Warner Bros. Discovery

Stacey Young Rivers, Ph.D., is Head of Global Learning and Development at Warner Bros. Discovery. CDO Magazine has recognized her as one of the “Top 50 Data Training & Talent Champions in HR” in the U.S. (2025). The Technology Association of Georgia awarded her the Data Science & AI Innovator of the Year (2024) for the Telco, Media & Entertainment sector. She is a mom, researcher, author, speaker, and blogger with 18,000+ subscribers to her “Level Up on Learning” blog on LinkedIn.

In an exclusive interview with Manage HR she shared invaluable insights on performance management that thrives when leaders connect business goals with career growth, empowering employees to build future-ready skills while driving measurable organizational success.

Performance + Career Development

I’ve had a few roles since my first job during college. At that time, I had a narrow view of the skills I was developing in each job. Later, it became clear that the skills I gained in each position were the building blocks to my career aspirations. Now, as a talent development leader in a global organization, I understand how employees may struggle with performance management.

While most leaders approach performance management by focusing solely on business goals, there’s another way to benefit both the company and its employees.

In 2020, my curiosity about how employees kept their skills sharp during the pandemic led me to develop an informal study examining their actions. The findings were published in the article “Co-creating skills development strategies with employee preferences,” which centered on tech culture, self-directed learners, and tech-adjacent teams. I hypothesized that people continued to learn even when L&D did not launch formal programs. Through this experiment, I found that learning doesn’t stop for employees. The informal study was framed as a learning challenge where 250 employees participated. I observed that they were building in demand skills using self-paced resources. These findings infer that leaders should leverage performance management with a career development lens to drive business value.

Leader Mindshift

Since employees are not waiting for formal training to enhance their skills, this is where leaders can connect the dots. However, first, leaders must shift their perspective on performance management to understand the employee’s viewpoint.

“True leadership connects performance to purpose, transforming career growth from a checklist to a catalyst that fuels learning, engagement, and lasting business impact”

According to my study, people take ownership of their career development by informally investing in relevant skills. And while employees are learning on the job, some leaders fail to spur enthusiasm for performance management. So, when it comes to motivating employees, what leaders are still getting wrong is overlooking the synergies between performance management and career growth.

What Leaders Must Understand:

1. Employees who are not in a profit & loss role also need to connect the dots for how their performance supports business outcomes.

2. Career development does not have to be a separate conversation from performance management if leaders can articulate the synergies between the two.

3. Learning resources must be relevant to business goals and employee career growth to help synthesize performance and career development.

The implications from my informal study suggest that a more efficient way of managing performance, motivating employees, and fostering a learning culture may be on the horizon. Reflecting on this data, my own lived experiences, and the expertise I’ve gained as a learning leader, I realized that some leaders focus on business goals but not on skill growth. The value proposition for this approach is the synthesis of growth opportunities and performance targets.

With current talent trends, performance management is shifting to support career growth, becoming an emerging practice. Recent trends for talent marketplace ecosystems are laying the groundwork for tying performance and career growth into a sustainable model. Companies that invest in technologies to support a talent marketplace strategy will reap the benefits of this approach.

Employee Engagement

Aside from utilizing a talent marketplace ecosystem, leaders can employ standard tools to streamline their approach to incorporating career development with performance management.

Managers can motivate employees to achieve performance goals with a career development lens starting with the following levers:

● Lever 1: Spark employee curiosity through exploration — Find synergies between employee skills and interests with business goals. Allow employees to explore topics and brainstorm with their teams for ideas worth investigating. Engage subject matter experts to collaborate in the brainstorming sessions to ideate on the ROI for the business.

● Lever 2: Support employees to develop critical skills — Understand what future skills will be in demand and where the gaps are. Support employee learning using both formal and informal methods. Invest in learning paths that lead to certifications or micro-credentials that employees can add to their resumes.

● Lever 3: Sponsor synergistic relationship building — Create job shadowing opportunities for cross-functional roles. The objective is to help employees develop business acumen, enhancing their critical thinking and decision-making skills. Connect individuals with professional organizations in the industry for further development.

● Lever 4: Spearhead initiatives to create employee experiences — Help employees get practical experience in business priority areas. Locate people in the company and external consultants who can support experiential learning ideas.

While performance management is necessary to achieve organizational goals, the upshot is to leverage career development to improve employee performance. However, because some leaders have not grasped the synergies between performance and career growth, they miss the opportunity to engage in career conversations. This novel approach can positively impact the company’s bottom line and support employees’ career aspirations, resulting in a win-win strategy for all.