Kiwi Bosses Care More About Employees’ Career Development

KIWI BOSSES CARE MORE ABOUT THEIR EMPLOYEES’ CAREER DEVELOPMENT THAN THEIR AUSSIE COUNTERPARTS

Does your manager care about your career development? Despite being the number one reason behind resignations, 37 per cent of New Zealanders polled by recruiting experts Hays says their manager doesn’t care about their career development.

In the poll of 509 New Zealanders, 30 per cent said their manager champions their career development. The final 33 per cent said their manager cares about their career development to some extent – but they need to push for it.

“Thirty-seven per cent of New Zealanders have bosses who are throwing away an opportunity to retain their staff,” says Jason Walker, Managing Director of Hays in New Zealand. “While this lack of attention in the career development of their staff is concerning, the situation could be worse.

“In Australia, where we also ran this poll, 51 per cent of more than 2,000 people said their manager doesn’t care about their career development. Yet this is a key reason why people look for a new job, so why aren’t bosses championing it and sitting down with their staff to map out a career development plan?

“Career development doesn’t necessarily mean a promotion – although it certainly can. And not everyone actually wants a promotion. That’s why it’s so important to sit down one-on-one with people to find out what their career development goals are,” he said.

According to Hays there are a huge range of career development options, which can be tailored to suit the unique situation and career goals of any individual. These include:

· Career path: Mapping out a career path, and including the objectives and skills that must be achieved or developed in order to achieve each promotion, shows exactly how to get ahead.

· Stretch opportunities: Look for tasks or projects slightly beyond an employee’s current skill or knowledge level in order to ‘stretch’ and improve capabilities through hands-on learning and experience. Match the skills and capabilities of each task to those identified in the career map.

· Training others: Another opportunity to develop skills that will be useful when it comes time to manage a team.

· Formal training: There are times when skills may need to be developed that do not already exist within an organisation. Perhaps formal training is required?

· Track progress: There should be a process in place to track and review development regularly (not only in annual reviews) to ensure you are investing your time in actions that make a real difference.

· Projects: Another hands-on learning opportunity to develop expertise in a certain area. Those who want to develop their people management skills can start by managing a project team. It’s a good idea to start with smaller short-term projects then work up from there.

· Coaching: One-on-one coaching can be directed to many different scenarios, from developing new skills to correcting performance in a particular area.

· Mentorships: Also one-on-one, the informal nature of mentorships allow a range of information to be exchanged, from lessons that have been previously learnt to implicit awareness such as why reports are written in a particular way or who to contact for certain information. Technical knowledge can also be passed on this way.

· Internal transfers: Jobs should be shared internally with all staff so that people can learn of and apply for available opportunities.

The poll was conducted on hays.net.nz between August and October.

Hays is the most followed recruitment agency on LinkedIn in the world. Join Hays’ growing network by following Hays Worldwide. You can also get expert advice, insights and the latest recruitment news by following Hays on Twitter @HaysNewZealand.

Hays, the world’s leading recruiting experts in qualified, professional and skilled people.

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About Hays

Hays is the leading global specialist recruiting group. We are the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in Asia Pacific and the UK and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe and Latin America. We operate across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments.

As at 30 June 2016 the Group employed 9,214 staff operating from 252 offices in 33 countries across 20 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2016 Hays reported net fees of £810.3 million and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £181 million. Hays placed around 67,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 220,000 people into temporary assignments. 22% of Group net fees were generated in Asia Pacific.

For the 2015-16 financial year Hays in Australia & New Zealand placed 12,200 people into permanent jobs, or 47 per day. We also filled nearly 62,000 temporary jobs, or 240 per day.

Hays operates in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA.

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