November 13, 2023 • 38 mins
Do you ever wish you had more control over your career path? Wonder how to make the most of opportunities within your current organisation? Together with Sonam Taneja, a seasoned career and change coach, we delve into portfolio careers, unpacking how you can take the reins of your own career development.
We also share practical ways organisations can nurture their internal talent marketplaces, offering employees unique opportunities such as shadowing senior leaders or tackling projects outside their usual duties.
Sonam and I explore the progressive concept of kaleidoscope careers and the seismic shift in workplace dynamics. We examine the ways technology has reshaped our work lives and why a linear career path no longer fits the bill. Tune in and redefine your idea of a successful career.
About Sonam:
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sonamtaneja
E: sonam@mirrorspeakconsulting.com
ABOUT ME - AYESHA MURRAY
I'm an accredited career coach with over 20 years experience in the corporate world. Having experienced the working parent juggle first hand, I now coach people through their career and life challenges.
WORK WITH ME
I'm here to give you the confidence, self-belief and support to help you design a life that works for you and your family. Through tried and tested approaches, tools and methodologies, you'll leave the coaching process with clear direction, motivation and energy.
If you'd like to find out more about how coaching could work for you, book a free 30 min call at https://calendly.com/ayeshamurraycoaching/discovery-call
CONNECT WITH ME
Website - www.ayeshamurray.com
LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/ayeshamurray75
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DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast belong solely to the host and guest speakers. Please conduct your own due diligence.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Parent Equation podcast with me, aisha
Murray.
This podcast series is full ofinspiring stories from working
parents who are passionate aboutdesigning a life that works for
them and their families Workingparents like you who want a
purposeful, rewarding careeralongside a balanced family life
.
So joining me today is SonamTaneja.
(00:27):
Sonam is a career and changecoach and previously a talent
consultant, and Sonam is here totalk to me as we continue this
season on portfolio careers.
So welcome, sonam.
Thank you, pleasure to be here.
So we've talked previouslyabout your background in HR and
its talent, so I think theinteresting perspective that
you're going to bring to thisconversation is around, I
suppose, the original view ofhow portfolio careers are
(00:52):
enabled, I suppose, to people.
So we've talked a lot inprevious episodes about how we
can take control of our careers,and we can control, we can
create a portfolio career forourselves.
But do you think thatorganisations have a role to
play in portfolio careers aswell?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Thank you, aisha, for having me here.
Great question and quite asignificant one, because, while
we're talking about the conceptof portfolio careers, the
majority of the population stillis working with organisations,
and whether the world of work ischanging and the pace at which
it's changing is in discussion.
(01:32):
Employees still do expectemployers to play a role when it
comes to their careerdevelopment and, yes, it's true
that the world of work ischanging really fast and we're
expecting more and moreemployees to take charge of
their careers and shape theircareers.
And you know where,increasingly, the buzzword is
the career ladder is going awayand the career portfolio needs
(01:54):
to be curated.
But it's very significant tonote that organisations do have
a huge role to play in givingemployees the tools, the
processes, but also the culturein the organisation and the
mindset to actually enable whatis a portfolio career and to
facilitate that.
And I'll give you an examplefor that, if that's okay.
(02:18):
So I did my research a long timeback when I did my masters,
where we were talking, where Idiscussed the concept of a
psychological contract betweenan employer and employee.
Now, that's very different froman employment contract, because
an employment contract islegally binding, but the unsaid
career expectations or theunsaid promises that an employer
(02:38):
and employee make with eachother when they sign that
contract.
The employment contract iseverything to do with.
Am I going to get opportunitiesto develop in the organisation
if I'm doing well?
And similarly, the employer hasexpectations, and one of the
things that came up in theresearch was that, whilst we are
talking about the concept ofnew careers, career portfolio,
(02:59):
career portfolios, or boundaryless careers, as some people may
call it, employees are stillfeeling very strongly that they
need to have some sort ofsupport or guidance from their
employers when it comes tocurating their careers, and
they're very happy to takecharge.
But do I have the right toolsand processes for what is a move
(03:22):
in an organisation internallyto go do something completely
different?
You know, if I have the passionand if I have the skill set,
can I go do a project which isoutside of my remit?
Can I go work with anotherfunction?
Can I go do a short termassignment which is an
international assignment?
If you're working with a largeorganisation that permits that,
(03:44):
that allows that, why not?
Similarly, if you are workingin an organisation a large
organisation where you think youhave been identified as a
hypertension employee and youknow everybody's talking to you
about oh, you're going to be thenext leader in the next four to
five years.
What experience is missing onyour CV to get you ready for
(04:05):
that leadership role isabsolutely critical, and where
do you get that experience?
So exposure, for example, tosenior management, or shadowing
a senior leader, orparticipating in some of the
executive committee meetingsthese are all simple things that
organisations can do to enablepeople to develop more
experience, get more skills andget more insights into what in
(04:30):
how, to how they design thatportfolio career, because
flexibility and skill sets areat the core of portfolio career
and both of these things can beenabled by the organisation.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, it's interesting how it's the angrily
of taken, and I suppose maybemy assumption before all these
conversations I've been havingwith all of you wonderful people
is that portfolio career kindof means you end up with
something quite differentalongside your existing career.
So you maybe have two quitedifferent paths that you're
taking or you have a careerchange involved in there
somewhere.
(05:01):
But actually what you're sayingis and I like the idea of the
career ladder being taken away,being boundaryless that your
role, your career, could be inthe same arena it's not the same
theme, the same industry,potentially same organization,
quite possibly but the portfoliocomes in by allowing you to
experience and experimentdifferent facets of that company
(05:24):
or, as you say so, conments,that kind of thing.
So I suppose it's an angle Ihadn't really appreciated that
portfolio career can be withinthe same company, as long as
they're structured to give thatto you.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Absolutely, and I think why it's critical from an
organization's point of view isbecause you're not able as an
organization now, because of theenvironment that you're
operating in, a lot oforganizations cannot promise
that career progression, cannotsay that they're going to give
every employee that verticalcareer progression which was
true at a certain point in time.
(05:56):
If we go back 10 to 20 years,that's what a career ladder
looked like, but that careerladder is becoming increasingly
irrelevant today because of theenvironment we are operating in.
Organizations are a lot moreflatter.
What is the term which is usedas the VUCA environment?
Sort of vulnerable,unpredictable, uncertain.
You're talking about theambiguity which comes with the
(06:19):
environment in whichorganizations are operating and
then you suddenly see themdownsize because they can't
manage the large workforce thatthey have.
All of those are opportunitiesfor organizations to understand
that they already have what iscalled an internal talent
marketplace and while it's verytempting to go out and hire
people externally, you havealready done the hard work in
(06:42):
terms of hiring people who matchyour values, who fit with your
organization, who understandyour culture.
But those people are looking formore fulfillment, they need
more meaning from their careersand they don't want to do the
same job day in and day out, andthey want to experiment, they
want to grow but, mostimportantly, they want to learn.
(07:04):
That could be well.
Our world is changing and youneed to get to grips with what
AI can do.
Unless you give them theopportunity to go do something
where they get an opportunity todevelop that skill set, they
would most likely leave theorganization and go join a
competitor which is a lot moreagile and dynamic in how they do
things.
(07:24):
So it's also an opportunity fororganizations to understand
that while people are curatingtheir own career portfolios, we
as organization people have alot of control in giving people
the processes that they need, oreven the mindset that their
leaders need, to enable them todevelop those skill sets which
(07:45):
they will anyway develop becausethey need them to survive in
the workplace.
Otherwise, they just would bepeople who cannot compete in the
talent market anymore.
And that continuous learning,or that continuous learning
environment, is at the core ofportfolio career.
If you look at it from anorganizational point of view.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, and it certainly goes against a lot of
my experience in the old days,I'll say, where you went through
a kind of traditional persondevelopment plan every year and
it obviously quite templated andquite formulaic, and you go
through that with all the bestwill in the world and you write
down these personal developmentgoals and objectives and
everything else, and theninevitably that plan goes in the
(08:29):
drawer for another year,absolutely, and to revisit it,
to go, oh, I've done all thesethings I was going to do, but
again, that's because I suppose,to your point where
historically we're stuck in thiskind of boundary read way of
thinking you come in you do yourrole within these boundaries
(08:50):
and that's the expectation.
Yeah, yeah, but actually nowwhat you're saying is obviously
it's how do we break down thoseboundaries?
How do we individually do thatand challenge, I suppose,
organizations, and how doorganizations then support us to
break down those boundaries andpush ourselves outside of our
comfort zones?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
perhaps it's a completely new work model.
I think the world of work ofGoss has changed significantly
in the last five to seven yearsand post-COVID, that growth,
that changes, acceleratedmassively.
Organizations are hearing a lotmore of this when they hear
their employees say we'refrustrated, we're not getting
what we want from our careers,we're not finding that
(09:27):
fulfillment, we'll go dosomething else of our own, even
if that means, you know, we setup something and experiment with
it and fail and learn from itand come back to something else.
That's still an opportunity fororganizations to understand
that people, especially theyoung, generation X and
generation Y as they're cominginto the workforce Gen Y, which
is already in the workforce, andthe Gen Z talking about having
(09:52):
more control over their livesright, we want that flexibility.
We want to have careers whichmake us happy and give us some
sort of meaning and purpose inlife.
Now, if you're not getting thatin our day-to-day job, clearly
there is either some sort of amismatch between the job and the
work that, the passion that theemployee has and the purpose
that they have, or there is anopportunity for managers to
(10:16):
understand that if you'veidentified people and you think
these are people up higher,they've got so much potential
but I'm not able to give themwhat they want.
Maybe there is somebody else inthe organization who's in a
much better position to givethem these sort of opportunities
.
That's a mindset shift that I'mtalking about.
(10:37):
One of the examples in this isan organization called Spotify,
where obviously your podcastwould be on Spotify.
But I am really amazed becausethey do publish quite regularly
what they're doing in the worldof talent and careers and it's
really amazing to see how theytalk about their internal talent
marketplace and they are veryclear about the fact that,
(11:01):
instead of constantly hiringexternally, we spend quite a bit
of time which a lot oforganizations do in hiring the
right people, the talentacquisition teams.
The time, the effort, theenergy, the resources which go
in hiring people is a lot.
It's significant Once you havethose people in an organization,
that's your internal talentpool and if you're not tapping
(11:24):
into that talent pool, thenreally it's both your loss as an
organization and the loss of anemployee who's like I didn't
expect this, I didn't expectwork to be like this.
So this organization, spotifyit's really amazing.
They talk about the mindset of agardener and they say that the
(11:44):
best leaders in ourorganizations are like those
gardeners who will nurturetalent, who will make sure that
they identify people who havehigh potential, give them the
opportunities to grow, and justwhen the plant is ready for
blooming, or when you can seeit's going to flower, you have
to uproot them and take them toa place where they will grow
(12:08):
more.
That might not be very easy foryou because as a manager, you
might think, oh gosh, I've spentso much time harnessing the
potential of this individual.
But if you can see them shineand you can see that there is
another part of the organizationwhich can give them a bigger
responsibility, a broader role,a more challenging role which
fits with their passion andpurpose, then why not?
(12:30):
That's in the benefit of thelarger organization.
That is a mindset shift thatneeds to happen in the workplace
, because one of the keybarriers that if you ask
employees if they talk aboutthings which come in the way
when we talk about internalmobility or can you find another
role in the organization, isthat either the managers or
(12:55):
leaders would hold talent andsay, no, we wouldn't let you go,
work in a different part of thefunction, or they wouldn't even
have that sort of connectionwhere they will actually enable
those networking conversationsto happen.
Or the other thing would belack of processes or systems,
and technology plays a big rolethere in enabling some of those
processes to get people to seewhat is available in another
(13:18):
part of the organization whichfits with their passion, get
them to experiment and go onthis career adventure where they
develop the right sort of skillsets that they need for the
future.
But also, all of that is veryimportant because the
organizations are shifting theirfocus Well, the forward looking
(13:38):
ones definitely are from jobsto skills.
You know always been focused onjobs in organizations.
So you come in, you do aspecific job, then you grow,
move to another job.
The shift in organizationswhich is slowly happening is to
skill sets.
So the organizations need toidentify what are the skills
that they already have, whichare the skills that they need in
(13:59):
the future to make sure theycan compete in the marketplace.
And then they are doing thatanalysis internally to see what.
We don't have these skills.
But if you don't have theseskills and you have a gap
already, then why not tap intothe internal talent pool that
you have?
Because surely you can eitherupskill or you can reskill or
you can give people a chance togo do something different and
(14:21):
have that experience which willhelp them develop those skills.
And because we're speaking aboutthis on the on the parents you
know, working parents podcast,one of the key things which gets
ignored is how many skill setsdo you develop as a parent?
Absolutely, it's amazing.
You learn negotiation, youlearn communication, you learn
(14:43):
patience, you learn timemanagement and all of that is
hands on experience.
Nobody prepares you for that.
You learn how you learn themost amazing level of humility
and and the opportunity to tosort of teach someone and learn
someone who's so little and hassuch a such a powerful voice,
(15:04):
even though they're so little.
Right, how do you that teachsomeone as little as that, while
nurturing their talent and notto control or command, but by
giving them a nurturingenvironment and you develop such
such an amazing skill set asparent.
That skill set is often ignoredby employers because what they
would look at is oh, there's atwo year long gap in your CV.
(15:27):
They went away.
What kind of skills did theperson develop when they were
away?
I mean, talk about that andthat's the shift in mindset that
some of the leadingorganizations are looking at now
.
Unfortunately, a majority oforganizations are not, and
that's that what needs to changein the new world of work.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And, interestingly, you talk about the opportunities
, the conments, internal talentpools, and I was just saying
that I was thinking about gradschemes.
So, again, historical gradschemes, graduate schemes where,
especially of the largercorporates, the graduate would
come into the graduate, to thegraduate scheme, and you would
be on rotation.
Many companies have worked thathave had this.
(16:08):
So you do a stint in differentdepartments across the whole
business to give you, obviously,that foundation as to how does
the whole business operate, andthen you kind of find your kind
of niche, I suppose, and youinevitably then end up in a role
in that particular part of thebusiness, but then it stops.
So you get two years ofrotations and experimentation
(16:28):
and seeing the bigger picture,yeah, and then your pigeonhole
because of the decision you maketo stay in a particular job, as
you say.
So it's interesting how thethought process is there, quite
often with things like badschemes and then something
happens culturally, where itthen stops and it kind of then
goes back to this boundary wayof working.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Absolutely.
And it's such a shame sometimesbecause there is massive
opportunity again thatorganisations happen.
They hire graduates and Iworked in an organisation where
I sort of led the way indeveloping their graduate scheme
and interestingly, we did thiswith another competing
organisation, so it was a jointgraduate scheme for two
(17:12):
organisations which compete inthe world of charity and what
was really exciting andinteresting about the grad
scheme was that at the end ofthe grad scheme the employee or
the graduate had a choice topick one of the two employers
and say you're going to go workwith the organisation that you
(17:33):
think is the right fit for youand that's not to say the other
organisation is not a greatorganisation.
They both are.
But only when you develop thatsort of experience of working in
sort of the broader industryand you see the culture and
environment in two differentorganisations, both competing in
the same space, that yourealise where do you fit better?
That could be because of themanagers, the people, the
(17:54):
leadership, the opportunities.
And to your point about how wedo that, that mindset is
definitely there, but that needsto extend further as people
move into the organisation andgrow in their organisation.
Sometimes in this grad schemeyou get absolutely amazing data
about the potential that thegrads have, about the skills
(18:18):
that they have, about theprojects that they have done,
even before they started workingwith an organisation.
And, funnily enough, sometimesyou see, even within a grad
scheme, you get all that dataand you do these assessment
centres and I've done these.
So assessment centres arerigorous.
They require people.
There's so much money that goesin, there is so much data
(18:40):
that's collected and then twoyears later this grad says I'm
working with a manager who hasabsolutely no idea about my
skillsets, about all the thingsthat I've done in the past,
about all the data you collectedfrom me in the assessment
centre and all the things thatI've presented about.
And that's a big gap right there, sometimes even within the grad
(19:00):
scheme, because you're talkingabout yeah, you did, that was
all your assessment right.
And that keeps weakening as theperson grows in the
organisation because, remember,those skills are not going away.
You can always harness thoseskills that a person comes in
with and you can also helppeople develop new skills.
I think the ability to learnand the whole idea that it is a
(19:24):
continuous learning environmentnow that we operate in is again
at the core of a portfoliocareer because we are all
learning to reinvent ourselves.
You know, the old me isn'trelevant anymore because the
world in which I am working ischanging significantly, and that
applies to almost all of us inprofessional careers, where
(19:47):
we're seeing that the pace ofchange is way faster than what
organisations are offering to usas opportunities or experience.
So that's a big gap, in my view, that organisations can fill.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So, talking about reinvention, then if it was
mentioned reinventing yourselfand then going back to the
working parent theme, that oftenworking parents feel that they
have to reinvent themselves whenthey return to work or they
have to leave, or the old themis not different, but of course
it's different.
Of course it's different, butthe old them is different.
They have to come back as aworking parent, some new
(20:25):
priorities, etc.
Then you have the advantage ifyou're a graduate, you go in on
a scheme to find the data, toexperiment, to experience.
If you come back into aworkplace or a new workplace as
a working parent and try toreinvent yourself and find the
data, a question I get asked allthe time by my coaching clients
(20:48):
is how am I going to know thatthe culture of this particular
organisation that I'm going fora role in, how do I know that
their culture is going to beright for me?
All I get is an interview,maybe a couple of hours, with
this manager or seniorleadership, whatever to try and
work out does this company alignto my portfolio career values
(21:09):
now?
Is it going to be a moreboundary, less approach?
Am I going to haveopportunities to grow?
Are they going to appreciatethat.
I'm a working parent with newskills.
So again, a new experience.
How can we, as parents, goingback to work, potentially, how
can we assess the culture of acompany in actually a very short
(21:31):
window of time?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, it's very hard to do that at the sort of the
early stages of when you're justdoing the interview.
Sometimes you do see flags inthe interview itself and you
would often find sometimescandidates make those decisions
after just the way theorganization leaves them feeling
after doing sometimes theinterviews you know no response
(21:56):
to weeks.
Or just sometimes you see thosered flags where people will go
for interviews and the managerwouldn't show up for 30 minutes.
Those are, those are criticalred flags to tell you this is,
this is not the right sort ofenvironment.
Perhaps if you value thingslike Respect in an organization
(22:18):
and respect for your own timeand you know the others time.
But I think, a little bit ofresearch beyond the interview in
terms of speaking to people whoalready work in the
organization, if there is achance for you to do that and
I've sort of tried to do that inthe past where, if you can find
connections and have a coffeewith them, not with any other
(22:40):
intention, but to find out whatis it like to work in this
organization, you know what arethe things that are positive but
also what are the challengesthat be honest about some of
those challenges that you knowif I've had people who have sort
of given me a little bit ofinsight to say are you going to
join an organization which isvery, very hierarchical in
nature?
Are you ready for that?
(23:02):
I still went ahead and did itand at some point did feel like
gosh.
I didn't estimate it's going tobe like this.
I didn't thought it's going tobe like that.
But I think if you can havethose conversations with people
before you actually make thedecision around, what is it like
to?
What is the day to day work?
Look like you know what happensif you sort of If something
(23:26):
comes up for you at your familylevel and you know it's, it's
just not a situation wherethings are working for you.
How supportive is theorganization?
What's the normal reaction like?
As much reaction and input youcan get from people in
connections beforehand, it wasone of the ways to find out.
But equally, I think sometimesif you prepare some really good
(23:48):
interview questions and try toassess how, what are the key
values of the organization andwhere do the organizations face
a challenge when it comes tomanaging the workforce, some of
those critical interviewquestions, if you get a chance
to ask them, are a really goodway to Judge.
You know from the responses ifit's the right sort of culture
(24:10):
for you.
Yeah, and even using terms ofthe views terms like internal
talent management.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
So asking them directly do you have a process
for internal talent managementor skills developmental?
So just being, I suppose, quiteovert, those kind of questions,
yeah, and I think what ishappening is it's so much more
than just a question about thepower dynamic between an
employer and employee.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Maybe it's post COVID or it sort of was on its way,
but it's accelerated now.
That power dynamic is shiftingjust a little bit and you are
seeing employees being a lotmore vocal about what I want,
what is important for me and howdoes this fit my life, which
was not a conversation pre COVID.
You know it was not.
(25:02):
It was not.
It was not anywhere like thewhole idea of working remotely
in some of the most traditionalindustries.
That was like it doesn't happen.
No, it's never going to happen.
It's always been like this.
I think the fact that COVID andpandemic gave us, gave us, a
chance to relook at the world ofwork differently Is a huge
(25:28):
opportunity again for employeesto know that there is plenty of
organizations now in the worldwho will give you an opportunity
to work the way it feels rightfor you.
So if one of the organizationsdoes not work for you, it's not
the end of the world.
There is so much remote workavailable now.
There is so much work whereorganizations are working very
smartly Some call them hybrid,some call them smart working but
(25:53):
increasingly you are seeingsome of the organizations are
taking a very, very agileapproach to careers and that, I
think, is a win for employees,because a lot of that has
changed only in the last fewyears.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
And then, if you come across the term kaleidoscope,
careers, yeah, yeah, we'reessentially to your point about
the power dynamic shiftingbetween employer and employee.
The idea of a kaleidoscopecareer where the traditional
Korean model, career ladder typemodel, yeah, would have been in
your early part of your career,would have been all about
(26:32):
challenge.
So, getting a new role, newcareer steps about challenge.
The middle part of your careerbe about being authentic more
than bringing that more to thefront to fall.
And then the latter part ofyour career is when the balance
would come in.
And how's my life now fitwithin my work?
Quite, traditional, again,linear path.
Now with a kaleidoscope modelis.
(26:54):
Those three elements are allvalid, of course, but it's up to
us to sort of twist thatkaleidoscope, yeah, and bring
the different elements to the,to the fore, depending on what
we need at that time.
And, as you said, for manypeople now, actually, that
balance and that this needs tofit my life, yeah, comes in much
, much earlier in people'scareer thinking.
(27:15):
Yeah, that would have doneagain historically.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Oh, absolutely.
I think the that's a great way,a great term to look at it,
because the thing with I had athought in my mind and it just
kept my mind.
It was going to come back to me.
The thought around kaleidoscopeor these sort of important
aspects of one's career, whetherthat's work-life balance,
that's growth, that's challengeor authenticity they are all of
(27:43):
these things are in flux.
Our professional identity if youlook at how professional
identity is changingprofessional identity itself and
careers are in flux because ofwhat I mentioned earlier around
how much change is happening inorganizations and the broader
environment.
So sometimes there is a lot offear mongering and scare
(28:05):
mongering around how AI is goingto take away our jobs and the
world of work is going to changecompletely.
And you're talking about AI alot.
We hear it in the news all thetime with how much focus there
is on AI.
Now the truth is thattechnology has changed our lives
significantly and it hasaccelerated the pace of change.
(28:25):
So the fact that we had acertain type of career in the
past is history.
Our careers are going to change.
There's no way it's not goingto happen, because that would be
the end of economy and thatwould be the end of the world.
If it doesn't happen, that isreally the only constant.
What it would look like isgoing to evolve.
(28:47):
We don't know what it wouldlook like and that's why I said
professional identity itself andwhat is important for
professional identity whetherthat is a certain mix of
work-life balance for you,depending on your life stage,
whether that is you moving to acompletely different
organization and expecting morechallenge because you are at
(29:08):
that stage where you need thatfrom your career, or it is the
fact that you have grown in theorganization and you are saying
I really need some more balancenow.
All of those things areconstantly changing because,
remember, we are working fororganizations longer, our
careers are longer, retirementage is getting shifted later and
(29:28):
later, we're living much longer.
So that whole idea of thingshappening in blocks of time,
where you think I first go touni or I first do my education,
then I start working, then Iretire, it's not relevant
anymore.
And that is why even the wholeidea of sometimes people taking
a sabbatical right in the middleof their career there's
(29:52):
absolutely nothing wrong if thatfits your life stage.
I mean, I've seen lots ofpeople do that and sometimes
they go away, they take a careerbreak, they come back, but
again, that's an opportunity forpeople to know and
organizations to know that a lotof learning happens in those
periods.
Having moved from one country toanother country and settled in
(30:12):
the UK, there's almost a feelingof I'm settled now, but there
was a point when I moved and Ihad good five years of
experience on my CV.
I moved to another country andoften there was like so I got to
start from scratch.
What does this mean?
Am I starting at the bottommusterung in all of that
(30:34):
experience that I have has goneto waste?
No, it does not need to go towaste, because a lot of people
are moving and that's wherethere is an opportunity for
hiring more diverse talentbecause, while you may not
necessarily tick all the boxesin terms of I'm looking for this
from the candidate if you areable as an organization to spot
(30:55):
potential and you can see skillsets, what you need to marry
that with is experience andexposure and if you can do that
as an organization, chances arethat people will thrive.
So, yeah, so to your pointabout that kaleidoscope there is
a complete flux when it comesto both identity at work that
(31:20):
getting reflected in portfoliocareers, but also the needs of
people in terms of what theywant from their careers.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And that word there, that word thrive.
I think that's so key to thisthat why wouldn't you want your
employees to thrive?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
And if that's?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
not happening, then what questions again do all the
organizations need to ask?
Speaker 2 (31:38):
themselves Absolutely , and some of the most, I think,
from an organization and an HRpoint of view.
I can tell you this that someof the most policies and
procedures and tools which haveexisted in the past for HR they
don't make sense anymore, andthat's why you sometimes hear
people talk about HR and say, oh, this, what sorry.
(32:01):
What value do you add?
I don't know, and it's very sadto hear that as an HR
professional, but it also tellsyou what the reality is that if,
as an HR team or a talent team,you're not updating yourself
and you're not in tune with whatthe employees want and what's
happening in the broadermarketplace, then you're not
serving the purpose, then you'renot serving the business and
(32:22):
delivering value, and thatitself is the reason why your
work will become irrelevant atsome point, and maybe there'll
be an AI tool which would beable to do it a lot better if
you don't reinvent yourself.
And that applies to everybodyin every part of the
organization.
It reminds me of some of thework that I did in my last
(32:47):
organization, at Barclays, andone of the key things that I
worked on was succession.
So how succession has a sort ofa legacy thing, you know.
How do you then look at thesenior most leaders of the
organization or the executivecommittee and the CEO minus one
or two, and you talk about theirsuccessors, and the way
succession has traditionallybeen done in organization is
(33:09):
this is a really long, windingprocess of identifying those
successors, creating that listof people who would be your
potential successors.
And, oh God, by the time thatexercise ends, the whole year
has gone by.
People have either moved,positions have changed, roles
have changed, and you then talkabout what these people are
(33:30):
successors and they sometimesthey don't even know they're
successors.
You know, they're nottraditional problems that have
existed with succession and weexperienced that quite a bit at
my last organization, butinterestingly enough, we did go
and make a lot of changes in atleast in one part of the
business.
It was quite interesting andsuccessful because what we said
(33:51):
was once you have identifiedthat successes, that's really
just the start of the process.
What do those people so if yousay somebody is ready, a person
a is ready for succession and isready for this role in two
years time we're looking at gapslike that one to two years what
do they need to do in those twoyears to be able to to be ready
(34:12):
for this role, which mostlikely will change in two years,
right?
So in two years time it's quitea possibility.
This role itself is going tochange.
It may develop into somethingelse.
It may be merged with anotherpart of, with another role, it
may expand geographically.
So what?
How dynamic can you be in termsof giving people the experience
(34:32):
that they need to then be readyin two years time for the role
that we're talking about?
And we're talking about somereally big, chunky leadership
roles that could be go lead amentoring project in a
completely different part of thebusiness, because, well, you
have a lot of experience in yourpart of the business, but you
need to experience working inanother side of the business
(34:54):
that you have no idea about.
That is completely different toyour experience.
How do you then use your skillsets to do that?
You know, for some of thesuccessors it said something
like what this person has suchsolid experience, but they have
no profit and lossresponsibility.
They don't know what is it liketo to do the PNL for a big
company.
Can you give them a chunky, asmall project, not too big.
(35:17):
Manage your risks, but toactually manage that within an
organization.
Can you give them aninternational project where they
go work for six months in acompletely different geography
and the way they have been basedout of one geography?
So all of those things areenablers for people to then get
the experience that they need todevelop, you know, into those
(35:39):
big roles that you're talkingabout and what was.
Whatever this was done for acertain layer of the
organization.
But interestingly, like I wastalking about Spotify and some
of the more agile organizations,you see this happening at every
level and that's very excitingbecause if you can really focus,
(36:00):
change the focus and saysomebody I hired is has got all
this talent, they're reallypassionate about this one thing.
I don't have this in my currentrole.
I am going to make sure Iconnect with a person in a
different part of anorganization who has a role like
this.
Give them the opportunity, sendthem away for six months and
(36:20):
see what is it like.
Most likely they will grow andif they come back, that's still
a great learning experience foryou and for them as to what they
really wanted.
But yes, I think, absolutelyagree, that there is a lot, of,
a lot of things thatorganizations can do in terms of
giving people the opportunitiesthat they need to to grow, to
(36:44):
learn, to experiment and tothrive.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yeah, creative thinking.
Essentially a bit more creativethinking needed and it's
understatement, obviously, butyeah, creativity leading to
thriving employees.
Why wouldn't you?
Thank you so much, son.
I take today's conversation,that sort of the take you have
on the organizationalperspective and how actually
it's not we're not alone asindividuals in creating these
(37:11):
portfolio careers.
Actually we should be able toturn to organizations for
support and those are neighbors,that creative thinking.
So I think hopefully that mightspark a few thoughts of
inspiration, people who may bethinking actually I need to go
and challenge my own company andhow they support me through
this.
So, thank you so much and ifpeople want to find out more
about you, where's the bestplace to find you?
Speaker 2 (37:33):
So I can be found on LinkedIn.
So, sonam Taneja, you should beable to find me as career and
change coach, working withorganizations and HR people
partnering for change, and youcan also find me on my email.
The best ways to should be anemail and I can give you the
email.
It's sonam at mirrorspeakconsultingcom.
(37:54):
If you could add that in thethings that, I think that would
be perfect.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Mirror speak consulting.
I'll do that.
Thank you so much, sonam.
Have a lovely rest of day.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, aisha.
Thank you, bye, bye.
Welcome to the Parent Equation podcast with me, aisha
Murray.
This podcast series is full ofinspiring stories from working
parents who are passionate aboutdesigning a life that works for
them and their families Workingparents like you who want a
purposeful, rewarding careeralongside a balanced family life
.
So joining me today is SonamTaneja.
(00:27):
Sonam is a career and changecoach and previously a talent
consultant, and Sonam is here totalk to me as we continue this
season on portfolio careers.
So welcome, sonam.
Thank you, pleasure to be here.
So we've talked previouslyabout your background in HR and
its talent, so I think theinteresting perspective that
you're going to bring to thisconversation is around, I
suppose, the original view ofhow portfolio careers are
(00:52):
enabled, I suppose, to people.
So we've talked a lot inprevious episodes about how we
can take control of our careers,and we can control, we can
create a portfolio career forourselves.
But do you think thatorganisations have a role to
play in portfolio careers aswell?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Thank you, aisha, for having me here.
Great question and quite asignificant one, because, while
we're talking about the conceptof portfolio careers, the
majority of the population stillis working with organisations,
and whether the world of work ischanging and the pace at which
it's changing is in discussion.
(01:32):
Employees still do expectemployers to play a role when it
comes to their careerdevelopment and, yes, it's true
that the world of work ischanging really fast and we're
expecting more and moreemployees to take charge of
their careers and shape theircareers.
And you know where,increasingly, the buzzword is
the career ladder is going awayand the career portfolio needs
(01:54):
to be curated.
But it's very significant tonote that organisations do have
a huge role to play in givingemployees the tools, the
processes, but also the culturein the organisation and the
mindset to actually enable whatis a portfolio career and to
facilitate that.
And I'll give you an examplefor that, if that's okay.
(02:18):
So I did my research a long timeback when I did my masters,
where we were talking, where Idiscussed the concept of a
psychological contract betweenan employer and employee.
Now, that's very different froman employment contract, because
an employment contract islegally binding, but the unsaid
career expectations or theunsaid promises that an employer
(02:38):
and employee make with eachother when they sign that
contract.
The employment contract iseverything to do with.
Am I going to get opportunitiesto develop in the organisation
if I'm doing well?
And similarly, the employer hasexpectations, and one of the
things that came up in theresearch was that, whilst we are
talking about the concept ofnew careers, career portfolio,
(02:59):
career portfolios, or boundaryless careers, as some people may
call it, employees are stillfeeling very strongly that they
need to have some sort ofsupport or guidance from their
employers when it comes tocurating their careers, and
they're very happy to takecharge.
But do I have the right toolsand processes for what is a move
(03:22):
in an organisation internallyto go do something completely
different?
You know, if I have the passionand if I have the skill set,
can I go do a project which isoutside of my remit?
Can I go work with anotherfunction?
Can I go do a short termassignment which is an
international assignment?
If you're working with a largeorganisation that permits that,
(03:44):
that allows that, why not?
Similarly, if you are workingin an organisation a large
organisation where you think youhave been identified as a
hypertension employee and youknow everybody's talking to you
about oh, you're going to be thenext leader in the next four to
five years.
What experience is missing onyour CV to get you ready for
(04:05):
that leadership role isabsolutely critical, and where
do you get that experience?
So exposure, for example, tosenior management, or shadowing
a senior leader, orparticipating in some of the
executive committee meetingsthese are all simple things that
organisations can do to enablepeople to develop more
experience, get more skills andget more insights into what in
(04:30):
how, to how they design thatportfolio career, because
flexibility and skill sets areat the core of portfolio career
and both of these things can beenabled by the organisation.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, it's interesting how it's the angrily
of taken, and I suppose maybemy assumption before all these
conversations I've been havingwith all of you wonderful people
is that portfolio career kindof means you end up with
something quite differentalongside your existing career.
So you maybe have two quitedifferent paths that you're
taking or you have a careerchange involved in there
somewhere.
(05:01):
But actually what you're sayingis and I like the idea of the
career ladder being taken away,being boundaryless that your
role, your career, could be inthe same arena it's not the same
theme, the same industry,potentially same organization,
quite possibly but the portfoliocomes in by allowing you to
experience and experimentdifferent facets of that company
(05:24):
or, as you say so, conments,that kind of thing.
So I suppose it's an angle Ihadn't really appreciated that
portfolio career can be withinthe same company, as long as
they're structured to give thatto you.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Absolutely, and I think why it's critical from an
organization's point of view isbecause you're not able as an
organization now, because of theenvironment that you're
operating in, a lot oforganizations cannot promise
that career progression, cannotsay that they're going to give
every employee that verticalcareer progression which was
true at a certain point in time.
(05:56):
If we go back 10 to 20 years,that's what a career ladder
looked like, but that careerladder is becoming increasingly
irrelevant today because of theenvironment we are operating in.
Organizations are a lot moreflatter.
What is the term which is usedas the VUCA environment?
Sort of vulnerable,unpredictable, uncertain.
You're talking about theambiguity which comes with the
(06:19):
environment in whichorganizations are operating and
then you suddenly see themdownsize because they can't
manage the large workforce thatthey have.
All of those are opportunitiesfor organizations to understand
that they already have what iscalled an internal talent
marketplace and while it's verytempting to go out and hire
people externally, you havealready done the hard work in
(06:42):
terms of hiring people who matchyour values, who fit with your
organization, who understandyour culture.
But those people are looking formore fulfillment, they need
more meaning from their careersand they don't want to do the
same job day in and day out, andthey want to experiment, they
want to grow but, mostimportantly, they want to learn.
(07:04):
That could be well.
Our world is changing and youneed to get to grips with what
AI can do.
Unless you give them theopportunity to go do something
where they get an opportunity todevelop that skill set, they
would most likely leave theorganization and go join a
competitor which is a lot moreagile and dynamic in how they do
things.
(07:24):
So it's also an opportunity fororganizations to understand
that while people are curatingtheir own career portfolios, we
as organization people have alot of control in giving people
the processes that they need, oreven the mindset that their
leaders need, to enable them todevelop those skill sets which
(07:45):
they will anyway develop becausethey need them to survive in
the workplace.
Otherwise, they just would bepeople who cannot compete in the
talent market anymore.
And that continuous learning,or that continuous learning
environment, is at the core ofportfolio career.
If you look at it from anorganizational point of view.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, and it certainly goes against a lot of
my experience in the old days,I'll say, where you went through
a kind of traditional persondevelopment plan every year and
it obviously quite templated andquite formulaic, and you go
through that with all the bestwill in the world and you write
down these personal developmentgoals and objectives and
everything else, and theninevitably that plan goes in the
(08:29):
drawer for another year,absolutely, and to revisit it,
to go, oh, I've done all thesethings I was going to do, but
again, that's because I suppose,to your point where
historically we're stuck in thiskind of boundary read way of
thinking you come in you do yourrole within these boundaries
(08:50):
and that's the expectation.
Yeah, yeah, but actually nowwhat you're saying is obviously
it's how do we break down thoseboundaries?
How do we individually do thatand challenge, I suppose,
organizations, and how doorganizations then support us to
break down those boundaries andpush ourselves outside of our
comfort zones?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
perhaps it's a completely new work model.
I think the world of work ofGoss has changed significantly
in the last five to seven yearsand post-COVID, that growth,
that changes, acceleratedmassively.
Organizations are hearing a lotmore of this when they hear
their employees say we'refrustrated, we're not getting
what we want from our careers,we're not finding that
(09:27):
fulfillment, we'll go dosomething else of our own, even
if that means, you know, we setup something and experiment with
it and fail and learn from itand come back to something else.
That's still an opportunity fororganizations to understand
that people, especially theyoung, generation X and
generation Y as they're cominginto the workforce Gen Y, which
is already in the workforce, andthe Gen Z talking about having
(09:52):
more control over their livesright, we want that flexibility.
We want to have careers whichmake us happy and give us some
sort of meaning and purpose inlife.
Now, if you're not getting thatin our day-to-day job, clearly
there is either some sort of amismatch between the job and the
work that, the passion that theemployee has and the purpose
that they have, or there is anopportunity for managers to
(10:16):
understand that if you'veidentified people and you think
these are people up higher,they've got so much potential
but I'm not able to give themwhat they want.
Maybe there is somebody else inthe organization who's in a
much better position to givethem these sort of opportunities
.
That's a mindset shift that I'mtalking about.
(10:37):
One of the examples in this isan organization called Spotify,
where obviously your podcastwould be on Spotify.
But I am really amazed becausethey do publish quite regularly
what they're doing in the worldof talent and careers and it's
really amazing to see how theytalk about their internal talent
marketplace and they are veryclear about the fact that,
(11:01):
instead of constantly hiringexternally, we spend quite a bit
of time which a lot oforganizations do in hiring the
right people, the talentacquisition teams.
The time, the effort, theenergy, the resources which go
in hiring people is a lot.
It's significant Once you havethose people in an organization,
that's your internal talentpool and if you're not tapping
(11:24):
into that talent pool, thenreally it's both your loss as an
organization and the loss of anemployee who's like I didn't
expect this, I didn't expectwork to be like this.
So this organization, spotifyit's really amazing.
They talk about the mindset of agardener and they say that the
(11:44):
best leaders in ourorganizations are like those
gardeners who will nurturetalent, who will make sure that
they identify people who havehigh potential, give them the
opportunities to grow, and justwhen the plant is ready for
blooming, or when you can seeit's going to flower, you have
to uproot them and take them toa place where they will grow
(12:08):
more.
That might not be very easy foryou because as a manager, you
might think, oh gosh, I've spentso much time harnessing the
potential of this individual.
But if you can see them shineand you can see that there is
another part of the organizationwhich can give them a bigger
responsibility, a broader role,a more challenging role which
fits with their passion andpurpose, then why not?
(12:30):
That's in the benefit of thelarger organization.
That is a mindset shift thatneeds to happen in the workplace
, because one of the keybarriers that if you ask
employees if they talk aboutthings which come in the way
when we talk about internalmobility or can you find another
role in the organization, isthat either the managers or
(12:55):
leaders would hold talent andsay, no, we wouldn't let you go,
work in a different part of thefunction, or they wouldn't even
have that sort of connectionwhere they will actually enable
those networking conversationsto happen.
Or the other thing would belack of processes or systems,
and technology plays a big rolethere in enabling some of those
processes to get people to seewhat is available in another
(13:18):
part of the organization whichfits with their passion, get
them to experiment and go onthis career adventure where they
develop the right sort of skillsets that they need for the
future.
But also, all of that is veryimportant because the
organizations are shifting theirfocus Well, the forward looking
(13:38):
ones definitely are from jobsto skills.
You know always been focused onjobs in organizations.
So you come in, you do aspecific job, then you grow,
move to another job.
The shift in organizationswhich is slowly happening is to
skill sets.
So the organizations need toidentify what are the skills
that they already have, whichare the skills that they need in
(13:59):
the future to make sure theycan compete in the marketplace.
And then they are doing thatanalysis internally to see what.
We don't have these skills.
But if you don't have theseskills and you have a gap
already, then why not tap intothe internal talent pool that
you have?
Because surely you can eitherupskill or you can reskill or
you can give people a chance togo do something different and
(14:21):
have that experience which willhelp them develop those skills.
And because we're speaking aboutthis on the on the parents you
know, working parents podcast,one of the key things which gets
ignored is how many skill setsdo you develop as a parent?
Absolutely, it's amazing.
You learn negotiation, youlearn communication, you learn
(14:43):
patience, you learn timemanagement and all of that is
hands on experience.
Nobody prepares you for that.
You learn how you learn themost amazing level of humility
and and the opportunity to tosort of teach someone and learn
someone who's so little and hassuch a such a powerful voice,
(15:04):
even though they're so little.
Right, how do you that teachsomeone as little as that, while
nurturing their talent and notto control or command, but by
giving them a nurturingenvironment and you develop such
such an amazing skill set asparent.
That skill set is often ignoredby employers because what they
would look at is oh, there's atwo year long gap in your CV.
(15:27):
They went away.
What kind of skills did theperson develop when they were
away?
I mean, talk about that andthat's the shift in mindset that
some of the leadingorganizations are looking at now
.
Unfortunately, a majority oforganizations are not, and
that's that what needs to changein the new world of work.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And, interestingly, you talk about the opportunities
, the conments, internal talentpools, and I was just saying
that I was thinking about gradschemes.
So, again, historical gradschemes, graduate schemes where,
especially of the largercorporates, the graduate would
come into the graduate, to thegraduate scheme, and you would
be on rotation.
Many companies have worked thathave had this.
(16:08):
So you do a stint in differentdepartments across the whole
business to give you, obviously,that foundation as to how does
the whole business operate, andthen you kind of find your kind
of niche, I suppose, and youinevitably then end up in a role
in that particular part of thebusiness, but then it stops.
So you get two years ofrotations and experimentation
(16:28):
and seeing the bigger picture,yeah, and then your pigeonhole
because of the decision you maketo stay in a particular job, as
you say.
So it's interesting how thethought process is there, quite
often with things like badschemes and then something
happens culturally, where itthen stops and it kind of then
goes back to this boundary wayof working.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Absolutely.
And it's such a shame sometimesbecause there is massive
opportunity again thatorganisations happen.
They hire graduates and Iworked in an organisation where
I sort of led the way indeveloping their graduate scheme
and interestingly, we did thiswith another competing
organisation, so it was a jointgraduate scheme for two
(17:12):
organisations which compete inthe world of charity and what
was really exciting andinteresting about the grad
scheme was that at the end ofthe grad scheme the employee or
the graduate had a choice topick one of the two employers
and say you're going to go workwith the organisation that you
(17:33):
think is the right fit for youand that's not to say the other
organisation is not a greatorganisation.
They both are.
But only when you develop thatsort of experience of working in
sort of the broader industryand you see the culture and
environment in two differentorganisations, both competing in
the same space, that yourealise where do you fit better?
That could be because of themanagers, the people, the
(17:54):
leadership, the opportunities.
And to your point about how wedo that, that mindset is
definitely there, but that needsto extend further as people
move into the organisation andgrow in their organisation.
Sometimes in this grad schemeyou get absolutely amazing data
about the potential that thegrads have, about the skills
(18:18):
that they have, about theprojects that they have done,
even before they started workingwith an organisation.
And, funnily enough, sometimesyou see, even within a grad
scheme, you get all that dataand you do these assessment
centres and I've done these.
So assessment centres arerigorous.
They require people.
There's so much money that goesin, there is so much data
(18:40):
that's collected and then twoyears later this grad says I'm
working with a manager who hasabsolutely no idea about my
skillsets, about all the thingsthat I've done in the past,
about all the data you collectedfrom me in the assessment
centre and all the things thatI've presented about.
And that's a big gap right there, sometimes even within the grad
(19:00):
scheme, because you're talkingabout yeah, you did, that was
all your assessment right.
And that keeps weakening as theperson grows in the
organisation because, remember,those skills are not going away.
You can always harness thoseskills that a person comes in
with and you can also helppeople develop new skills.
I think the ability to learnand the whole idea that it is a
(19:24):
continuous learning environmentnow that we operate in is again
at the core of a portfoliocareer because we are all
learning to reinvent ourselves.
You know, the old me isn'trelevant anymore because the
world in which I am working ischanging significantly, and that
applies to almost all of us inprofessional careers, where
(19:47):
we're seeing that the pace ofchange is way faster than what
organisations are offering to usas opportunities or experience.
So that's a big gap, in my view, that organisations can fill.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So, talking about reinvention, then if it was
mentioned reinventing yourselfand then going back to the
working parent theme, that oftenworking parents feel that they
have to reinvent themselves whenthey return to work or they
have to leave, or the old themis not different, but of course
it's different.
Of course it's different, butthe old them is different.
They have to come back as aworking parent, some new
(20:25):
priorities, etc.
Then you have the advantage ifyou're a graduate, you go in on
a scheme to find the data, toexperiment, to experience.
If you come back into aworkplace or a new workplace as
a working parent and try toreinvent yourself and find the
data, a question I get asked allthe time by my coaching clients
(20:48):
is how am I going to know thatthe culture of this particular
organisation that I'm going fora role in, how do I know that
their culture is going to beright for me?
All I get is an interview,maybe a couple of hours, with
this manager or seniorleadership, whatever to try and
work out does this company alignto my portfolio career values
(21:09):
now?
Is it going to be a moreboundary, less approach?
Am I going to haveopportunities to grow?
Are they going to appreciatethat.
I'm a working parent with newskills.
So again, a new experience.
How can we, as parents, goingback to work, potentially, how
can we assess the culture of acompany in actually a very short
(21:31):
window of time?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, it's very hard to do that at the sort of the
early stages of when you're justdoing the interview.
Sometimes you do see flags inthe interview itself and you
would often find sometimescandidates make those decisions
after just the way theorganization leaves them feeling
after doing sometimes theinterviews you know no response
(21:56):
to weeks.
Or just sometimes you see thosered flags where people will go
for interviews and the managerwouldn't show up for 30 minutes.
Those are, those are criticalred flags to tell you this is,
this is not the right sort ofenvironment.
Perhaps if you value thingslike Respect in an organization
(22:18):
and respect for your own timeand you know the others time.
But I think, a little bit ofresearch beyond the interview in
terms of speaking to people whoalready work in the
organization, if there is achance for you to do that and
I've sort of tried to do that inthe past where, if you can find
connections and have a coffeewith them, not with any other
(22:40):
intention, but to find out whatis it like to work in this
organization, you know what arethe things that are positive but
also what are the challengesthat be honest about some of
those challenges that you knowif I've had people who have sort
of given me a little bit ofinsight to say are you going to
join an organization which isvery, very hierarchical in
nature?
Are you ready for that?
(23:02):
I still went ahead and did itand at some point did feel like
gosh.
I didn't estimate it's going tobe like this.
I didn't thought it's going tobe like that.
But I think if you can havethose conversations with people
before you actually make thedecision around, what is it like
to?
What is the day to day work?
Look like you know what happensif you sort of If something
(23:26):
comes up for you at your familylevel and you know it's, it's
just not a situation wherethings are working for you.
How supportive is theorganization?
What's the normal reaction like?
As much reaction and input youcan get from people in
connections beforehand, it wasone of the ways to find out.
But equally, I think sometimesif you prepare some really good
(23:48):
interview questions and try toassess how, what are the key
values of the organization andwhere do the organizations face
a challenge when it comes tomanaging the workforce, some of
those critical interviewquestions, if you get a chance
to ask them, are a really goodway to Judge.
You know from the responses ifit's the right sort of culture
(24:10):
for you.
Yeah, and even using terms ofthe views terms like internal
talent management.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
So asking them directly do you have a process
for internal talent managementor skills developmental?
So just being, I suppose, quiteovert, those kind of questions,
yeah, and I think what ishappening is it's so much more
than just a question about thepower dynamic between an
employer and employee.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Maybe it's post COVID or it sort of was on its way,
but it's accelerated now.
That power dynamic is shiftingjust a little bit and you are
seeing employees being a lotmore vocal about what I want,
what is important for me and howdoes this fit my life, which
was not a conversation pre COVID.
You know it was not.
(25:02):
It was not.
It was not anywhere like thewhole idea of working remotely
in some of the most traditionalindustries.
That was like it doesn't happen.
No, it's never going to happen.
It's always been like this.
I think the fact that COVID andpandemic gave us, gave us, a
chance to relook at the world ofwork differently Is a huge
(25:28):
opportunity again for employeesto know that there is plenty of
organizations now in the worldwho will give you an opportunity
to work the way it feels rightfor you.
So if one of the organizationsdoes not work for you, it's not
the end of the world.
There is so much remote workavailable now.
There is so much work whereorganizations are working very
smartly Some call them hybrid,some call them smart working but
(25:53):
increasingly you are seeingsome of the organizations are
taking a very, very agileapproach to careers and that, I
think, is a win for employees,because a lot of that has
changed only in the last fewyears.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
And then, if you come across the term kaleidoscope,
careers, yeah, yeah, we'reessentially to your point about
the power dynamic shiftingbetween employer and employee.
The idea of a kaleidoscopecareer where the traditional
Korean model, career ladder typemodel, yeah, would have been in
your early part of your career,would have been all about
(26:32):
challenge.
So, getting a new role, newcareer steps about challenge.
The middle part of your careerbe about being authentic more
than bringing that more to thefront to fall.
And then the latter part ofyour career is when the balance
would come in.
And how's my life now fitwithin my work?
Quite, traditional, again,linear path.
Now with a kaleidoscope modelis.
(26:54):
Those three elements are allvalid, of course, but it's up to
us to sort of twist thatkaleidoscope, yeah, and bring
the different elements to the,to the fore, depending on what
we need at that time.
And, as you said, for manypeople now, actually, that
balance and that this needs tofit my life, yeah, comes in much
, much earlier in people'scareer thinking.
(27:15):
Yeah, that would have doneagain historically.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Oh, absolutely.
I think the that's a great way,a great term to look at it,
because the thing with I had athought in my mind and it just
kept my mind.
It was going to come back to me.
The thought around kaleidoscopeor these sort of important
aspects of one's career, whetherthat's work-life balance,
that's growth, that's challengeor authenticity they are all of
(27:43):
these things are in flux.
Our professional identity if youlook at how professional
identity is changingprofessional identity itself and
careers are in flux because ofwhat I mentioned earlier around
how much change is happening inorganizations and the broader
environment.
So sometimes there is a lot offear mongering and scare
(28:05):
mongering around how AI is goingto take away our jobs and the
world of work is going to changecompletely.
And you're talking about AI alot.
We hear it in the news all thetime with how much focus there
is on AI.
Now the truth is thattechnology has changed our lives
significantly and it hasaccelerated the pace of change.
(28:25):
So the fact that we had acertain type of career in the
past is history.
Our careers are going to change.
There's no way it's not goingto happen, because that would be
the end of economy and thatwould be the end of the world.
If it doesn't happen, that isreally the only constant.
What it would look like isgoing to evolve.
(28:47):
We don't know what it wouldlook like and that's why I said
professional identity itself andwhat is important for
professional identity whetherthat is a certain mix of
work-life balance for you,depending on your life stage,
whether that is you moving to acompletely different
organization and expecting morechallenge because you are at
(29:08):
that stage where you need thatfrom your career, or it is the
fact that you have grown in theorganization and you are saying
I really need some more balancenow.
All of those things areconstantly changing because,
remember, we are working fororganizations longer, our
careers are longer, retirementage is getting shifted later and
(29:28):
later, we're living much longer.
So that whole idea of thingshappening in blocks of time,
where you think I first go touni or I first do my education,
then I start working, then Iretire, it's not relevant
anymore.
And that is why even the wholeidea of sometimes people taking
a sabbatical right in the middleof their career there's
(29:52):
absolutely nothing wrong if thatfits your life stage.
I mean, I've seen lots ofpeople do that and sometimes
they go away, they take a careerbreak, they come back, but
again, that's an opportunity forpeople to know and
organizations to know that a lotof learning happens in those
periods.
Having moved from one country toanother country and settled in
(30:12):
the UK, there's almost a feelingof I'm settled now, but there
was a point when I moved and Ihad good five years of
experience on my CV.
I moved to another country andoften there was like so I got to
start from scratch.
What does this mean?
Am I starting at the bottommusterung in all of that
(30:34):
experience that I have has goneto waste?
No, it does not need to go towaste, because a lot of people
are moving and that's wherethere is an opportunity for
hiring more diverse talentbecause, while you may not
necessarily tick all the boxesin terms of I'm looking for this
from the candidate if you areable as an organization to spot
(30:55):
potential and you can see skillsets, what you need to marry
that with is experience andexposure and if you can do that
as an organization, chances arethat people will thrive.
So, yeah, so to your pointabout that kaleidoscope there is
a complete flux when it comesto both identity at work that
(31:20):
getting reflected in portfoliocareers, but also the needs of
people in terms of what theywant from their careers.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And that word there, that word thrive.
I think that's so key to thisthat why wouldn't you want your
employees to thrive?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
And if that's?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
not happening, then what questions again do all the
organizations need to ask?
Speaker 2 (31:38):
themselves Absolutely , and some of the most, I think,
from an organization and an HRpoint of view.
I can tell you this that someof the most policies and
procedures and tools which haveexisted in the past for HR they
don't make sense anymore, andthat's why you sometimes hear
people talk about HR and say, oh, this, what sorry.
(32:01):
What value do you add?
I don't know, and it's very sadto hear that as an HR
professional, but it also tellsyou what the reality is that if,
as an HR team or a talent team,you're not updating yourself
and you're not in tune with whatthe employees want and what's
happening in the broadermarketplace, then you're not
serving the purpose, then you'renot serving the business and
(32:22):
delivering value, and thatitself is the reason why your
work will become irrelevant atsome point, and maybe there'll
be an AI tool which would beable to do it a lot better if
you don't reinvent yourself.
And that applies to everybodyin every part of the
organization.
It reminds me of some of thework that I did in my last
(32:47):
organization, at Barclays, andone of the key things that I
worked on was succession.
So how succession has a sort ofa legacy thing, you know.
How do you then look at thesenior most leaders of the
organization or the executivecommittee and the CEO minus one
or two, and you talk about theirsuccessors, and the way
succession has traditionallybeen done in organization is
(33:09):
this is a really long, windingprocess of identifying those
successors, creating that listof people who would be your
potential successors.
And, oh God, by the time thatexercise ends, the whole year
has gone by.
People have either moved,positions have changed, roles
have changed, and you then talkabout what these people are
(33:30):
successors and they sometimesthey don't even know they're
successors.
You know, they're nottraditional problems that have
existed with succession and weexperienced that quite a bit at
my last organization, butinterestingly enough, we did go
and make a lot of changes in atleast in one part of the
business.
It was quite interesting andsuccessful because what we said
(33:51):
was once you have identifiedthat successes, that's really
just the start of the process.
What do those people so if yousay somebody is ready, a person
a is ready for succession and isready for this role in two
years time we're looking at gapslike that one to two years what
do they need to do in those twoyears to be able to to be ready
(34:12):
for this role, which mostlikely will change in two years,
right?
So in two years time it's quitea possibility.
This role itself is going tochange.
It may develop into somethingelse.
It may be merged with anotherpart of, with another role, it
may expand geographically.
So what?
How dynamic can you be in termsof giving people the experience
(34:32):
that they need to then be readyin two years time for the role
that we're talking about?
And we're talking about somereally big, chunky leadership
roles that could be go lead amentoring project in a
completely different part of thebusiness, because, well, you
have a lot of experience in yourpart of the business, but you
need to experience working inanother side of the business
(34:54):
that you have no idea about.
That is completely different toyour experience.
How do you then use your skillsets to do that?
You know, for some of thesuccessors it said something
like what this person has suchsolid experience, but they have
no profit and lossresponsibility.
They don't know what is it liketo to do the PNL for a big
company.
Can you give them a chunky, asmall project, not too big.
(35:17):
Manage your risks, but toactually manage that within an
organization.
Can you give them aninternational project where they
go work for six months in acompletely different geography
and the way they have been basedout of one geography?
So all of those things areenablers for people to then get
the experience that they need todevelop, you know, into those
(35:39):
big roles that you're talkingabout and what was.
Whatever this was done for acertain layer of the
organization.
But interestingly, like I wastalking about Spotify and some
of the more agile organizations,you see this happening at every
level and that's very excitingbecause if you can really focus,
(36:00):
change the focus and saysomebody I hired is has got all
this talent, they're reallypassionate about this one thing.
I don't have this in my currentrole.
I am going to make sure Iconnect with a person in a
different part of anorganization who has a role like
this.
Give them the opportunity, sendthem away for six months and
(36:20):
see what is it like.
Most likely they will grow andif they come back, that's still
a great learning experience foryou and for them as to what they
really wanted.
But yes, I think, absolutelyagree, that there is a lot, of,
a lot of things thatorganizations can do in terms of
giving people the opportunitiesthat they need to to grow, to
(36:44):
learn, to experiment and tothrive.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yeah, creative thinking.
Essentially a bit more creativethinking needed and it's
understatement, obviously, butyeah, creativity leading to
thriving employees.
Why wouldn't you?
Thank you so much, son.
I take today's conversation,that sort of the take you have
on the organizationalperspective and how actually
it's not we're not alone asindividuals in creating these
(37:11):
portfolio careers.
Actually we should be able toturn to organizations for
support and those are neighbors,that creative thinking.
So I think hopefully that mightspark a few thoughts of
inspiration, people who may bethinking actually I need to go
and challenge my own company andhow they support me through
this.
So, thank you so much and ifpeople want to find out more
about you, where's the bestplace to find you?
Speaker 2 (37:33):
So I can be found on LinkedIn.
So, sonam Taneja, you should beable to find me as career and
change coach, working withorganizations and HR people
partnering for change, and youcan also find me on my email.
The best ways to should be anemail and I can give you the
email.
It's sonam at mirrorspeakconsultingcom.
(37:54):
If you could add that in thethings that, I think that would
be perfect.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Mirror speak consulting.
I'll do that.
Thank you so much, sonam.
Have a lovely rest of day.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, aisha.
Thank you, bye, bye.
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