Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go ─ Career Conversations Employees Want

Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. Nevertheless, it's frequently back-burnered. When asked why, managers say the number one reason is that they just don't have time—for the meetings, the forms, the administrative hoops.

But there's a better way. And it's surprisingly simple: frequent short conversations with employees about their career goals and options integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business. Kaye and Giulioni identify three broad types of conversations that have the power to motivate employees more deeply than any well-intentioned development event or process. These conversations will increase employees' awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests; point out where their organization and their industry are headed; and help them pull all of that together to design their own up-to-the-minute, personalized career paths.

Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go is filled with practical tips, guidelines, and templates, as well as nearly a hundred suggested conversation questions. Illuminated with the perspectives of real managers and employees, this book proves that careers are best developed one conversation at a time.

Beverly Kaye is founder and co-CEO of Career Systems International, specializing in engagement, retention, and development. She is a well-kwn keyte speaker, writer, and developer of invative learning tools.Julie Winkle Giulioni is cofounder and principal of DesignArounds, a bicoastal consulting and instructional design firm specializing in leadership, sales, and customer service.