The Hindu Business Line : Managing employee aspirations

Employee aspirations management has received a lot of attention of late as organisations work to improve employee engagement and retention. On the other hand, career planning and career management are not new concepts and have received a lot of attention for long.

Understanding employee aspirations, shaping them based on the unique backgrounds of people and helping them manage their own aspirations to accomplish their “career best” are still emerging practices in the human resources profession and, hence, are in varying stages of experimentation.

At the root of aspirations

The key influences of employee aspirations are:

Parental expectations and pressures: This continues to play a significant role all through the employee’s career, although over time its influence reduces.

Self concept: One’s own concept of what one is capable of plays a decisive role in forming one’s aspirations. Shaped over years, self-confidence, hobbies and pastimes tend to determine aspirations.

Peer pressure: A factor that exerts a huge influence over time, “keeping up with the Jones’” often becomes a powerful aspirations-shaper though it may not be in the best interest of one’s own career.

Potluck: In industries such as IT, ITeS, retail, bio-technology and financial services, the demand for talent far outstrips supply and this has led to what I call the “escalator effect” on the careers of many employees. I have come across several employees whose career during the initial 10 years have been average, only to see a steep climb, say from Assistant Manager to Vice-President, with three to four job moves. This turn of events has had a tremendous impact on career aspirations of many overnight.

Executive MBA programmes: The good news is that in the last two to three years, over 50 business schools in India have launched 12- to 18-month-long executive MBA programmes for working professionals. This has had a positive impact on the aspiration levels of employees who have signed up for these courses.

Fancy titles culture: The practice of handing out fancy titles has become the order of the day. Today, many firms offer the title, ‘President’, to the functional heads in finance, HR, marketing / sales, and so on. Widespread and diluted use of these has inevitably had an impact on the aspirations of employees, especially in the last three years or so.

Why manage aspirations?

Helping employees get in touch with their aspirations and validating it with the relevant ground realities has many benefits. Firstly, it helps employees find their career best! Career bests happen to employees when their abilities match their aspirations and they bring passion to their jobs as illustrated in the diagram.

Secondly, understanding employee aspirations helps identify appropriate developmental opportunities for employees based on talent segmentation. Some would need mentoring and others counselling in order to shape their aspirations at realistic levels.

Organisations need to plan their talent needs periodically and conduct an assessment of the potential surplus and gaps in talent, given their growth plans, entry into new geographies and domains.

Assessing career aspirations

Aspirations management is a continuous process involving appropriate assessment procedures, feedback to employees and interventions designed to match opportunities that create “career best” experiences for the maximum number of employees.

A word of caution here. A career best experience is not to be interpreted as multiple promotions. On the other hand, it means ensuring that employees with limited leadership potential also find fulfilment in their roles and deliver maximum value to the organisation.

Managing aspirations begins with assessment at the time of hiring. Skilled interviewers alone can do justice to the assessment. Often, interviews are focused on checking technical knowledge, overlooking the candidate’s aspirations. And sometimes, unintentionally, interviewers even raise aspiration levels by overselling the job and future prospects without clarifying the stringent standards for fast track promotions.

A well-thought out competency framework is key to assessing employees’ future growth potential and sharing it with them; this will help moderate aspirations at realistic levels. The competency framework in many organisations is a standalone initiative from HR or another function. In order to provide relevant assessment and feedback, competency frameworks should be thought out carefully in the light of an organisation’s strategic priorities. (See diagram).

A robust competency framework, an objective assessment process and transparent communication with employees will help manage aspirations well with limited or no negative fall-outs. Those who appreciate the messaging will seek to leverage their strengths to the maximum and organisations should create roles and opportunities to facilitate them to experience their “career bests”. And those who refuse to appreciate the feedback and adjust to the reality will leave the system rather than sticking around as disengaged and disgruntled employees.

How far can you go into the forest?

Career counselling and guidance by experienced and willing mentors will also go a long way in shaping the aspirations of those who are considered as top talent. The organisational reality is that there are only a limited number of senior executive positions in any organisation and so some will make it and other will not. This, however, does not take away the value people can add despite not making it to the coveted slots. Career Plateauing is not something we can wish away, even for top performers. Achieving their “career best” is a function of ensuring that “position plateauing” does not lead to or result in “contribution plateauing.”

It is useful to help people understand the reality through the metaphor Ricardo Semlar (of the maverick company, SEMCO Corporation) uses: Asking people how far one can go into the forest? The real answer is only up to the middle of the forest, for beyond the middle of the forest, you are not going into the forest, but in fact you are beginning to exit the forest!

Managing aspirations is more proactive than just career management. It involves understanding the aspirations of employees and actively shaping them for their own and organisational benefits. Career management is limiting while aspirations management is liberating.

(C. Mahalingam is Executive Vice-President & Chief People Officer with Symphony Services Corporation. He can be reached at mahalingam.c@symphonysv.com).

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