Recently, I saw a very interesting article by a Harvard career expert. Even though it was very good and provided 5 useful questions for conversations between employees and managers, the questions were in my opinion too employer-centered.
As in any relationship that’s beneficial, effective communication means articulating both sides’ needs and wants. So, in order to provide balanced communication and bring some perspective from the employee side, I was inspired to come up with a similar set of 5 questions organizations can ask:
1. [My employee] helps [X people] to [do Y things] by [Z methods].
In other words, how can we as an organization help you? This is called empowerment.
2. Recently, [my employee] has been [pursuing X] to [accomplish Y personal and/or career goals].
How can we encourage you in your personal/professional development so you can become the best version of yourself?
3. [My employee] competes with [X barriers to work] because of [Y reasons].
What barriers to your work can we remove?
4. As a(n) [employee in X position], the [the team, department/company] can help me accomplish [X goals] in my work.
This is different than #2 in the sense these are micro-goals: goals for the next week, month, quarter, etc.
5. Company initiatives will be shared with [X people] by [Y methods] so it is prominently communicated in a timely manner.
What do you think? Are these conversations taking place often enough, or not at all?