Getting continuous career growth on everyone’s agenda

To help us answer this question, we were delighted to welcome Dan Smee, Senior Talent Manager at Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) to our latest Roundtable. Lloyds Banking Group is building an ongoing culture of career growth by engaging with employees at all career stages.

So where did they start?

Careers are for EVERYONE

The starting point for LBG is that every single colleague has a career journey with the Group. Effectively, therefore, its proposition is to facilitate 67,000 careers. Every career is unique, within their control – and the business is there to help facilitate them achieving their aims and aspirations.

One challenge they came across was that not everyone was engaging with the concept of continuous career growth. Colleagues often equated career development with moving jobs. And if they didn’t want to move, they found it hard to engage with their employer’s proposition.

LBG’s response was to reposition how people might think about career. Through clear and simple language ‘career’ is now associated with growth and learning vs solely making a move. That focus on building skills and experiences is the foundation, underpinned by strong beliefs that this should be accessible to everyone.

Reflect. Discuss. Act.

LBG then put in place a structure to embed the link between careers and personal growth. This has been an ongoing three-stage process. These stages are:

• Reflect. This means colleagues reflecting on what a career means to them. They are encouraged to think about what they were they working towards, the skills and experiences they needed to be successful – and an understanding of where the gaps were.
• Discussion. This is a meaningful conversation with each colleague’s line manager or mentor – or whoever they want to talk to – about their career. The person is less relevant than the need to be clear on what they want.
• Act. Following reflection and discussion, the purpose is to create meaningful development goals, over which they take intentional action.

It’s important to say that this isn’t a ‘once and done’ activity. There will always be changes in the external environment, the organisation and colleagues’ own priorities. So, these three stages are an ongoing way to give clarity in all circumstances.

An opportunity to talk

An engagement survey in 2024 showed a desire among colleagues for a regular opportunity to talk about their careers. Part of the solution to this was an interlocking of careers conversations with existing opportunities.

All colleagues have four performance check-ins per year with their line manager. And one of these now has a focus on careers. In this protected space, every colleague could talk to their line manager about how they wanted their career to evolve, the skills and experience gaps getting in the way, and what actions could be taken to narrow these.

Six career profiles

To help further develop the concept of continuous career growth, LBG’s proposition was also divided into six career profiles based on need, to deliver individual career support in the right way. These profiles showed that colleagues’ careers were either in transition, movement or growth in the following way:

Transition

• Intro to careers. i.e. supporting colleagues completing structured development programmes
• Re-integration. Those returning to the business after a period away.
• Road to retirement. Those looking to retire in the next 12 months.

Move

• Make a move. This means getting colleagues into positions where they have the skills and experience, in readiness for making a move.
• Career change. This is a more fundamental change of hierarchy or skill set, in which colleagues are supported to make a career change.

Grow

• Grow in a role. To stay put in the job is fine, but the skills needed to grow in that job will change and so therefore must those of colleagues.

The above profiles help steer colleagues to the best route for their career aspirations. And the concept of continuous career growth is also brought to life through a series of activities, such as National Careers Week and similar events. There is also careful dovetailing of activities with adjacent areas, such as learning, recruitment, succession planning and talent management strategies.

Our View

Continuous career growth for every employee in an organisation will only work if there is a coherent and aligned approach of the sort that Lloyds Banking Group has successfully demonstrated. Its sense of purpose in getting new skills and experiences embedded in every career is clear for all to see.

At The Career Innovation Company, we’ve seen that career stories are a powerful  way to get career growth to the fore, particularly for people who work in environments where there isn’t much time to think and reflect on their careers. Organisations need to give employees powerful stories to show how a commitment to change will impact their career.

In our view, career stories are used most effectively when: great careers are shown as being about more than ‘moving up’; they encourage everyone to see themselves and what’s possible; when the value of internal career support networks is understood; and they show us the lightbulb moments that help people to take charge of their career.

For more roundtables to support your career and talent strategies, follow the link below.