Year end conversations: be the coach not the player!

And just like that, summer appears to be well and truly over.  School is back, the nights are drawing in, and it’s time to dig out the winter coats and umbrellas. As we find ourselves heading into the last quarter of the year, for many line managers it is time to start thinking about those all-important end of year conversations.

Whilst we encourage line managers to conduct regular 1:1’s with their employees to give feedback and discuss progress, formal year-end conversations provide the opportunity to dig in a bit deeper, reflecting on the achievements of the past 12 months and ensuring that teams are set up for success in 2025.

Which makes this a great time to revisit the way in which you approach professional development planning.  Are your team members simply setting goals to tick a box? Are you encouraging them to really think about their longer term career objectives?  Are you working constructively with each direct report to ensure that the objectives of their role are well aligned to their individual professional ambitions, and that both are therefore moving in the right direction?

What does good look like?

Really good professional development planning requires thoughtful, mature leadership from line managers who are ready and willing to invest time in understanding their direct reports’ strengths, weaknesses and – perhaps most importantly - motivations. Once you've found the right motivation, extracting the best from someone generally follows ...

Top tips for meaningful professional development conversations

• Once motivations have been identified, convert these into a set of goals with measurable objectives that can be developed and assessed over a set time period. For example, if someone is in a ‘back office’ role but aspires to work with clients you might assign some client related tasks so that the individual gradually increases their confidence in this area and has the opportunity to receive client feedback.

• Ask open ended questions that will guide your team members whilst at the same time encouraging them to think a little more deeply about their own ‘agency’ in professional development.  Some examples of this would be:

o    What feedback have you received that made sense to you?

o    What was it about this particular piece of feedback that resonated?

o    Where do you find yourself getting stuck?

o    What ideas have you already explored for getting ‘unstuck’?

o    What are you excited to explore further?

o    Tell me more about why this excites you?

o    What do you find you never have time to work on or get to?

o    What do you believe is stopping you from prioritising these tasks?

• Be specific – whether it’s feedback or suggested training options, focus on what is relevant, available and realistic.

• Keep coming back to it. Make sure you regularly touch on goals that have been set and hold your team to account for continuing to take the steps required to reach them.

Professional development works best when the accountability is with the employee, with support and encouragement from the line manager.  Whilst it may be hard to do, we recommend you step off the pitch and let your team run with the ball.