It’s time to discuss the problem with ‘owning your own development’

In a 1967 interview with CBS News, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “It’s a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his bootstraps.”

That quote plays in my head every time I hear a learning leader proudly proclaim something like, “We’ve built a learning culture, where employees own their own development.” 

A few years into it, we can look back and thoughtfully examine the results on the other side of this movement to “own your own development.” The headline is that it’s not going terribly well.

According to research by McKinsey & Company, the leading reason for quitting jobs from April 2021 to Apri 2022 was: “lack of career development & advancement.” It’s those same companies that believe they’ve built a culture of learning that are also seeing challenging turnover rates.

It appears that our employees either missed the memo that they now own their own development — or they’re not thrilled with what it means.

It’s at this point that I will admit that I think the sentiment of “owning your own career development” is partly right. You can’t make someone grow. They do have to own their own development.

However, what is implicit in this statement is that if learning and talent development gives everyone the same access to platforms or learning catalogs, then the learning and development team has done its part. “Parity” (aka “equality”) has been achieved by implementing that LXP and turning on access for all. 

To be fair, that approach is great for purposes of scale. However, it also allows the L&D team to deprioritize the additional needs of helping folks get started on their reskilling journey, and guiding their development so it achieves great career outcomes. 

In the most generous of situations, you may believe that the intelligence and personalization within your platforms will do the heavy lifting of customizing the learning experience to account for existing skills and variable distances to travel in the upskilling journey. For a small piece of content to learn a skill, sure, that may work. For reskilling and mobility that leads to new career opportunities? It’s underwhelming and is likely to produce widely variable outcomes.

In Guild Education’s American Worker Survey, about half of all workers (47 percent) say that not having the right experience, the right education or access to training programs has held back their careers, but this is even higher for Black workers (51 percent) and is much higher for Hispanic workers (60 percent).

Here’s the problem: The philosophy of “owning your own development” assumes that every employee has the same understanding of how to do it. But the truth is that all employees are not on an equal footing. There are folks in your organization who want to grow, they just don’t know how to start. They also might not know what is most tangibly linked to the next job. Or which program can help them navigate a complex schedule. 

This is why our high schools and colleges are full of guidance and career counselors who give us contextual feedback about what’s available to us, what’s required of us, and what we can do next. After that, most of us in white collar roles had access to mentors or could see others who had made transitions — there were models for us to follow. 

All of your workforce didn’t have a parent who was paid for their brains, not their hands. All of your workforce didn’t have family members who went to college. All of your workforce hasn’t seen a model for mentorship and networking.  

Academic research on occupational identity in adolescence paints a compelling picture about parental influence on how children see themselves and what kind of occupational identity they begin to form at a young age, how it influences their education selection, and what job they imagine they’ll have. In Guild’s internal research, we’ve found that more junior employees, especially those in front-line roles, need support in designing their career future and answering the question, “Where do I start?” 

It’s hard to know how to run the race of your own career if you don’t even understand where the starting line is.

Beyond that initial shaping, research has shown that networking has a causational impact on both salary and career growth. Last summer, McKinsey conducted a Social Capital survey and their findings show that senior leaders spend much more time getting in touch with old contacts, building new relationships and strengthening existing relationships than either middle managers or frontline workers. The same is true of men over women – only 11 percent of women say their network has grown over the past two years.    

Employees feel that reality as well. In the American Worker Survey, we also heard from employees that approximately one in four (26 percent) think that not having the right connections or network has been a barrier to advancing their careers. When discussing networking skills with a coworker, I was shocked when I found out that they actually taught her how to network in her MBA program. I’ve yet to find a company that teaches their employees about the importance of networking as a critical part of the “own your own career development” philosophy. Meanwhile, in Guild’s mid-program surveys, professional networking is the highest-requested area of career support among learners.  

This is most deeply needed among your most vulnerable populations —those frontline employees who are leaving in droves for a company they think will give them a little more money and a lot more opportunity. The data in the American Worker Survey tells us they don’t want to leave, 70 percent hope to still be with their current employer in two to five years, and in another study, Guild heard from 55 percent of respondents that they sought internal opportunities before leaving their employer.  

Creating a content library and having a philosophy of “develop yourself” isn’t enough for the majority of your workers to understand how to develop into the talent pipeline you need for the future, and they’re being left behind as a result. Roughly three-quarters of all workers (74 percent) in Guild’s American Worker Survey said they would be “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to leave their current employer if they were offered another job with additional education and career opportunities. This is even higher for Black workers and Hispanic workers (82 percent and 88 percent, respectively).

Here’s how you can start to drive a richer experience for all of your employees, no matter where they start from:

1. Leverage assessments that show people where to go next and offer them skills-matching tools, but ensure those tools capture who people are outside of work as well as their education and work experience.
2. Leverage well-trodden and clear pathways that employees know work, and tell the stories of those who have made the transitions before. 
3. Provide access to growth and career coaches so they can explore where to grow next and how to get ready for the next job. 
4. Increase access to programs that connect all employees to mentors, sponsors and coaches.
5. Ensure that credential-bearing programs are available free of charge for all employees.

For a not insignificant part of your population, failing to provide the wraparound support for reskilling workers sets them up for failure. 

For this population, the table must be tilted in their favor — that’s what equity does. To be truly equitable, we must recognize the increased needs in parts of our employee base and respond in kind. This is how “opportunity” goes from a dream to a reality.