Expanding the Worker Experience through Employee-Centric Group Career Coaching

• In Event: 40264 - Advancing Sociological Practice through Computational Research and Community Engagement

Abstract

What if employers designed a program that centralized the employee experience? In a neoliberal society, employees often feel pressure to take on career responsibilities. They have to manage the “job” of the work that they do and they have to manage the “job” of having a career (Neely 2020). Is it possible to design a program that can empower employees to navigate their career with the support of rather than separate from their employer that can foster a sense of agency and belonging?

At Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH), we are aiming to do just that through a program titled Career Circles. Career Circles is a 10-week group coaching model that aims to support employees in owning their career journey through courses on self-discovery, strategies for upward career mobility and goal-setting. Foucault’s theories on governmentality and the “enterprise of self” come to the forefront when evaluating how workers navigate their careers. Workers are left to feel that they are on their own, often looking to entrepreneurial efforts in order to gain the autonomy, agency and empowerment that one may seek in order to avoid the compliant subjectivity that is often required in the workforce. A program offered by the employer that seeks to empower employees in their career journeys steps outside of these norms to envision a different way forward.

In this presentation we will explore four key elements of the program design that have helped NCH to foster the spirit of an employee-centric program and some of its limitations. We will also discuss the longings that people are left with as a result of neoliberalism and how this program naturally addresses those needs, thereby creating a more engaged workforce.

Author

• Megan Hysell, Nationwide Children's Hospital