The Employee Voice & Career Growth

Developing effective programs to facilitate career growth is every employee's desire and every organization's challenge. Over the years, I've facilitated many employee focus groups and one-on-one discussions on this topic - only one of those brought me to tears.

A group of employees conveyed story after story of how they felt in the workplace. They provided stories about working late, feeling overlooked by leaders, and how their families feel about their jobs. Each of their stories moved me. After a pause in the dialogue, one of the employees looked at me and said, "Lawrence, we just want to have a voice." That's when I teared up, and that was when all their comments clicked for me.

Throughout my career, people discussed challenges in growing their careers. Some people want growth because they want more money or status, others connect growth opportunities with a chance to build professional expertise, and others are just hungry for the next challenge. In response, organizations have created many programs to facilitate career growth. Too often, however, these programs fail to deliver the desired results.

As leaders within organizations, we can create extraordinary processes that facilitate career growth. However, until employees believe that they have a "voice," the methods and systems we make will never be adequate. Here are some reasons researchers have found that limit the employees' voice.

1. Being the "Outsider-Within." Employees can sometimes feel that they are not fully seen as a member of the organization. As an "outsider-within," employees can believe they are not worthy of being fully understood, seen, and heard. For example, organizations can inadvertently create this environment by staffing leadership teams with a different demographic makeup from the rest of the workforce.

2. Overlooking Resiliency and Grit. Despite all the books on career growth, we still envision careers as linear journeys. However, the reality is that careers hit roadblocks that employees must overcome: forced job changes due to external circumstances, voluntary changes to seek more satisfaction or new ways to apply their skill sets. Each obstacle requires a person to be resilient. However, instead of rewarding the successful application of professional resiliency, organizations often punish employees for having non-linear careers.

3. Constantly Seeking "Tough" Feedback. Most of us engage in significant negative self-talk every day. We all feel insecure and that we're imposters. The moments we genuinely feel good about ourselves and confident in our work are rare. Unfortunately, many leaders and HR team members believe their role is only to call out how employees fall short. This negative reinforcement of an employee's already existent negative self-talk can be overwhelming. It can cause people to avoid career-advancing opportunities. Or worse yet, they may leave the organization for their mental wellness.

It's good to build processes and systems to facilitate career growth within the workforce. But those solutions are not a substitute for hearing and genuinely connecting with the people in your organization. Create room for people to exercise their voices and then endeavor to listen to them.