Taking charge of your career management
Some of the following statements may apply to your employees:
- My organisation has recently been through significant change. I am keen to adapt swiftly to the new situation. Can you enable me to identify ways of demonstrating my strengths to respond to the demands of the new structure?
- My job is ok, but I find certain relationships at work challenging. Can you enable me to improve the quality of those relationships?
- I am not a good networker. I can’t really be bothered with it. Yet I know it’s important to ‘get on’. Can you coach me to find ways to be better at reaching out to people?
- I don’t have any clear career goals. So, when I am asked about my development, I am at a loss. Can you assist me to think more clearly about what I want for my future?
- I am over-worked and stretched to the limit of my personal resources. I tend to take on too much, and I’d like to develop ways to stop this. Can you support me to do this?
- I don’t like change. So I tend to avoid it, which means I miss out on new opportunities. Can you coach me to find ways to more effectively manage change?
- My work-life balance is out of kilter. I have less and less time for the things I enjoy out of work. Can the Balance™ programme help me generate red lines, so I will have a more healthy work-life balance?
- I find that my own career goals are not in line with those my employer would like me to have. Can the coaching enable me to find ways of meeting both our aspirations?
We have developed a powerful coaching questionnaire and toolkit Balance™, based on research and our own experience of coaching thousands of individuals.
This career management programme focuses on equipping your employees to take control of their career management and to implement ways of balancing their needs with the needs of their employer.
We have found that some people place excessive emphasis on themselves when managing their careers. They focus too much on their own needs and insufficiently on those of their employer. This may mean they don’t focus enough on the direction their industry, employer or even department are heading.
On the other hand, there are people who overly focus on their employer’s needs at the expense of their own. They tend to concentrate on their day-to-day job, possibly over-working, and similarly lose perspective on employer direction, and how their own work fits the bigger picture.
While ‘Balance’ may not always be possible, it is important to know the areas which have been either neglected or over used.
How does Balance™ work?
The Balance™ diagnostic questionnaire acts as the foundation for individuals to gain valuable personal insight and effective strategies for career management across six key areas:
- Building relationships
developing networks and networking skills; managing difficult relationships; handling new relationships effectively in a more senior role - Learning and development
setting learning and development goals; addressing blocks to learning - Career development strategy
taking a strategic and proactive approach to career management; connecting your personal brand to your goals - Use of personal energy
managing work-related stresses, time management, using your strengths effectively - Openness to change
developing effective ways of handling personal and organisational change - Work-life balance
identifying ‘red lines’ and what constitutes a satisfying work-life balance
How is it delivered?
We work with the individual through coaching to identify and implement areas for action. The programme consists of the following steps:
Introductory discussion (or webinar for groups)
An introductory discussion or webinar gives the background to Balance™ so that each person is best prepared to get the most from the coaching.
Completion of Balance™ questionnaire
This questionnaire asks detailed questions about career management behaviours. It is not a test, but a questionnaire to provide a clear focus on the goals to achieve from the BYOCM programme. The questionnaire is completed online.
Coaching Session 1
- Discussion of your current situation in some detail
- Debrief the results of the Balance™ questionnaire
- Agreement of career management development areas to work on
- Briefing for using one or more tools from the Balance™ toolkit.
Coaching Session 2
- Review of tools and actions taken
- Reinforcing further actions and positive results
- Agreeing ways of maintaining momentum.
NB: Further sessions may be arranged as needed
Some key benefits to employers
- Focuses on engaging participants in steering their own career management
- Reaches employees dispersed in regions or abroad
- Uses practical online tools to develop networking skills, personal brand and career goal setting
- Encourages staff to develop positive career management behaviours.
Feedback
“It helped me to understand that my career is my own destiny and I have to manage what people see from me and what I do as a reflection from this”.
“I’ve been applying myself in different ways to act as more of a coach myself rather than telling. I’ve been ensuring that I check myself and my questioning/replies when talking and trying to bring the best out of my team”.
“Taking time to seek positive feedback, reviewing my personal brand and having the opportunity to talk it through with my Coach has enabled me to take a step back and plan how to use this to greater effect”.
To arrange a discussion on how this programme could benefit your employees, please contact our Programme Director, Kate Mansfield on kate@career-counselling-services.co.uk.
