Aman­da Lewis

Dis­cussing ca­reers with em­ploy­ees is not a taboo move. But the di­a­logue of­ten lacks sub­stance to dri­ve true trans­for­ma­tion.

It is a fa­mil­iar scene across sev­er­al work­places in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Per­for­mance re­views are done, tar­gets are dis­cussed, strengths are ap­pre­ci­at­ed and de­vel­op­ment plans are ref­er­enced. Yet, em­ploy­ees of­ten leave with an un­com­fort­able feel­ing they can­not quite ar­tic­u­late. On pa­per, every­thing pass­es, but some­thing fun­da­men­tal was miss­ing.

The miss­ing piece is not feed­back or met­rics, but the deep talk about di­rec­tion, readi­ness, am­bi­tion, and, in some cas­es, doubt.

And while com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to pour re­sources in­to en­gage­ment ef­forts, lead­er­ship train­ing and re­ten­tion tac­tics, some con­tin­ue to wres­tle with qui­et dis­en­gage­ment and res­ig­na­tions.

Fac­tors like eco­nom­ic pres­sures, tal­ent short­ages and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al change play their role, but the miss­ing puz­zle piece is the kind of ca­reer con­ver­sa­tions that most lead­ers shy away from. Not those about train­ing bud­gets, salary in­creas­es or pro­mo­tion time­lines. In­stead, it is the more sen­si­tive con­ver­sa­tions that ad­dress:

• What do you ac­tu­al­ly want next?

• What hap­pens if your growth out­paces your cur­rent role?

• Are we be­ing hon­est about what this or­gan­i­sa­tion can re­al­is­ti­cal­ly of­fer you?

Man­agers tend to avoid these con­ver­sa­tions not be­cause they are in­dif­fer­ent but rather be­cause they are over­ly cau­tious. There is a fear of hav­ing to set high ex­pec­ta­tions that may flop, of open­ing doors that could take em­ploy­ees else­where, or, of nav­i­gat­ing emo­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry with­out the right lan­guage.

Si­lence feels safer than un­cer­tain­ty, but it sure­ly comes at a high price.

When there are no mean­ing­ful ca­reer con­ver­sa­tions, em­ploy­ees have to make sense of the gaps by them­selves. Op­por­tu­ni­ties that take longer to ma­te­ri­alise start to feel like re­jec­tion.

The ab­sence of feed­back is con­sid­ered a fail­ure. High per­form­ers be­gin to qui­et­ly ex­plore out­side their or­gan­i­sa­tions, not be­cause they want to leave, but be­cause they can­not see a fu­ture shaped with them in mind.

This trend is be­com­ing more pro­nounced in the do­mes­tic labour mar­ket. De­spite con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in train­ing and tal­ent de­vel­op­ment, or­gan­i­sa­tions are still los­ing sea­soned pro­fes­sion­als who cite stag­na­tion and un­clear path­ways for growth.

Ex­it in­ter­views fre­quent­ly re­flect the same feel­ing: “No one ever re­al­ly talked to me about where I was go­ing.”

In­sights from 191 HR prac­ti­tion­ers in a re­cent study in­di­cat­ed that gaps in skills and re­ten­tion are per­sis­tent, par­tic­u­lar­ly for larg­er or­gan­i­sa­tions and a range of pub­lic ser­vices. De­vel­op­men­tal op­por­tu­ni­ties are of­ten pre­sent­ed as a pri­or­i­ty, yet the dis­cus­sions that are nec­es­sary to tap those open op­por­tu­ni­ties are of­ten not be­ing opened (HRMATT–Lu­cent Re­search Study, 2025).

From an or­gan­i­sa­tion­al per­spec­tive, the im­pli­ca­tions ex­tend be­yond at­tri­tion. The process of suc­ces­sion plan­ning is now re­ac­tive rather than in­ten­tion­al. Lead­er­ship pipelines start to dwin­dle. En­gage­ment sur­veys em­pha­sise the symp­toms, not the un­der­ly­ing cause, with low morale and re­duced mo­ti­va­tion. The ab­sence of ca­reer con­ver­sa­tions re­sults in trans­ac­tion­al de­vel­op­ment rather than re­la­tion­al.

Man­agers al­so feel the strain. They have to guess what mo­ti­vates em­ploy­ees, man­age per­for­mance with­out con­text and re­act to res­ig­na­tions that ap­pear sud­den but have been build­ing over time.

Over­all, there is ero­sion in trust, not be­cause lead­ers lack good in­ten­tions, but rather be­cause the plat­form or space for clar­i­ty was not es­tab­lished.

This chal­lenge is un­fold­ing against a wider eco­nom­ic back­drop. A na­tion­al re­port on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic 2025 per­for­mance re­vealed con­trac­tion in some sec­tors, con­tin­ued labour mis­match­es and in­creas­ing com­pe­ti­tion over job op­por­tu­ni­ties, es­pe­cial­ly among younger work­ers.

At the same time, work­force ex­pec­ta­tions are evolv­ing. Em­ploy­ees are not on­ly ask­ing where they can go, but how they re­main rel­e­vant in a chang­ing econ­o­my. Avoid­ing ca­reer con­ver­sa­tions does not shield com­pa­nies from these re­al­i­ties.

The best way or­gan­i­sa­tions can nav­i­gate these chal­lenges is to treat ca­reer de­vel­op­ment as a part­ner rather than a promise. Man­agers can nor­malise on­go­ing ca­reer check-ins. They can be hon­est about role lim­i­ta­tions while still of­fer­ing ex­po­sure, stretch as­sign­ments and lat­er­al growth. HR can play a fa­cil­i­ta­tive role and cre­ate space for di­a­logue in­stead of pre­scrib­ing out­comes.

In this en­vi­ron­ment, re­ten­tion is achieved by en­gag­ing am­bi­tion.

When em­ploy­ees feel they are be­ing seen and sup­port­ed, even in un­cer­tain pe­ri­ods, they are more like­ly to stay, con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly and plan for their fu­ture with the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Per­haps the ques­tion is not whether these con­ver­sa­tions are dif­fi­cult be­cause we know they are. The re­al ques­tion is whether si­lence is re­al­ly the bet­ter op­tion.

In a world of con­stant change, the most pow­er­ful tool in ca­reer de­vel­op­ment may not be a pro­gramme pol­i­cy or frame­work. Rather, it can sim­ply be a con­ver­sa­tion we are will­ing to en­ter hon­est­ly, even when we do not have all the an­swers.

And some­times, that will­ing­ness to com­mu­ni­cate is what makes all the dif­fer­ence.

The Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (HRMATT) is the lead­ing voice of the hu­man re­source pro­fes­sion lo­cal­ly. HRMATT Says is a col­umn meant to ad­dress is­sues and con­cerns of pro­fes­sion­als and the gen­er­al pub­lic, fo­cused on hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment. To­day’s ar­ti­cle is writ­ten by Aman­da Lewis, HRMATT Mem­ber—Pub­lic Re­la­tions, Youth & Men­tor­ship, and Ed­u­ca­tion Com­mit­tee Mem­ber. Learn more about HRMATT by vis­it­ing our web­site: www.hrmatt.com. Fol­low us on Face­book, LinkedIn, In­sta­gram and Twit­ter. Con­tact us at: 687-5523 or via email: sec­re­tari­at@hrmatt.com