empowering a thriving workforce with digital …...offering insights to employees, highlighting...
TRANSCRIPT
W H AT E X A C T LY I S A C A R E E R F R A M E W O R K ?
A career framework is a blueprint of the requisite roles, talent
capabilities and accountabilities for supporting execution of
an organization’s business strategy. It is a platform that links vital
HR processes — such as workforce analytics, selection and
retention, performance management, succession management,
rewards, and career management and development. The strategic
purpose of a career framework is to define job architecture, build
workforce capability, enable performance and optimize costs.
L E A P F O R WA R D W I T H A C A R E E R F R A M E W O R K
E M P O W E R I N G A T H R I V I N G W O R K F O R C E W I T H D I G I TA L C A R E E R PAT H I N G
A career framework is an underlying architecture defining where people can go within an organization and how they can develop.
In today’s changing world, this is often digitally enabled to help organizations dynamically respond to changes in both local and global
markets that impact the skills needed and the jobs required. Development of a digital career experience is often a cornerstone of
creating a digital workplace experience for employees.
One of the challenges of developing a career framework today is
that although it needs to be stable enough to link core HR processes
(such as recruitment, development and succession), it also needs
to be built with an eye on the future to ensure it contains agility to
strengthen talent capability and capacity over time. Furthermore,
it needs to be responsive to shifts in the market as companies
embrace disruption. Every industry is currently being disrupted —
transformed by automation, intuitive consumer experiences, machine
learning and an explosion of connected devices. The disruptors are
delivering products to market faster, providing a fundamentally new
user experience and providing employees with transparency around
career growth and progression opportunities. To become a disruptor
instead of being disrupted, your organization needs to focus on the
same things — speed, experience and transparency.
In this dynamic business environment, it’s not enough for companies to survive — they must thrive. This requires a new focus at the
organizational level on the levers for building a thriving workforce supported by a fundamentally different approach to talent management
and performance. Without this, it will be hard to enable each and every individual to achieve their personal and professional potential with
purpose, satisfaction and impact. Mercer research (Thriving in the Age of Disruption, 2017) shows that thriving employees feel passionate,
connected, healthy and empowered. Their jobs are carefully designed to ensure they meet the needs people bring to work — to achieve
something meaningful, to feel a sense of belonging and to feel valued and respected for their contributions — and to be rewarded in ways
that are personally important.
With estimates that only 35% of employees’ skills today will be relevant by 2020, current jobs will require new competencies, and recruiting
for existing roles will become increasingly challenging. To address this critical issue, Mercer has formed a strategic alliance with Fuel50,
a leading interactive, cloud-based career pathing solution, bringing together Mercer’s career framework methodology and consulting
expertise with Fuel50’s career pathing software to help clients prepare for the future.
C A R E E R F R A M E W O R K S : E M P O W E R I N G A T H R I V I N G W O R K F O R C E W I T H D I G I TA L C A R E E R PAT H I N G
According to Anne Fulton, CEO of Fuel50 CareerPathing, “Predictable requirements from 10 years ago have been disrupted. Employers and
employees need to be thinking together about future opportunities and creating a platform to be able to foresee how work is changing. For
instance, the role of a Digital Story Teller didn’t even exist five years ago. Organizations are transitioning from being very structured and linear
to now creating agile career paths to match employees’ different talents, values and aspirations to business requirements. This delivers a
powerful payoff … stronger engagement, higher productivity and optimized talent.”
Intuitive and user friendly, digital career pathing allows employers to empower their employees to take responsibility for their career journeys.
It includes such features as:
Gamifying the user journey as employees identify their skills and interests
Recommending jobs based on employees’ selections (using IBM Watson
job-skill matching algorithms)
Providing transparency of job hierarchies within the organization for
employees and managers
Offering insights to employees, highlighting their top skills and competencies
as well as roles where they will best fit based on their interests
Enabling hiring managers to find internal employees who have
the skills and capacity to fill open positions
Delivering reports to managers to understand the career
aspirations of their employees
C A R E E R F R A M E W O R K S : E M P O W E R I N G A T H R I V I N G W O R K F O R C E W I T H D I G I TA L C A R E E R PAT H I N G
U N PA R A L L E L E D R E S O U R C E S F O R W O R K F O R C E P L A N N I N G A N D TA L E N T M A N A G E M E N T
When Fuel50’s career pathing solution is combined with Mercer’s strategic approach to
career frameworks, it provides an unparalleled resource to enable employees to navigate
career progression opportunities within their organizations. It does so by providing a more
intuitive assessment of current skills and interests and talent-matched pathing opportunities
for career growth experiences and job openings. This aids leaders, managers and hiring
specialists with talent management and workforce planning.
According to Fulton, “The biggest stumbling block I see time and again is when organizations
don’t believe they are ready to offer career pathing because they haven’t figured out what
those paths look like. My advice is the sooner you get started on the proposition, the faster
you will have that transparency worked out. Use a framework such as Mercer’s Career
Framework to create the architecture and also leverage technology and data for predictive
career path modeling to future-proof your workforce.”
L E A P F O R WA R D
Many HR leaders know that implementing a career framework can provide a platform to
achieve HR transformation and deliver the necessary infrastructure to make business
strategy more effective. Leading companies around the world understand this premise and
act on it. For them, a career framework provides a valuable platform for the execution of their
talent management models to accelerate current and future business success. When built
well, a strategic career framework delivers many tangible benefits for the organization as well
as for its managers and employees. Leap forward with a career framework and start building
for that unknown future.
D I G I TA L C A R E E R PAT H I N G : A N I N V E S T M E N T T H AT PAY S O F F
Mercer’s 2017 Global Talent Trends research
shows that employees who are more
energized at work are more than twice
as likely to have clarity around promotion
opportunities and have bosses that
coach and develop them. In changing times,
this kind of support is difficult to provide
without intelligent and responsive career
pathing technology.
Further, Fuel50’s Career Engagement
Benchmarking Research reveals that having
sufficient talent to meet strategic needs
through integrated career development
delivers 70% improved performance on key
business outcomes, including engagement,
voluntary turnover and revenue per
employee. In addition, the study found that
internal career development and recruiting
are directly connected to improved
business performance, as indicated by
increased revenue growth both overall
and per employee.
Fulton advised, “The number one employee
demand today is not just ‘I want a better
career experience’ but rather ‘I’m
desperately hungry for a visible, transparent
career path. And I want that career path to
be customized to my personal skills, values
and talents.’”
Individuals thrive when their work is
challenging but purposeful, when they feel
empowered to make decisions and are
connected to their colleagues, and when
they’re given the opportunity to customize
their work experience to meet their personal
needs and schedules. They want their work
experience to be digital, accessible and
interactive to match the experiences they
enjoy outside of work.
What is unique about the Fuel50 technology
is that it puts people at the heart of the
equation. It starts with engaging people with
what they’re good at and helps them identify
their strengths, goals and aspirations. It then
feeds relevant information to individuals to
help them chart a path while also meeting
clients where they are. Previous technology
required enterprise frameworks to be built,
whereas Fuel50 with Mercer can start with
one or two business units to populate a
usable tool within weeks.
C A R E E R F R A M E W O R K S : E M P O W E R I N G A T H R I V I N G W O R K F O R C E W I T H D I G I TA L C A R E E R PAT H I N G
Copyright 2018 Mercer LLC. All rights reserved.6004602f-CR 08.01.2018
C O N TA C T
Kate Bravery
Ilene Siscovick
Rhonda Newman
Ritu Sakuja
Kiran Sahota
WA N T T O L E A R N M O R E ?
We have many resources on important career framework topics to help accelerate your business performance:
• Executive Summary: 2020 Is Coming: Is Your Career Framework Ready?
• Point of View: Building for an Unknown Future: Leap Forward With a Career Framework
• Article Series: Leap Forward With a Career Framework
- Whose Role Is It?
- Managing for Change
- In Pursuit of Functional Excellence
- Leverage More Effective Analytics to Inform Talent Decisions
- Establishing Your Foundation: Rationalizing Your Job Catalog When Moving to the Cloud
Download the articles: https://www.mercer.com/our-thinking/career/2020-is-coming-is-your-career-framework-ready.html
Learn more: https://www.mercer.com/our-thinking/thrive.html
What distinguishes exceptional organizations? They have thought carefully about how to create work environments that meet the full range of
their employees’ needs to unlock the potential of their workforces — one employee at a time. Career frameworks can amplify the effects on
employees’ perceptions about how committed a company is to their growth and contribution. Although many organizations are still searching
for ways to merely survive in today’s complex world, these exceptional organizations have learned how to thrive.
Mercer’s recent research solicited responses from more than 800 HR and business leaders across 57 countries to learn “what it takes to
thrive” in their workplaces. This is what we learned:
T H R I V I N G I N A N E R A O F D I S R U P T I O N
T H R I V I N G O R G A N I Z AT I O N
Success redefined
Resilient and agile
Positive societal impact
T H R I V I N G W O R K F O R C E
Diverse and adaptive
Inclusive and growth focused
Committed to well-being
T H R I V I N G I N D I V I D U A L
Growing and contributing
Empowered and connected
Healthy and energized