Career Development Redefined: Strategies for Today’s Dynamic Workforce

So if you would've told me eight years ago that I would be running my own business, I would say there's just no way you're lying to me, right? I've always thought of myself as this corporate climber who was always just going go to the next level, to the next level, to the next level. But after eight years at the same company, I found myself personally stagnating in the way that I was growing. But on paper it looked really good. I led a wonderful team of 15. I liked my boss. I actually loved the work I did, but I found myself that I couldn't grow and develop in the way that I really wanted to. And so I made the tearful decision to leave and start my own company, and now I run growth signals. And there's nothing more challenging than running your own business. So I got the challenge that I was looking for, but oftentimes I do talk to clients and organizations, and there there are a lot of conversations had around, I just feel like I'm not getting developed in the way I want to. I feel like I'm not challenged. I'm not really even being asked what I want to do at work. And so that's what we're here to talk about today, is how do we redefine career development to our workforce, especially when we don't have extra money and we don't have a ton of promotions and titles we can give people. So let me just do a really quick dive into what we're gonna be talking about. We're gonna be talking about the organization, the, your organization. So if you took it from a 30,000 foot level, if you took a step back, how is your organization approaching, uh, career development? We're gonna spend the bulk of our time in exploring career development strategies when you don't have any extra budget. And then I wanna end on the note on leadership and how leaders can start driving those conversations. But before we get into this part, I wanna ask you a question. Since you've already proven you're an interactive group, why does it matter? Why does the growth and development of your workforce matter? Tell me in the chat, many of you are learning in dev development, so you, you know, this is like a no brainer to you. Okay? Rachel says, retention, stay, performance engagement. People do want to be challenged. Satisfaction, succession planning. All right, all the things continued innovation. I'm glad that you talked about that. Morale. Yes. So you've all named it at the bottom line. Keep those coming, they'll leave, right? There's a lot of competition for talent and employees who don't feel like they have access to learning and development or two times as more likely to leave in that year. And so this is, um, data from Culture Amp, from millions of employees and over 6,500 organizations. And also you can see here it's McKinsey found the same thing that 41% of survey respondents said that they have left a job because of lack of career development and advancement. So yes, there is all of that. And then it is a great work. It's part of a great work culture and opportunities to learn and grow. We're number one in a LinkedIn report. And then you go, you can't do anything without mentioning the, the Gen Z folks out there that Zach and I were talking before. They're already there and they're just gonna get continue to grow. But they asked LinkedIn asked Gen Z respondents what would motivate them to spend more time learning? And it was if they could move up, if they could increase their responsibilities or learn more skills, new skills. So you may be saying, and I don't know if you're saying this, correct me if I'm wrong, but Jen, this great resignation is over, right? The, it was big during Covid 20 21, 20 22. And even though it is now 2024, the job market's still pretty strong and employees are still quitting and job switching at near historic REITs. Alright? So there's all the things that you mentioned in the chat. They're gonna leave. Um, you know, they're gonna, you want them to stay and be engaged, but there are a lot of people who, they may not leave, but guess what? They don't have high morale, they don't feel valued, and they're still sitting in your organization. And so I wanna make a quick link to wellbeing. So a lot of people see careers and learning and development very separate from wellbeing, but Gallup's research has proven otherwise. What they have found, what Gallup's found is that people with higher engagement at work have a higher career wellbeing. Meaning they like what they do on most days. So they are linked. And if they have high career wellbeing, then they're gonna be healthier physically, they're gonna get more involved in their communities, so their external communities, their work communities, and then be more social, which helps all wellbeing. On the flip side, if they don't like what they do most days, it's gonna drain everything else. And we've all like, let me know in the chat, have you been around people who do not like their jobs? It's not very fun. Is it has anyone, they're miserable to be around. It's the worst. Um, and maybe you've been there, I know I've been there in my career. They're energy vampires. So we, you know, would like to retain our talent. And then the people that are sitting there, we don't want them to be disgruntled. And as HR people, I do feel like we generally like care about the employees. So it is about that piece too, their wellbeing. So yes, it's important. I don't need to convince you that. So let's take that, uh, 30,000 foot view, and I want you to think about your organization. All right? So put your HR hat on and tell me how does your organization define career development? So do you maybe have a North star around career development? Does anyone have a statement? And they say that, um, this is how we want to grow and develop our employees. Does anyone have one of those? I don't know if I've ever worked in an organization that does. I don't think it's really that typical, but correct me if I'm wrong. So if you're not explicitly stating your approach, then they're gonna read into the signals that you're sending. I just read one in the chat, it said learning manifesto. Okay? So I'm very curious about that. I'd love to hear about that after this. All right, so you have a philosophy, okay? So if you have a statement or philosophy, that's the, the words, right? And then regardless of what you have in there, uh, there's signals that are being sent to your employees, right? You can think of this as like the, the culture around learning and development, growth and development. Um, there, there's another one here, learn here, grow here. That's a wonderful North star. But what happens a lot of times is that organizations say this, right? Your career development is important to us, right? Everyone says that. Who wouldn't say that? But then sometimes the words and the actions don't match, right? There's mixed messages being sent. And so I wanna ask you this, what would maybe be some mixed signals that a company can send? It doesn't have to be your current company, it could be someone in the past. So they're saying one thing. They're saying, yes, Gloria, you, I really want you to grow and develop here, but then the actions are different. Does anyone have any, I'm gonna give you examples. Oh, I like that Mimi, they don't allow you the time to grow and develop, not posting internal, restricting around time and current, yes, restrictions around time and current position before they transition. All right? You, many of you named one hiring from the outside. So how many times do we hire from the outside because they have a fresh perspective. In fact, I was just talking to one of, um, a podcast guest, and she was saying that in the last organization she was, anytime you got to a director level, they would hire from the outside. So what does that say? It says, we really, your growth and development is important to us until your director level, and then you pretty much have to leave and come back and you probably get paid more, right? So that is one. Another one is a leader track is the only way to advance this happens commonly that there are individual contributors in the organization who are really strong individual contributors, but all that is offered to them is you have to be a leader to advance. They should not be leaders. There's no way they should, but they take it because that's their advancement, right? So it's not really great in the growth and development. They're not putting in a, they're not putting that person in an area of strength. And there's probably what someone has just said, there's not providing the skills and the trainings to actually get there. All right? I'm curious of what you think about this. What do you think about high potential cohorts, rising talent? What do you think about these? So when you have high potential cohorts, what signal is that sending to the other people who are not in those high potential cohorts? It may send the message that you don't have potential and that doesn't feel very good. Um, it is exclusive. Chris, I feel like I heard this. Um, I'm reading these chats. These are excellent. I heard someone say, I was listening. I was in a, a virtual summit and a, a woman give a credit to someone who, I think it was, it was the chief, uh, HR officer at, uh, officer of, um, Hewitt Packard. And she said, well, everyone has potential. So if you go in with that strategy, everyone has potential, then that's a more inclusive strategy. But the high potential cohort cohorts, the rising talent, do naturally exclude people. Alright, last one. We think it's really important, you know, for you to have growth and development this co at this company, but your leaders don't have the time to actually talk to you about it. And when they do, they don't really have the skills. They're probably worried that, oh crap, they're gonna ask for a promotion. What am I gonna say? So I just don't have the conversation, right? Um, yeah, so Mary, what you just said, training and development so that others can become, everyone has truly has potential. It's just finding the right role and the right fit, and if they're willing to kind of, you know, work on that potential, if you will. So I worked with an organization that, that one of their values was learning growth mindset. But yet what, what they did in practice was never actually debrief any project that ever happened. So not providing the time for growth and learning that obviously the words and actions don't match. So we all know this, you all know this, that organizations can say anything they want, but if the, or if the actions don't match, it really, really doesn't matter. All right? So Chris, I like that you are working on that now. And in the last place I worked, um, they did create a program for individual contributors. So, Tara, am I frozen? If I'm frozen, let me know because, um, yeah, there are ways to have career tracks when it is just, uh, individual tracks. All right, good. Okay. Um, I live in Las Vegas. I live outside of Las Vegas, and we're surrounded by these mountains. And so sometimes I have perfectly great internet and it'll not do great. All right. So this is just a way for you to sit back and think about it from the, like, what the organization's doing and what the employees are actually experiencing. All right? So now here's where we're gonna spend the majority of our time. I wanna talk about, um, career development strategies beyond this promotions and money. And, you know, I think traditional paths are this. You're gonna keep climbing. Like I said, my whole vision of myself climbing up the corporate ladder, it was like you're automatically gonna go from one level to the next level to the next level. Um, but that's just not available to a lot of organizations today. And guess what? Not everybody wants that. So I heard this recently, I'm not gonna take credit for it as actually I, I read about it. And, uh, the person who talked about your career being more of a career lattice, her name is Jane Oates. And it really is putting the picture of your career being, it goes in all different directions. Like I said, if I would've looked back eight years ago, I would've never seen myself in the role of working for myself. But yet here I am. So, you know, a lot of times lateral moves are seen as a step back, but they really are maybe what somebody needs, what the company needs. So even just thinking about how we approach the different ways we can give people rewards, if you will, is important. So what we're gonna really dig into right now is some social neuroscience. And, uh, some of you may already know the framework I'm gonna go through and I'm curious. But, um, really when the social neuroscience literature came out, there were really two themes that emerged. First was that we are socially motivated to move away from threats and pain and move towards rewards. Yes, this is kind of like a no duh situation. But what this means is that a lot of times it's like this unconscious thing that happens in our brain to move away from threats and move towards rewards. And, uh, when you think about it, it, it's similar to you hear, hear about with bias, right? You experience bias. We're all bias biased. It's this unconscious thing that happens and it's reflective. So that's a little bit of the same. Same with this neuroscience piece. The second kind of emerging theme from social neuroscience is that our social needs are treated the same way in the brain as some of our physical needs. Our physical safety and our emotional safety are actually linked in the brain very closely on the same circuitry. So knowing this and kind of putting these two pieces together, there is a framework called the scarf model, and it's from the NeuroLeadership Institute. And it really puts these two themes together in a framework that really looks at the common factors that activate a reward. And on the flip side, a threat response in social situations. All right? So I'm gonna go through the domains and I want you also to put in the chat if you've already heard of this, um, if this is something that's familiar to you, 'cause then you can help me through as I go through this. But one of them is status. I'm gonna explain each of these in a deeper dive. All right? So I'm gonna run through these a little bit fast certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. So as you can see, you've got scarf there. Now has anyone put it in the chat for me? Heard of scarf before? Yep. Okay. Alright Tina. Okay, perfect. So some of you have already heard of this, then what you can do is when I'm giving ideas, pop in your ideas in the chat. As Zach said, this is all about collaboration and learning and sharing. And so what I was exposed to scarf quite a few years ago. And then when I heard about it, I was like, this is just amazing. 'cause I'm fascinated. The training we do is interpersonal relationships, you know, interpersonal leadership and, um, teamwork. And I was so compelled that I was like, I, I gotta go get, I went and got a certificate in the, the foundations of neuroscience because once you hear this, you can layer it on anything you're doing from an HR perspective in the workforce. So what I'm doing is I'm layering it on career development. So no further ado, I'll get to it. Um, I will have a free resource at the end that has all of the this in there. So you'll have scarf, you'll have the meaning for them. So you don't need to, to take notes if you don't want to. All right? So the first one is status. Status is about relative importance, like the hierarchy, seniority, where are you in relation to those around you? So you walk into a room, you're assessing the hierarchy in how we alter our behavior. And status happens a lot in organizations, right? Titles, titles are our way for status to be shown. But another way to think about this is, am I respected at the organization and am I valued? Is my work valued? And here's an interesting, uh, tidbit about status is that there was a study that showed an increase in status with similar in strength in the brain to a financial windfall. So again, it's like these social, these social pieces in our brain light up in similar with similar other rewards, like financial rewards. So what are some ways that you can use this lever, this status reward, without actually giving anyone a title or a promotion? Put in your thoughts for my scarf for friends out there, and I'll give you a few ideas. One of those is exposure, right? So thinking about having the higher status leaders be able to have exposure to frontline employees, right? So exposure is one way to consider maybe skip level meetings. Maybe there's listening sessions, there's leading a projects, as Shannon just said, if someone is getting op opportunities to have some projects, some leadership there, that's a good way. There's also skill recognition. So people feel a status increase whenever they feel that they are learning and improving. And then when, when there's attention paid to it, right? So if someone's getting a certificate, if they're learning to do better public speaking, whatever that is, that is a way, uh, that you can give people an increase in status. I love what Julie just said, becoming a mentor or guru to new people. That's a great way, think about it too. Reverse mentoring. What a great way to change the status. Could the younger generation mentor the older generation or it is just a newer employee mentor someone? So there's a lot of ways to mix that up, but mentorship can be one. I think information sharing is one that we forget about a lot. Letting people in on what's going, going on. We're gonna go to certainty in a minute and that's a piece of certainty as well. But a lot of organizations don't wanna share the information until they have it all vetted out and that keeps people in the dark and then all of a sudden they feel like, well, I'm not important enough to get that information. So transparency is important, Dana, and I'm glad you brought that up. So I'm gonna give you an example from my own personal life and how a boss did this really well and a boss just didn't know exactly how I like to be approached with status. So a lot of people hear status and they like to say, oh, I don't care about status. But truth be told, a lot of us do, and especially in an organization. So I had one boss, the one that I was, I was gonna leave the organization and he was doing what he could to say, Hey, I really want you to stay. Here are all the things that I can do for you. And one of the things that he did for me was talk. He got his boss, the senior vice president to say, Jen's doing a great job, blah, blah, blah. And all of our leadership for forums, guess what? I did not like that. That was not how I wanted to be actually recognized. It felt, ugh, to me, felt uncomfortable. Whereas another boss, what she did was she shared information for with me. There was a reorg coming down and she said, Hey Jen, come here. She pulled me in her office, she gave me a white paper and she said, Hey, I'm really excited to tell you, you know, we're gonna have an org change. It's good for you. Here's where I see you. What do you think? And it was like this great two-way conversation. And I felt like I knew what was going on and that elevated my feeling and the reward of status. So status can be different. People are gonna react different ways. And that's part of not everyone is going to love exposure and not everyone is needs the information. That's why we're all different. So there you go, their status. And in the the resource guide I have, there's actually six different ways that you can think about it as an organization. So there's this from kind of two levels from the organization in a leadership level, but you'll have some other ideas in your guide. All right? Certainty. Our brains like to know what to expect. It's one of the things our brains are always trying to predict what's going on next. And when we can't predict what's going on next, it takes up a whole lot of resources, right? So our brains are thinking something else and we're not focused on the task at hand. Um, and even a small amount of uncertainty can generate an error response, um, in our brains. So it's really saying, am I in the loop right? Do I know what's going on? And one of the things that we want to do around growth and development is clarity of career path. And I think somebody said earlier that you've got actually, you know, career paths and everyone knows what is possible, if you will, what's possible in my role? What are some potentials for the next role? What does that lattice look like for me? Well, I could go here or here or here so you know what the options are for you. Um, and then expectations and rewards are clear. This is one of the things that I see is a, is a fundamental skill of leadership that gets missed. That not laying out the expectations for people. So here's what we expect of you, and then here are the rewards that can come as a result of it. Because in our brains, when we meet expectations, it increases that dopamine level in our brain. It gives us this reward response. And so it's making sure that people understand what is possible and get this, even if you say you don't know, that provides certainty, right? So you don't have to have all the information, you just have to say something to give people that, oh, they don't know and they can get back to me at this point. So what did I miss here? There's plenty of things you can do to keep people in the loop. Dana. Still transparency, what you said for status transparency helps with certainty. 'cause there's some things that can thread through multiple of these scarf domains. Um, again, another story from my career. Um, I remember when I was in my second role and I was one of those really annoying employees that everyone probably really hates to have. 'cause I'm like, all right, what's next? How can I grow? Like I'm always constantly wanting to know what's going on. So I remember my boss sat down and she said, here is your career path. If you stay in this job, then here, here's what you can make. She basically said, you can, you'll only make this amount even if you're here 25 years. And I said, Ooh, okay, well now I know I'm definitely in the loop and now I can make an informed decision. I've also been in situations to where expectations were given of me. And it was said, Hey Jen, once you reach these expectations there, it was kind of vague. There's there's some good things in store for you. Guess what? I met those goals. I never got those rewards. That was one of the things like giving vague rewards or saying that you may get promoted. Not good. Sorry, I'm reading this chat, Lee. Yes. Okay, to clarify, like just getting clarity in where you can go in the company and even if it's clear that it's not where you wanna go or it is what you feel is a dead end, at least you know, 'cause then you can look at other options. So certainty is really important to our brains. Alright, autonomy. Autonomy. You have a feeling of choice, you have some control over your environment, you have a perception, okay? It doesn't mean you have all the choice in the world, it's just a perception of having choice. Are you given choices? Are you given control? Again, this reward response in our brain. And so what can you do to create autonomy? I'm probably gonna say something you're all tired of hearing. What do you think? I'm gonna say schedule flexibility. So I am a big fan of being clear with what you want from employees, but giving people flexibility when you can, helps with the autonomy reward. And even if you need people to come in at a certain time, then asking them, Hey, I need you to be in here for this meeting. How do you think you can make that work? What would be feasible for you? Right? So asking them for their input and their opinion also. Oh yeah, Julie, choice of projects where possible and personal stretch goals. Let them set or have input on their performance goals. Like we don't have to come up with those as leaders. We can say, you know, what do you think it should be? And this actually happened to me. I have facilitators on my team and I was onboarding, um, and then I was thinking about, okay, what are some metrics we put in place? And when I asked, she brought it up and she gave me a higher number than I would've expected her to get for customer satisfaction. So she was like, yeah, I think we should have 85%, um, satisfaction. I was like, oh whoop, okay. She named it and then they have ownership over it. And it's, it is trusting and empower employees to make the decisions. So yes, talk about and live by trust, not policy. All right? So let me give you an example that's kind of, um, it's not so in, in any conversation. I guess if you lead people for a long enough time, there's probably gonna be a time you're putting someone on a performance improvement plan, right? So there are even options when you're talking to someone about performance improvement that you can give them autonomy, right? So you can say, Hey, I really think you can have confidence that you can get off this, this pip, but let's just say that's not of interest to you and maybe this isn't a good skill manage. What are some other roles in the company that you may be interested in? So it's just choices and it's letting them be in charge. I think sometimes at work we forget like we're dealing with adults and that adults want to have that autonomy in their, in their life, especially with their career. Um, so giving people those options. All right, anything else I missed in autonomy? Y'all named some the choice of the projects. So any other things you just put, keep putting 'em in the chat to give people other ideas as well. If I, I know I can't put them all on there, but I'm sure I've missed some. All right. Job crafting. Ugh, yes, dra, job care crafting is, if you haven't looked into that, I'm sure many of you have. It is a really great strategy for autonomy. All right, relatedness, feeling safe and safe with and connected to others. And that is feeling connected to your team, but also to the organization, right? People wanna feel connected to their organization, they don't want to feel like a cog in the wheel. And relatedness goes down to it, you know, Chris, you said earlier it's trust. And so again, when we're meeting someone for the first time, we think friend or foe, do I trust this person or am I'm gonna be a little cautious there? And so trust takes time to build and is very important. And again, it's that matching of the, uh, actions and, and the, the words, right? So how can you create relatedness? You just, you increase safe connections between people. And I think sometimes when we get into our busy, busy, uh, life or work life, uh, especially leaders or even in big town halls, we think that we don't ha have to show that personal side. We don't need to connect people to each other. And I think that's a big miss. So getting internal connections with teams, but then also connecting to other areas of the company. So there's, oftentimes I work with companies and they're silos, right? So people aren't connected to each other and that's obviously a problem. Or the organization is not saying, you know, here's who we are, here's what we believe in, and then kind of living up to those expectations. So I have definitely seen people stay at organizations kind of longer because they had this really close connection with their team. They trusted them, they worked well together. So relatedness is a very, very important. Yeah. And community groups relatedness. Another way to think about, um, relatedness too is like getting, um, employee resource groups, getting in groups, getting slack channels. Do one-on-one. There's a ton of ways to do this, but it gets bypassed because we don't think it's important when truly it is a driver that can actually make people feel like they are growing and developing with a company that they feel like they wanna stay with that company because they believe in the company. And then the co company is going to actually help them grow and develop their leader's, gonna help them grow and develop. So relatedness is vital. And then finally, Rhonda, fairness and fairness is tricky in an organization because doesn't always happen. Um, and also it's not just the reality of what happens, it's the perception, right? So do I get credit? The others do? And I'm gonna ask you this. Do you think in your organization, do you feel as though there is a department or an area of the company that feels overlooked? We've all, I've always heard of them, we're the redheaded stepchildren. No one cares about us. I find that among most organizations, there's a group of people, someone just said l and d, oh, there's a group of people that feel like, um, the admin team, I worked with a healthcare organization and the healthcare providers were like, it's all about us. I'm sorry, admin, it, hr, we don't really care. Um, human resources. Uh, so fair does not necessarily mean equal. So Angela, thanks for that. Um, it is perception and perception matters, unfortunately, but getting people credit when credit's due, um, sorry, I'm reading this chat, made lots of wins when heading business development unit in your previous employees, simply 'cause you're relatedness with all our teams. Yeah, relatedness matters. If you can relate as a leader to other, to your team and then other parts of the organization, it really matters. So getting credit, do people get the credit they deserve? Sometimes, sometimes the quiet people don't get the recognition, they don't get the credit. Um, sometimes leaders take the credit for their team. It happens. So how can people get the credit they deserve when people are promoted? Can you explain like, this person was promoted because they're filling a gap that we need, blah, blah, blah, saying something. Um, we used to have what was called, uh, blue rewards. And every March people, individuals would get a bonus of $25,000. And it was, that's a ton of money, right? And so I was always like, why? They kind of like, why'd they get it? Why you, you know what everyone's doing? Why'd they get it? Why'd they get it? And then finally I saw the common theme, and it wasn't explicitly stated, but it was these people, excuse me, work their ass off for the company. They are always available. They are diehard company people. And I was like, okay, cool. Now I know why, um, they deserve, that's great. They deserve it. But there's sometimes there's a mismatch again in the signals, right? So for example, uh, when I was a leader in hr, I had to outsource FMLA, which was not fun because it resulted in layoffs. And so I had to lay some people off to save not a ton of money, maybe $200,000, something like it wasn't a ton of money. So I went through that painstaking process. It was a career defining moment and not in a positive way. It's a story for another time. Um, and then once that happened, did my job, we got our credit, I think about three different people got promoted to vice president. And so I was like, Hmm, something's not matching up to me. For me, I just save the company money because we had to, but yet then why is everyone getting promoted? And you know, that comes with a salary increase. So it, it is just some of the times the actions and the words and there's people going, it's not fair. Um, so Julia, I like what you said is equal opportunity to exposure. And in the resource guide it takes you through like, are people at the table with diverse opinions? Does everyone have access to mentorship regardless of level? So fairness is all in the eyes of the beholder, but being transparent as possible is helpful. All right, Zach, we're gonna do a quick poll. All right, so let me ask you this. When Zach releases the poll, we're gonna ask you two questions. Which scarf domain does your company already leverage? So we have one choice. So as a company, you're really good at relatedness or status or certainty. Put your answer in the chat, where are you already strong and already doing well? All right, Zach, you have to keep me. I can't see the time. So let me know when the votes are, votes are in. And if you've already done that, just know there's, there's gaps coming too. 20 more seconds. All right. All right. Reviewing them. Justia, thank you. Yeah, it is, it is hard. This is a hard question to answer, but it looks like autonomy is the highest closely by related status. And then certainty, not as much. All right, so we may have answered this in in poll two. I guess we can close this. And then where are, where do you think your organization can do better? What could do better? Le leverage. And it may be certainty, which came out lower in the other poll. You may have already answered the question and Zach will be, uh, managing this here. Alright, thank you. Alright, certainty. Looks like that is something that is not uncommon. Most of us can, can work on that. And I'd say too, for the person who just said that there's pockets of people doing things, see if you can highlight those pockets of people that are doing things well, right? I always like to say, um, it's from Dan and Chip Heath, find the bright spots if people are doing things really well, go interview them, see what they're doing. And if you could kind of leverage that. All right, so one last piece before we end up. I, this is from, you can take the scarf model from an organizational level, but also you can think about it from a team level. How do leaders then take the scarf model and apply it to their teams? Because there's, you know, obviously different facets. There's an organization there, leaders, and then the employees themselves, your leaders have to know their people if they want to grow them, right? Just like my boss was giving me this exposure he thought was great and I didn't like, there was a little bit of a disconnect. So thinking about discovery points that leaders can consider is yes, what are their scarf rewards? What are their threats, right? So we're all, um, on the flip side of it, what do they enjoy? How do they want to be rewarded? Um, what projects are they interested in, et cetera. How do they wanna grow their career? Where are they in their journey? Never assume just because someone's coming back from maternity or paternity leave doesn't mean they don't want a growth or stretch project. Don't assume if someone's coming out of retirement to start work again, don't assume that they don't want a bigger growth and development project, but ultimately it is finding out what development means to them. And this is one question. This is just one question that leaders can start with. What does, you can call it career development. You can say what does growth and development look like for you? Like, there are a lot of different ways that you can phrase this. I can alter this one question, but the point is asking the question. And when leaders ask the question, then leaders initiate and support it. They don't have to be drivers of their team's careers. Each person should individually drive their careers. But leaders need to initiate the conversation. Because what happens is it's the most vocal people who are gonna say, Hey, leader, look at me, look at me. And then the people who are quiet, they're not gonna go up to their boss and ask, they're just gonna do a good job, right? So by initiating and supporting it, that's the role of a leader in my opinion at least. Um, trust is at the foundation. If a leader is not trusted by their team, their team's not gonna tell 'em anything, right? They're just gonna leave one day or say put in their notice. So trust has to be at the foundation for them to actually have these, these conversations. Brene Brown said, clear is kind God. The feedback conversations are so important. You know, if someone you know, comes into the organization and they think they are wanna be in a leadership role, but they need skills to get there, that's a leader's job. I'd love to get you there. Here's a few things that I feel like you need to work on to get there. You open to that? Clear is kind the quiet ones. I have made that mistake. I have lost people because they were just doing a good job and I didn't realize that they were actually getting paid less than somebody else and they were doing a better job because the more vocal ones were coming to me. So this is definitely a mistake I've made managers role model. Um, there's been a recent, um, culture Amp survey that showed that after 10 years of people leading their skills drop off a little bit. So they're not as likely to grow and develop. But unfortunately, I mean, or fortunately, um, 91% of employees say it's important for managers to role model, right? To say, Hey, my growth and development is important. And then it's again, your, your actions are matching your words. All right, so we talked about a lot. That was a quick hit. I've got the resource I'm gonna tell you about in just a minute, but let me summarize just three things you can do that are in what I feel like are in hopefully your span of control. Identify the, the signals, the career development signals that your organization is sending. So for some of you that had those North star or those philosophy statements, go ask people like, do you feel like this is something that is accurate? How do you feel like the company's encouraging your growth and development? And look for some of those mixed mis mixed messages in the resource I'm about to show you. There is a checklist on each of the scarf factors, and then you can go there for some ideas and then of course, give your leaders the skills, the tools and resources to grow their people. All right? So without further, I'm gonna tell you about a training we do offer, but before I get there, here is the guide. It's long. I hope it's not too long. It's, I think I've got it right here. It is like 12 pages. Um, so 30 career development strategies that don't require promotions or raises. There are two parts to this. One is the scarf part where it's the checklist. The second part is a guide for leaders so they can have career conversations. It includes those guidelines I just went over. It also includes five key questions to ask to have that career conversation. Um, there's a sample email, there's all the things in there. So I do want to say before, I'll, I'll pop back to the slide in a minute, but we do offer training for leaders to guide career growth, development growth to their teams. So it's putting all this theory stuff that we talked about into actual practice. It is going through the scarf rewards with them, them thinking about their team and saying, what can we actually do here? Um, and then it's also practical coaching for, for career conversations. So it's giving them the skills and the experience to have a career conversation so they can go have those on a regular basis two times a year, four times a year, more if possible. But not all leaders are really strong in this, and we need to give them the time to practice and also the, the tools and a safe space to practice this. So there's the guide again, um, connect with me on LinkedIn. What else? The codes are interchanged was that, uh, let me know what that means. Um, okay, so Zach, any questions that we have? All right, yes. First off, I second Colleen's commenter. Thank you. That was amazing content. Definitely take advantage of the guide. Uh, got a sneak p sneak peek at it and there's so much in there to help get you going, uh, in the right direction with some of these things that we talked about today. So, um, yeah, let's, let's answer some questions. We got a couple more minutes here, everyone. So what are your questions? Anything you would like to, uh, help answer? Someone just asked would the classes be appropriate for an HR professional, not a people leader? Yes. Yeah, it would just be in the, we'd frame it in the way of an HR leader. So what we do, we do a lot of customized training. We look at the, what the employer needs, we look at what the leader needs, and we can tweak everything to fit your needs. So feel free to shoot me an email and we can talk more. Um, and I can post the link to the guide. Yes, I can. I'm just gonna stop. Yeah, I was gonna ask three. No, that's great. And one thing, as she stopped sharing her screen, I'll re-put this in the chat as well, which I didn't have time to type up the change, but it sounds like I, I interchanged the codes for HRCI and shrm. So just reference the codes there and put them in there. And also make sure you connect with Jen on LinkedIn to either, you know, just continue the journey with her and stay connected that way. But I would definitely take advantage of this resource and also setting up some time if you can. Um, where else can people kind of connect with you, Jen, or, or learn more about you? Yes. Um, LinkedIn is a great way to connect. Um, I will also offer, so if you download the checklist and please know, um, it takes a few minutes to get to you. So the interwebs take their, take their time getting it to you, um, in an email or two, you'll get a link to my calendar. If you want to go through the scarf checklist, I'm happy to do that with you and just walk through it and just kind of be that sounding board for you. Um, LinkedIn is the best way. My email, I'll put it in the chat. Feel free to email me. Edith, it is good to see you see your name on here. Um, and it is gross signals.co.com. So I've even made that mistake before. Feel free to email me. Um, and if anyone wants to email me and gimme some other ideas for scarf, some of you fans and users of the scarf framework, let me know. Question. This was the first time I heard about it. I know we talked about it, obviously leading up to this program and, and you shared how impactful it's been for some of the groups that you've been working with. And, uh, I'm definitely gonna try to, I mean, we're a small and mighty organization, but I feel like regardless these are just great foundational pieces that you can start to build in into your, like your own conversations as a team. Well, I, what I love about is that, you know, especially if you work with a lot of different industries, everyone's got a unique culture. There's no doubt about that. But we're all humans, right? Yeah. So we're all humans and we have that, those similar social threads in our brains that if we pay attention to those, um, I don't know if it simplifies things, but we're not that complicated of a species, but we tend to complicate things. And so, yeah. And I think with, with especially leaders, right? A lot of 'em haven't been trained on these things. So they need a framework or a model to kind of lean on to help guide their conversations. And this is such a powerful, simple way to kind of get them on the right track Yeah. And just have those discussions with their team. Well, yeah. I mean, even did a session, Edith, you were in this like trying, um, feedback on people. It's just the practice, right? Yeah. So it's giving them that safe space. Stephen, great to see you. Well see your name at least. All right. Any other, any questions? I think that's all we got. So we are at the hour. Thank you everyone for joining us today. Can we give a virtual appreciation and love for the amazing Jen Arnold for sharing their time and expertise and resources with us? Yes. Thank you for the emojis of hearts and everything. Oh, we love it. Nice. And, uh, um, appreciate everyone continuing to invest in their own development by joining the Achieve Engagement Community. We look forward to seeing you again soon. I'll keep the room open for a couple minutes. I'll share the, the screen with the codes on there. Feel free to hang out if you need to take some notes or reference the chat. Otherwise, have a great rest of your afternoons. Everyone. Thank you so much for Joining. Thank you all. Thanks Ed. Appreciate it.

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