that helps to consolidate skills & learning.
Additional resources include:
Access to a range of instructional videos explaining key tools, insights & concepts
A set of practical, structured ‘Conversation Guides’ that can be re-used for every Career & Development Conversation
Lots of other helpful worksheets, resources & questionnaires to keep.
Access to a private Facebook group where participants can ask questions, share insights, and learn from other people’s experience (note - depends on delivery method).
Why work with Leisa?
Why work with me? (Yep, I’m Leisa - hi!)
Firstly, I’m a registered and endorsed Organisational Psychologist with Masters qualifications and almost 20 years of experience. This allows me to bring a depth of understanding of human behaviour to my programs. Put simply, I’m a total nerd about psychology and behaviour at work!
You’ll benefit from my broad experience and knowledge in the areas of leadership development, neuroscience, positive psychology, employee engagement, and behavioural change. I’ve worked with many different organisations and individuals in both the public & private sectors.
In the last few years alone I’ve facilitated over 230 workshops and sessions with 1450+ participants and worked with 460+ leaders as a coach, consultant, or facilitator. Many of my programs are focused on 'leadership conversations’, which is a key area of interest for me given how often I’ve seen leaders struggle with this.
I'm also pretty friendly! And really enjoy helping individuals to learn these skills and tools given the significant difference it can make :-)
