An In Good Company podcast with Anna Champion, CEO, The Talent Lighthouse
How to develop early careers talent
Is your organisation set up to empower your early careers talent to thrive? Are you able to support their transition, attracting, developing and retaining the best talent?
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Anna Champion has dedicated her career to supporting and engaging future leaders in the workplace. Having recently returned to the UK after 15 years in Asia, she is perfectly placed to offer a perspective on the unique experiences facing young talent in Asia vs Europe. She has a rich knowledge of supporting young talent and organisations to navigate campus recruitment, transition to employment, and early career development. Anna joins Dan for our first podcast dedicated entirely to the topic of early careers, covering what we mean by "phygital", the challenges of hybrid working and managing wellbeing and burnout.
Listen to the podcast on Spotify
Here's a snippet of their conversation:
What skills do early careers talent need?
The two most important skills are an unrelenting curiosity and learning agility. Be curious, have a desire to look at things in a different way and to learn about things. And then be self-aware, that you need to keep developing yourself, that there’s lots more to learn. When I was recruiting for early career talent, learning agility was a key focus area. If they showed this appetite through assessment and interview, it meant you could develop it and build the skills for the future. People talk about tech skills, but all of that can be developed if you've got learning agility and curiosity.
Are there differences for early careers in Asia vs the rest of the world?
The conversations I'm having in the UK are like the conversations we're having in Asia. I think there is some challenge, though, around being able to work in a different environment and with different cultures. There’s often a general assumption that all of Asia is very similar, but the cultures and markets are very different. So, adaptability and an ability to work well with other people is key. It can be quite difficult for early career talent in the Asian marketplace to be able to show what they're doing and to be considered alongside and in the same breath as people who are maybe nearer to a global head office. And so you find that there is less hybrid working by choice. I do believe that Asia based graduates may accelerate in their development because of this, as they're working more closely and likely getting more opportunities from other people day to day.
Is hybrid working and burnout linked for early careers talent?
The generation coming into the workplace are quite happy to work remotely. However, if we look at statistics like mental health, burnout, those sorts of conversations are much, much more frequent. One element is because they have a vocabulary to be able to talk about that, and the company should be able to talk about it. But the other element is belonging. If they see a problem, but they don't know who to talk to this then can escalate very quickly. It's not that I don't believe that there is some room for hybrid working, but I think in the early career space, there needs to be an intentional strategy to help and support learning, because otherwise what you can find is that they become very lost, and they're not building their relationship with the organisation and therefore not connecting and believing.
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042: GenAI and compassionate leadership with Sarmista Mondol, Global Talent Transformation Leader, IBM
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044: Neurodiversity in the workplace with Steve Hill, CCO, Auticon