16 GENDER BALANCE LISTENING EVENTS | BDO
PERFORMANCE CONVERSATIONS
This came up in many different guises, but overall the sentiment was that we need to be having more holistic performance conversations. We need to ask: what does success look like for you now? We also spoke extensively about the careers
ACTION
FOR BDO X Investment in People Manager training to ensure quality conversations are happening. Upskill People Managers on how to discuss non-linear careers and support colleagues who want to take a different route X Ensure that the conversation isn’t just focused on work, but takes into account what else is happening in a person’s life – helping carve out the non-negotiables X Anchor job performance in AMP helping ensure we’re not including bias in the conversations X Continue the work we’re doing on ‘Potential’ tools, which will shift the conversation to a future focus, rather than backward looking X Review PMD career progression opportunities. FOR COLLEAGUES X Use the tools available: start with AMP X Be prepared to be honest about what you really need and what success looks like. Don’t be passive – you need to set your own clear boundaries and stick to them.
The answer may be more than just success at work; we need to think about it in terms of life overall. From a work perspective, it also needs to be ok to discuss a desire for experiences and opportunities outside of your team. Managers and Partners should be comfortable with letting good people explore new experiences elsewhere in the firm, if that’s the right thing for them. When we recruit externally do we take more of a risk than looking internally? Let’s review those opportunity-led situations and ask ourselves if there’s someone internally who we could develop, even if it means up- skilling and fast-tracking them. I want this to be an organisation that gets the best out of people, and to do that, you have to magnify what you do well. - SM, Tax “
of those in PMDs, who felt they didn’t necessarily have the same opportunity to planned progression. There’s still opportunity to try new things, and we heard fantastic examples from colleagues who’d made lateral moves that had transformed their career. We did hear we need to look at the structure of PMDs and ask ourselves how we can create more opportunity for progression. Finally, there was a perceived lack of support for those who may not be interested in the conventional career trajectory with Partner as the end goal, some felt written off, and that their career was no longer important, or they couldn’t be thought of as high potential, because they didn’t want a traditional career within the firm. We need to focus on strengths and support and develop people accordingly, rather than spending a long time telling them what they don’t do well.
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