It’s good to talk
We recently explored the behavioural science of career management with a lens of creating fairer workplaces. A critical yet often overlooked part of this is empowering managers to have regular, meaningful career conversations with their teams. Managers play a pivotal role in career development. We call them the behavioural co-stars of employees’ professional journeys, and research shows that effective career mobility relies heavily on three critical factors:
1. Access to clear career information
2. Strong, career-focused relationships
3. Opportunities to develop new competencies
But these practices aren’t universally effective. Personal backgrounds, lived experiences, and life circumstances significantly shape how individuals navigate their careers. To truly support growth, managers must recognise and respond to these differences. Think back to the two employee examples we introduced in the previous blog:
· A young black woman at the start of her career - let’s call her Thandi
· A 55-year-old white woman balancing caregiving responsibilities alongside work - let’s call her Maggie
Both have unique aspirations and challenges and depend on their managers to see and support their individual journeys.
The manager’s dilemma
While managers are ideally placed to support career development - and frequently have the best of intentions - they face several of their own barriers to engaging in meaningful conversations:
· Operational overwhelm: Daily operational demands frequently overshadow developmental conversations.
· Star service interrupted: Managers may avoid career development conversations due to concerns about team stability and potential talent loss.
· Assumptions and blind spots: Many managers wait for employees to initiate career conversations and may rely on visible cues, e.g. extra-role behaviours or vocal ambition - as signals of career potential, overlooking other forms of commitment.
Assumptions and blind spots can be particularly damaging for employees like Thandi and Maggie. These misjudgements may limit a manager’s ability to play their full part in supporting growth and career development practices.
I thought you wanted to go - turns out you wanted to grow
Career development research provides deeper insights into manager assumptions. In a study of legal professionals, the researchers found that managers rarely assessed potential objectively. Instead, they relied heavily on visible markers of commitment, like seeking out opportunities or consistently exceeding expectations.
Let’s return to Thandi and Maggie:
Thandi may demonstrate commitment through quiet consistency, high-quality work but feel uncomfortable or unsupported in building a visible or vocal profile. She may be overlooked for career opportunities if her manager is more attuned to vocal ambition or constant visibility.
Maggie may express commitment by balancing caregiving with professional demands, offering resilience, adaptability, and drawing on experience to mentor others. Yet, reduced workplace visibility (and her age!) may be misinterpreted as lower engagement or a lack of ongoing ambition.
If these barriers and subtler forms of commitment are overlooked and not understood, they risk inadvertently limiting career advancement opportunities.
From insights to impact
At BAD, we embed these kinds of behavioural insights into our strategy and intervention design. Recently, we’ve been exploring how our experience platform, XP, can help managers have higher quality, more frequent career conversations - ones that uncover individual realities and turn routine check-ins into meaningful development moments.
Our approach uses our 3Cs module within XP- Capability Boost, Commitment and Check-In- to create a behavioural feedback loop that drives and sustains change. Each component delivers standalone value, but together, they generate powerful momentum for growth.
Let’s look at it in action.
Capability: Boost the content of the conversation
Managers need practical tools to navigate development conversations confidently without falling back on assumptions. This Capability component provides:
· Career conversation ‘Boosts’: Short,actionable prompts grounded in behavioural science, designed to improve in-the-moment decision-making. In one example, managers receive three quick tips to guide their first career catch-up, centred on creating an open, human conversation about aspirations, opportunities, and perceived barriers.
· Engaging video content: Real-world examples that model effective behaviours focused on counteracting their blind spots.
Then, data can be collected within XP to track which Boosts are most engaging and effective. This allows clients to iterate and refine over time for even greater impact.
Commitment: Say you’ll try it
Meaningful action emerges when managers commit publicly and consistently to developmental objectives. Within XP, we ensure this through:
· Encouraging managers to commit openly to clear, measurable developmental actions.
· Harnessing psychological principles of consistency and accountability.
· Structured follow-up mechanisms to track progress and ensure meaningful results.
Check-in: How did it go?
Sustained career development requires reflection and adaptation. The Check-In feature prompts managers to revisit their commitments, capturing what worked, what didn’t, and why. This helps surface barriers, identify enablers, and refine future strategy.
The result? Rich data on behavioural patterns,commitment trends, and progress over time - providing clients with the insight needed to build even more targeted and effective interventions.
A personalised career development approach
Ultimately, effective career conversations aren't simply HR initiatives; they represent strategic investments that drive:
· Talent retention and employee satisfaction
· Organisational agility and adaptability
· A fair and empowering workplace culture
· Maximisation of individual potential
Want to transform your career conversations?
Unlock your organisation's full potential with behavioural science. Contact us today to see how behavioural science can optimise your approach to talent development.
