How can I help my team member move on?
Posted by
Sometimes you may have a team member who wants to move on and asks for your help. The first question is, what do they mean by “move on” – do they want to move upwards, move sideways, take on a bigger challenge, or even move downwards?
It’s important you don’t discount the latter two options. A bigger challenge will suit someone who is bored, but not seeking sustained extra responsibility or hours. A down-wards move might suit someone who is finding a role too stressful (perhaps life outside work has changed) – or who is seeking to change career direction. People may not have thought through these less common options.
Assuming for a moment that it’s an up-wards or sideways move, how can you help?
While it may make us sound a little like a broken record – as always with career help, the key is to push them to be self-directed. Don’t take onto your shoulders the responsibility for making the move happen. It’s an easy trap to fall into – I’ve known too many managers who feel like it’s their fault that a team member hasn’t moved on when they’ve wanted to. But the truth is that you’re there to support them, not to do it for them.
We’ve found there are three areas where you can really help them:
- Finding the right role. To be successful there has to be a close alignment between their strengths and the roles they aspire to. So the question is, how clear is the team member on the strengths that they have, and the best fit roles for those strengths? It’s useful for them to look at what they’re proud of having delivered or what they love to do, and to ask others for feedback on their best strengths. Once they’re clear on their strengths, they can start talking to people about where there are roles that they’d do well at. They can talk to HR (especially the Talent Team), people in other departments, senior mentors. Encourage them to look widely – this will get their name and ambitions out there – and may get them invited to apply to an emerging role that they would love.
- Finding and addressing gaps. Once they have decided on the direction of their next move it’s helpful for them to fully understand the role. You might know enough about the role already, in which case you can help by delegating work to them so they can start to prepare. If you don’t, the best way to help them to fully understand the role and their gaps is to free them up to shadow someone already doing it. Choose someone who is regarded as being good at the job and get your team member to spend time with them.
Set them challenges:
- Explore the person’s diary. What percentage of their time does the role model spend on different activities? What are the key elements of the role they’re doing?
- Observe the jobholder reading and actioning their emails. Seeing what they respond to and how they respond will help your team member understand the role.
- Ask key questions:
What was challenging when they started the job?
What new skills they did they have to pick up fast?
What experiences would they advise someone to get, in preparation for the job?
What are the biggest challenges in this role, that they still face even now?
- Overcome selection challenges. To get the role they aspire to, it’s very likely they’ll need to go through a selection process. You have a great opportunity to help prepare them:
- Think about the reasons they wouldn’t be appointed. Can they create a CV, and get feedback from HR or someone who manages the role? Help them to work to address these, or at least how they might position these weaknesses in an interview.
- Help them to think about good examples they could use to answer questions. You might want to look up and teach them about the STAR model
- Can they find anything about who is interviewing them?
- Consider whether a mock interview might help them.
Using this information the team member can devise a development plan that makes them feel they’re moving forward to being ready for the role.
It’s not your responsibility to secure a role for your team member, but there are certainly practical steps you can take to help them. And while you may not want to lose your team member, helping them in this way allows you to ask them to train up a successor, and will add a loyal contact to your network for life.