"Job description" career manager / coach / people development

[aniinl]

Hi all,

I'm trying to move into a people developement / coaching position at my current employer.

I am thinking of looking after existing/new employees and be a contact person for them for all kinds of issues they might have - with there job, with their department, with their manager/colleagues, lack of skills, etc.
I want to help them find exactly the right job within the company (if they are not happy in their current ones), or handle their current job better and get more successfull and happier at it. I want to identify their training needs, and help them make the career they want - within the company. Bottom line - I want to make them stay in our company and be happy where they are.

There are a couple of other things involved and a position like that does not exist yet in my company, but everyone I tell what I want to do, says, "We could really use a person like that in our company!"

Next week I'm gonna have meeting with my HR director, to which I want "professionally" sell this idea and provide her a proper job description. I'm thinking of calling it "Career Manager" :-) only because I have heard this name in other companies, but actually I don't know what exactly a career manager does. Maybe it's much more than what I have been thinking of so far. I would like to find out what a job description of a career manager or anyone who works in corporate people development entails, so I could use this as a reference for making my case :-)

So if anyone has some information or ideas for me, I'd be super happy to hear them!

Thank you,
Anja

[marksherwood]

Hi Anja,

Great idea !

Just one little thing 'jumps out' at me from your post.

You state you '' want to make them stay in your company and be happy where they are''

My experience of delivering coaching etc. within business is that up to 50% of your coachees can (and very often do) move on, realising their potential can make them more ambitious, and want to move out of their current position

Just a thought

Cheers,

Mark

[aniinl]

Good point, Mark! And in that case will have helped them, rather than my company, which is also good ;-)

But right now I have the feeling that we're loosing to many people due to the fact that a position like that does NOT exist, and people leave because they are not challenged enough, or have trouble with their managers, or are simply in the wrong position, while there are so many positions available!

And unfortunately our HR recruiters have no clue what kind of profile the people that the departments are looking for should have, which is one of the things I could solve since I'm coming from a department and I'm close to our Managers and in that new position I would be close to the employees as well, so I could easily match them...

Well, wish me luck

[marksherwood]

Hi Anja,

No need to wish you luck. You will be successfull i am sure.

Cheers,

Mark