World Health Organization

At the World Health Organization, where people dedicate their lives to others, WHO wanted to help its own staff thrive, developing fulfilling careers while delivering global impact. With more than 7,000 employees across Geneva headquarters, regional, and country offices, WHO’s mission to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable depends on engaged, motivated people. Yet its complex, hierarchical structure and global scale made career development challenging. Staff needed clarity and support to navigate diverse career paths, while managers needed the skills and confidence to guide those journeys. WHO set out to embed a culture of career conversations, empowering leaders and HR professionals to engage their people in meaningful dialogue about growth, purpose, and contribution.

Antoinette led a dynamic facilitator journey, combining interactive workshops, coaching, and hands-on practice to build WHO’s internal capability for career conversations. Through the Certified Career Conversations Facilitator Programme, she equipped HR and L&D professionals across Geneva, Copenhagen, Egypt, and beyond with the tools, skills, and confidence to deliver two key workshops internally — Confident Career Conversations for managers and Career Compass for employees. Using accelerated learning techniques, solution-focused practices, and interactive resources like the Career Conversation Toolkit, the programme empowered facilitators to cascade the approach across WHO, embedding meaningful career development conversations at every level of the organisation.

The impact was quickly evident as facilitators began running workshops across regions, embedding the new approach into daily conversations and integrating career conversations into mentoring, coaching and performance management.

• Over 2,000 staff across five regions benefited from the programme.
• Facilitators reported a mindset shift from problem-solving to solution-building.
• Managers gained confidence in integrating career conversations into mentoring and performance discussions.
• WHO now has an embedded, self-sustaining network of facilitators driving career development globally.