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Partners HealthCare Career Handbook for Supervisors/Managers:
Partners HealthCare is dedicated to helping employees advance and grow in their careers. As we build a culture of employee support and mentoring, managers and supervisors have increasingly expressed interest in assisting their staff members as they explore career options and define their goals towards advancement. Healthcare offers a wide range of professions with varied working conditions, expectations and rewards. There is also a significant range of required education and training to enter these professions.
Partners HealthCare would like to support career growth, by simplifying the initial career exploration process by collecting and categorizing information and offering tools that managers and employees can use as they start to think about the many opportunities that they may avail themselves of in the healthcare field.
This brief healthcare career guide is designed to help managers and supervisors with initial employee career exploration discussions. It is not intended to replace career coaching/counseling, but rather to help employees and their supervisors/managers to start the process. In this guide, you will find useful information on when to have career conversations and tips on how to conduct these conversations with your employees.
Table of Contents
Career Conversations: FAQs
What is a career conversation?
A career conversation is a discussion between managers/supervisors and their employees that help employees to think about their strengths and weaknesses and their interests as they consider growing in their careers.
Why should managers engage in career conversations with their employees?
Managers and supervisors are role models and can inspire their employees to take charge of their careers and explore the many opportunities available to them within our organization. Managers and supervisors can help employees to see themselves as career owners who are strongly encouraged and supported to optimize their potential and, in turn, maximize their contribution to Partners HealthCare.
When should a career conversation take place?Career conversations should be conducted separate from employee evaluations or performance appraisal sessions. While the two conversations ideally complement each other, the separation is necessary to be sure that there is no confusion regarding the purpose of the conversation and to maintain the specific goals of each meeting.
- The goal of the Performance Appraisal is to evaluate past performance; it is a chance to acknowledge an employee’s strengths and to identify opportunities for future performance improvement.
- The goal of Career Conversations is to establish future growth.
Who is responsible for career growth?
Ultimately, employees are responsible for growing their own career. Employees should be considered “career owners.”
Managers and supervisors may support their employee’s career growth in several ways, including:
- Listening to the employee’s stated interests and aspirations.
- Reviewing the employee’s strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of the employee as well as their own.
- Using basic career exploration tools to help employee evaluate possible careers.
- Guiding employees to career growth resources within the organization including:
- Career coaches
- Career exploration seminars and workshops
- Internal training opportunities
- Partners Workforce Development web site
- Career champions and ambassadors
Career Conversations 101: Some tips for conducting a meaningful career conversation:
Open communication and proper focus are important when conducting a career conversation. The following suggestions may help you, as a supportive manager/supervisor to lead the conversation:
- Ask open-ended questions. Stay away from “yes” or “no” questions.
- Start with phrases like “Tell me about…” and “How…”
- Push the employee, as career owner, to be specific and set concrete goals. A useful guide is to keep goals “SMART:”
- S pecific
- M easurable
- A ction-oriented
- R ealistic (or R elevant to larger life goals and values)
- T ime bound
- Don’t assign value to the career owner’s answers/ideas- “good or bad”
- Keep the career owner focused on him/herself, not on the team or department
- LISTEN!!!
- Be honest, candid and helpful
- Focus on the future, not the past. This is about what he/she wants to do, regardless of department, company, etc. Try not to limit discussion to current state-how the work is structured in the department, etc.
- Determine appropriate next steps:
- Define which organizational resources may benefit the individual most. You may want to list various resources for the employee to choose from.
- Is the employee specific about his/her goals and ready to seek more in-depth knowledge from professionals in the field, or
- Is the employee not sure of his/her goals and better suited to meeting with a career coach before proceeding?
Career Coaching:
What is a career coach?
A Career Coach is an individual trained to help individuals assess their abilities and interests and to help them define their career goals and the steps required to achieve them. The Career Coach can help an employee to explore all options and better focus his/her career aspirations. The coach will help the employee/career owner to create a specific action plan called a Career Plan. The Career Plan is made up of short, mid, and long-range goals to help them reach their desired outcome.
What is the relationship between the career coach and the manager?
Once the Career Plan is created, the manager/supervisor can help to support the employee/career owner to reach the goals necessary to achieve success. A manger/supervisor may:
- Review the career plan with their employee
- Evaluate the employee’s strengths/weaknesses in relation to his/her long, short and mid-term goals
- Review the skills and experiences that the career owner may draw from to achieve his/her goals
- Help to define the areas of development necessary to achieve goals:
- What competencies does the career owner need to develop in order to meet his/her goals?
- What experience does the career owner need to gain in order to meet his/her goals?
- Support the career owner’s progress by encouraging and mentoring if possible or by helping the employee network with other managers, supervisors, professional experts (“champions/ambassadors”) that might help to guide them as they progress towards a specific career.
- When possible, allow an employee to take advantage of flexible scheduling options to allow them to attend training and /or to attend college programs.
- If it is not possible to provide flexible scheduling within the department, a manager/supervisor may help an employee seek a position in a different department that will be a better schedule fit.
- Become a “cheerleader!” A simple “pat on the back,” or a few words of encouragement when things get challenging can mean the difference of success or failure to the career owner.
Other Resources:
In addition to supportive managers, supervisors, and career coaches, Partners HealthCare also provides several additional resources to assist individuals that have expressed an interest in achieving career growth. Included are:
- Workforce Development/Training Professionals : Individuals focused on providing career information and support at all levels to employees who seek to grow professionally within the organization. Workforce Development and Training professionals provide career exploration seminars, educational finance workshops, in-house and external educational opportunities, and other valuable resources for career owners to utilize as they develop their future career plans.
- Human Resource Professionals: Human Resource (HR) specialists can provide job descriptions and help employees to seek employment opportunities/transfers that may be more suited to their goals or work/school schedule. HR also can help guide employees through the tuition reimbursement process.
- “Career Ambassadors” and “Career Champions:” Professionals from virtually all healthcare specialties that have expressed an interest in helping employees to achieve career growth. These people may help employees in several ways:
- Career exploration: Career Champions and Ambassadors help employees to get an in-depth understanding of the various opportunities presented in the healthcare field. They, as experts in their field, provide focused conversations about the career, departmental tours, career seminars, and job shadows.
- Mentoring: Some Career Champions/Ambassadors have offered to provide mentorship and guidance to career owners interested in their areas of expertise as they progress.
- Internships/preceptorships: Some Career Champions/Ambassadors are able to provide clinical training and internships to students in their field. They may also be willing to provide “preceptorships” to new graduates in their field to help welcome, orient and train them in their new role as healthcare professionals.
