Chapter 7 Contents
Today’s knowledge and service-based economy demands a radically different response to skills requirements and career development than was required in the industrial economy of past decades. The business landscape requires new and improved skills, different approaches to building capabilities, and fresh, dynamic ways of providing training. Skill development, capability building, and training all come together in a career development or individual development planning process. This is where the organization’s business needs and goals and the employee’s skills and career aspirations intersect in a plan for how both parties can move forward to meet the challenges of the coming years.
These new and ever-changing approaches to career development and skill building do not fit into the framework of the traditional development plan. Such dynamic approaches need flexible containers that can hold complex inter-relationships and can change quickly as needed. The new approaches are like the proverbial “new wine,” and the traditional development plans are the “old wineskins” that are not flexible and dynamic enough to hold the still-changing new wine.
This chapter explores the types of development plans that are needed for today’s career development environment. We examine the purposes of development plans and explore the best practices and characteristics of the most effective ones. The system for creating and using development plans is described, with particular emphasis on the interactions between manager and employee that make the planning process valuable for everyone involved, including the business itself. Examples of career development plans and their key elements are also included. And we look at how the new, evolving directions at IBM make the career development planning process dynamic and relevant to the changing business world.
IBM realized early on the importance of learning to remain competitive and has committed substantial resources to creating robust learning opportunities for employees. IBM understands that employee learning tied to business goals gives the company the flexibility to improve or retrain its workforce, so that they can respond quickly to industry changes and emerging trends with a steady pool of highly skilled workers.
In light of the world economy and global business environment, organizations have had to recalibrate their career development planning and the way they view and implement career development. As discussed in Chapter 5, “Assessing Levels of Expertise and Taking Action to Drive Business Success,” employees will need to focus on growing existing skills and on learning new competencies, skills, and capabilities. This is critical to ensure that they have the right experiences to grow the capabilities needed by the organization to serve clients. They will need to understand emerging job roles and what skills and competencies are required to fill those roles—and to be sure that they take appropriate action in order to progress in their careers.
It was not that long ago that people used road maps to plan their automobile travel. They would start with the beginning and end points in mind and then plan the trip in a rather linear fashion. If they knew where they were going, including specific side trips they wanted to make, they could plan that detour in advance. Today, many have dispensed with road maps in favor of Global Positioning Systems (GPS), which have transformed the way people travel. Now travelers can dynamically change plans quickly, responding to traffic jams, road blocks, schedule changes, and so on.
In the business world, companies are struggling to keep up with new strategic developments that often require agile, responsive plans to not only understand new developments but also to translate them into the organization’s skill requirements and overall talent management plan. Whereas in the past, the development plan was often a static “roadmap” that was rather rigid and not particularly adaptable, today a more dynamic career development plan is necessary. Such a plan enables companies to continually recalibrate their organizational requirements with those of employees, reassessing the corporate desire to perform with excellence and to understand and align employee career aspirations with the needs of the company. Sometimes, this might involve providing new types of training or retraining for valuable employees, and it also might indicate the need that the skills of some employees might be utilized better elsewhere. Just as the GPS has transformed the way we travel, career development plans must now take into account the dynamic fluency of today’s environment.
Understanding the organization’s goals and strategies allows managers to help employees map their learning needs to business requirements through the use of career development plans and performance plans.
A career development plan outlines the short- and long-term goals that align with an employee’s current and future jobs. The plan outlines a set of sequenced experiences to assist the employee in achieving those goals. It is recommended that all employees have a career development plan and that special attention be given to the development of high potential employees.
Development plans at their simplest are the synopsis and diagram of each employee’s career development for the year ahead. But they are far more than that. When used for maximum impact, development plans are not only statements of employee growth plans, but they are also guides for the manager and the organization, for how they will develop the skills and talent needed to carry out the latest objectives. Ultimately, the purpose of a career development plan is to assist employees in achieving their goals both short- and long-term. In doing so, an organization also increases the likelihood of retaining its employees. The career development plan helps workers set realistic expectations for their career growth by identifying areas that need development before becoming eligible for the next career milestone.1
The interplay between the needs of the organization and those of the employee is complex. Ideally, the process of creating the development plan should allow for a dialog between manager and employee to explore how the needs of the department, the business, and the employee are connected and can be mutually beneficial. This dialog is a key component in the success of the overall career development process.
The planning process is an opportunity for managers to recognize all employees and is especially critical for high-potential employees. It is important that managers balance the needs of their teams with the needs of the organization, potentially helping valued team members get useful experience, grow, and get promoted to the place in the organization where they can make the greatest contribution and achieve more of their potential.
Good development plans provide structure and discipline for the employee’s focus during the coming year and beyond. Plans that adequately reflect employee aspirations will also motivate and inspire the employee.
A career development plan contains the desired outcomes of the career development process and action steps of managers and employees. It is the tangible record of a process and as such is ongoing and dynamic.
There are a number of characteristics and best practices that lead to effective career development plans. According to Robert Stringer,2 author of The Power of a Development Plan, the most effective plans can be described as having seven major characteristics:
• Highly personalized
• Focused on specific development needs and not just summaries of the issues
• Practical
• Rely on on-the-job learning experiences
• “Owned” by the person who wants to develop
• Strongly emphasize coaching and personal feedback
These characteristics have their parallels in IBM’s career development plan best practices. The following sections describe some of the ways that these characteristics are practiced at IBM.
Career development plans need to capture each employee’s unique needs, goals, and learning styles, rather than simply describing the functions of their roles and/or jobs. To be effective, the plan should describe every employee’s career aspirations and specific objectives. At IBM, employees are encouraged to answer the following types of questions specifically and uniquely for themselves:
• What are my skills, abilities, and competencies?
• What are my strengths and preferred learning style?
• What are my desired objectives?
Managers and employees are encouraged to consider the following: How will employees know and measure whether they are achieving the goals they have set? What are the learning approaches that will be most effective for each employee? Who are the people they will work with for mentoring and coaching? What are the specific action steps that will most likely lead to the desired results?
Effective plans dig beneath the surface description of development needs to pinpoint the specific ways the employee needs to improve. For example, the employee and manager might agree that the employee needs to work on time management. They may jointly set some behavioral benchmarks for how the employee’s time management will improve. But what is the nature of the employee’s time management shortcomings? Is the employee too detailed and too much of a perfectionist? Is the employee disorganized and constantly spending too much time trying to find things? Does the employee put off starting assignments, spend too much time talking with people instead of getting tasks done, give priority to less important tasks, and wind up lacking the time needed for what is important? These, of course, are only a few of the possibilities, but they provide a flavor for the complexity of the situation and the need for individualized responses.
The specificity of focus can be achieved through in-depth skill and behavioral assessments and peer feedback, in conjunction with a thorough and probing conversation between the manager and employee. As in the example given, if time management is identified as a developmental issue, the manager needs to probe and observe to find the specific problems that need to be addressed in the development plan.
A classic approach to problem identification is to keep asking “Why?” until the root problem is reached. Using the time management example as the general issue, the manager may keep asking, “Why are you missing deadlines?” or “Why are you not getting more projects finished?” in order to uncover the issues that need attention and the best paths for addressing them. A time management class will not be effective, for example, if the real issue is that the employee needs better writing skills and keeps procrastinating writing key reports. But if the need for writing skill training and coaching is identified, then the development plan can include specific action steps to help the employee correct the developmental gap.
The most effective plans focus on a few mission-critical skill-building activities so that the employee’s attention, energy, and resources can be focused on gaining maximum impact in the areas where the most important change and growth take place. IBM has found that it is far more effective to concentrate on two or three key areas rather than half a dozen or more.
Another aspect of making the plans practical is identifying specific action steps and outcomes. It is not enough to identify a developmental plan of “improving presentation skills.” The specific action steps may need to be
• Take the Business Presentation Skills class in March.
• Join and attend Toastmasters for at least six months.
• Give at least two presentations each month for which specific feedback is given.
• Work with a presentations skills coach for at least three months to improve skill and confidence in giving presentations, including PowerPoint presentations, to small and large audiences.
On-the-job learning experiences can often be more important than classes and training in employee growth and development. At IBM, identifying and including specific on-the-job experiences is an essential part of employee development. It is critical that employees get certain experiences to build deep levels of capabilities in specific areas where simple training is inadequate. When work experiences with specific learning objectives are included as part of the development plan, the experience is transformed into a learning lab. Employees tend to approach these experiences with greater openness and curiosity, with more focus and intention. The result is that employees identify in advance what they want to learn from the experience, and they seek it out, look for it, and make sure they find it.
To be successful, it is essential that employees take ownership and responsibility for their own development. In many organizations, this process can be encouraged through corporate programs or processes. By providing the infrastructure and support systems to help ensure that employee goals are being met, IBM demonstrates to the employee that the company places a high priority on career planning and provides a process that supports the employee in their growth and career goals. This commitment to the development plan then becomes important to the employees, as well.
Managers play a key role in the career development process by helping the employee put a plan in place and execute upon it; however, in practical ways, employees are expected to set up the development planning and review sessions with their managers. Employees’ in-depth input into the plan is expected and supported through preparation and key conversations with managers.
A development plan seeks to identify and record the key goals, objectives, and needs of the business unit and employee. Nothing is static in business or in life, so the best development plans are open to ongoing change as needed. Employees and managers should be continually watching for ways to develop the skills and competencies identified in the plan. By keeping the development plan fluid and dynamic, both managers and employees capture opportunities that wouldn’t be unveiled in a static planning process. Once a plan is set, employees and managers should revisit the plan periodically. This reflects the living and changing nature of effective career development plans.
People and relationships, along with key jobs, are often the biggest factors in most people’s development. Therefore, feedback, mentoring, and coaching are powerful ways to leverage all the other developmental efforts. Mentoring and coaching can help employees see how all their activities and efforts fit together. Coaching could be viewed as a more comprehensive or “meta-activity” because it gives perspective and heightens the effectiveness of all the others. These relationships may also be the only place in the organization where employees can be completely candid about their challenges.
Feedback is the mirror that gives an objective picture of how one is coming across to others. We all have a tremendous capacity to fool ourselves about things we prefer to ignore. Feedback helps keep us grounded in reality and offers numerous ways to keep growing.
What is most important about development plans is that they drive performance and give both the employee and the organization competitive advantage. Employees understand what is required of them to enhance their current skills and capabilities and thereby improve their overall marketability. The organization profits by ensuring that it has the right skills in place to drive client success and overall profitability.
The organization has a process and infrastructure to value the information provided by the career development plan, as well as checks and balances to monitor and track the plan. The career development plan is used to ensure that all employees are focused on their own development and that the high-potential pipeline receives appropriate leadership experiences to expedite their growth and to create an ongoing focus on development. Career development plans can typically be thought of as a benefit to the employee. However, these plans have both institutional and organizational value, and they benefit all stakeholders. As employees grow their skills and are better able to perform their job roles, managers are able to achieve their mission in a more effective and efficient manner. This further benefits the entire organization and results in a more satisfied client or customer.
The following sections offer a description of the Career Development Plan Process at IBM.3 At the center of the process is a development discussion between managers and each of their employees.
Before meeting with managers, employees need to prepare for the discussions. The managers might not know what the employees desire, hence preparation will help facilitate the discussions and assure the employees have plans that reflect their goals—and are supported by the managers. Employees will create a plan for current-year and longer-term aspirations. The following steps are typically followed in preparation for employees meeting with managers based on IBM’s current career development planning process:
• Review their current year business goals and determine what areas of learning focus are required to help achieve those goals.
• Update their expertise self-assessment of technical skills and competencies required for a specific job role.
• Review their previous career development plans (if they have them) to see what specific actions were completed and what specific actions are required going forward.
• Explore the requirements and opportunities for learning and expertise that are recommended for their job roles.
• Understand the resources available to build and support skill and professional growth.
• Consider who might be good mentors for them if they have not already been assigned.
• Think about what projects or learning activities might help them achieve their goals.
If employees have longer-term aspirations to move into different job roles or get promotions, they will also need to review the checklist just given and consider different options for how they will achieve such. These options are topics of discussion with managers, and some might be included in the career development plan.
As employees go through this preparation process, answering the following questions can help them frame their goals:
• What is taking place in the marketplace that is driving growth and opportunity?
• Which leading-edge capabilities and experiences are required?
• What specific actions enable the highest degree of success in meeting business goals while aligning with personal career aspirations?
• Are there stretch assignments, job rotations, and/or special projects available that would contribute to building capability and expertise?
The purpose of the development discussion is to agree upon a set of actions that can build employees’ performance, enable them to meet the business goals, and to allow them to advance in their career aspirations. These become the basis for the career development plan.
• Describing the business challenges—The suggested outline for the discussion begins with the manager describing the business challenges that IBM will face in the coming year. Because each employee must contribute to IBM’s business goals, employees must have the competencies, behaviors, skills, and knowledge needed to innovatively collaborate to bring valued solutions to the marketplace.
• Exploring the employee’s career goals and aspirations—The manager asks the employee to discuss his near-term goals and long-term career aspirations, as well as to reflect on the type of job roles or responsibilities he aspires to in his career. It is important for the manager to ascertain whether the employee sees himself advancing in his current career path, moving into a new career path, or perhaps assuming a management position. The employee is encouraged to explore his aspirations and priorities, including expectations and the timeframes necessary for achieving established goals.
This discussion includes looking at how the employee can achieve excellence within the current job, understanding the additional skills and knowledge that are needed to achieve business goals—while ensuring that these commitments are aligned with performance plans and goals.
• Identifying the employee’s current skills and expertise—The employee and manager then discuss the employee’s current capability and skills inventory. They discuss aspects of the current job tasks, roles, and responsibilities, what employees are passionate about, and what they feel they do best. They look at skills and capability areas that need improvement and talk about the outcomes of current skill assessments and/or other organizational skill inventories. Finally, the manager asks questions about how the employee thinks her peers would evaluate her current job, career proficiency, and competencies.
• Identifying and prioritizing competency and skill gaps—After discussing current skills and competencies, the employee is then asked to identify competency or skill gaps that she feels needs immediate attention in her current career development plan. She is asked to focus on and prioritize the most critical competencies and skills that are needed to meet business goals and satisfy career and professional goals, as well as the job skills and knowledge that must be developed during the current year’s cycle to meet stated performance goals.
• Identifying possible actions—Once the gaps are identified, the next step is to identify actions that can close the prioritized development gaps. Through discussions with his manager, mentor, and/or coach, the employee determines those job or professional areas in IBM about which he needs more information and where it can be obtained. They also explore potential stretch assignments and job rotations available within the current department or organization that could help clarify career aspirations or build competencies, skills, and knowledge.
• Prioritizing and choosing development action steps—The employee and manager discuss and prioritize the best available actions to close the gaps and that best contribute to the employee’s career aspirations and provide optimal results to meet current business goals. The manager assigns ownership for action plans by determining which actions require manager support and/or approval and which actions will be owned and executed by the employee alone.
After the discussion with the manager, the employee sets in motion the career development plan that outlines the specific set of activities that will be accomplished within the next 12 to 18 months. The plan can be documented in an online IT application and stored for future reference as the activities are completed. It is periodically reviewed and refined to ensure that it truly reflects the ongoing developmental needs of the employee. The following examples demonstrate the substantive set of activities included in a career development plan; the first for a Software Engineer and the second for a Human Resource Generalist.
Richard Wang (fictitious) is a Software Engineer. In this role, he is a team lead, responsible for delivering on-demand computing solutions. His team has been researching and matching on-demand computing technologies to meet various clients’ requirements. His development goal is to enhance both his technical and his collaborative skills in a diverse work environment. His aspirations include leading increasingly challenging projects in order to advance in his career. Richard’s goals align well with his manager’s goals, delivering innovative on-demand computing solutions for customers working with IBM developers and services professionals. Susan, his manager, surmises that with increasing emphasis on globalization, she will probably be managing a much larger department with members in many countries by next year.
Richard and Susan, as part of the annual development planning cycle, discuss Richard’s goals as well as Susan’s vision of the department’s growth within the next year. Richard has expressed a firm desire to assume a global leadership position in the expanded department by becoming a recognized technical expert.
After their discussion, Richard formally documented his development goals and needs for the year. His plan focuses on the critical activities that must be done to ensure alignment with the business and department strategy of designing on-demand computing technologies and helps him have the necessary tools for meeting his overall career aspirations, as shown in Table 7.1.
Throughout the year, Richard executed his plan and had periodic discussions with his manager and mentor to ensure he stayed on track. After a year, Richard was very successful in his job performance and completed nearly all of his development goals. Susan’s foresight was right on target. With her increased responsibilities it became clear that Susan did need a global team lead, so she posted the job, and she and two peer managers interviewed the top five candidates. After completing the global search it became very clear to Susan, her peer managers, and her management chain that Richard was the best qualified candidate for the job. So she promoted Richard to lead the global team.
In Year 2, Richard Wang is now a global team lead as a Software Engineer, with team members in four countries. He’s responsible for delivering on-demand computing solutions to a major Fortune 500 client.
Susan’s department goals of delivering the highest quality on-demand computing solutions remains the same, but the need for increasing client satisfaction while reducing cost is growing.
In his first year as a global team lead, Richard’s primary development goal is to continue to enhance his collaborative skills in a globally diverse work environment. He has also expressed an interest in continuing to lead increasingly challenging projects. He wants to be a more effective negotiator and would like to have more opportunities to lead complex projects. His goals and development needs for this year follow in Table 7.2.
In Richard’s new global team role, he is responsible for leading, integrating, and ensuring collaboration to meet his client goals and achieve business success. This requires him to focus on a different skill set, one in which he not only exhibits the technical know-how, but also one in which he works through others to ensure that they have the necessary collaborative as well as technical ability to meet the business goals. His career development goals for the new year shift to align more with his leadership responsibilities, as well as positioning him to meet his personal longer-term career aspirations.
Bonnie Lawson (fictitious) is a Human Resource Generalist. In this role, she is responsible for supporting a major business unit and the executive management team. Her team relies on her to support the compensation strategy and compensation cycle, the implementation of their talent management strategy, and monitoring the performance management processes for their business. Ron, Bonnie’s manager, has discussed with Bonnie the importance of responsiveness and delivering excellence to the executive team. Ron stresses that before Bonnie has the opportunity to move to a new area within HR, she must demonstrate excellence in the execution of her current responsibilities. Ron agrees that a focus on building organizational capacity would be a good next-step opportunity for Bonnie. This focus would not only benefit the organization, but is an area that Ron sees as a critical need within the current HR team.
Bonnie and Ron, as part of the annual development planning cycle, discuss Bonnie’s goals as well as Ron’s vision of the department’s growth within the next year. Bonnie understands that it is critical for her to exceed her performance goals and deliver with excellence. After their discussion, Bonnie formally documented her development goals and needs for the year as shown in Table 7.3.
Bonnie is very focused on meeting business needs while ensuring that she also stays aligned with her personal career development needs. Bonnie executes her plan and has quarterly discussions with her manager and monthly discussions with her mentor to ensure that she is on track. At the end of the year, during Bonnie’s self-assessment, she realizes that she did not meet all of her performance objectives. Even though she focused on her career development needs, she was not able to complete all items to her satisfaction. When Bonnie met with her manager, Ron, she reviewed her business challenges and discussed what she would need to do to get on target. Ron agreed with Bonnie’s assessment and further felt that Bonnie would gain from a hands-on opportunity while working on a special project. They both agreed to look for the right project that would give Bonnie the specific expertise that would benefit her. Ron felt that Bonnie had the necessary expertise and competencies to work successfully on a cross-functional team and would do extremely well on the special project as detailed in Table 7.4.
Although Bonnie did not meet all of her business and development goals, she learned and grew from the challenges of the business. She rededicated herself to maintaining high performance while doing those activities that enhance her performance and career development needs. Development planning and career opportunities are very individualized and don’t always mean moving from one promotion to the next. As we see in this scenario with Bonnie, growth came in her self-assessment, the discussion, and feedback with her manager and mentor, and her willingness to learn from her experience. Bonnie’s willingness to work on a project with more experienced employees will give her insights that will be prove to be very beneficial in her growth and development.
This chapter discussed IBM’s historic approach to career development plans and the impact they can have on employees’ career advancement. In 2008, Human Resources (HR) began a journey to study the effectiveness of the current process and online IT application used by employees to record their career development plans. Various key indicators—from anecdotal manager and employee input to numerous related studies done over recent years—indicated changes were warranted. Hence, in October 2008, HR conducted a comprehensive survey and invited over 1,000 IBM managers and employees across the different business units and geographical locations to determine how the company could enhance the career development planning process and online IT application.
The results of this survey provided valuable insights into program and process changes that will result in an overhaul of the career development planning process and online IT application. Some of the changes that will be reflected in the new process and associated tools include
• Better enablement of ongoing discussions with manager, coaches, mentors, and colleagues, with more meaningful and realistic feedback and planning
• Increased emphasis on networking with colleagues via communities, authoring/patenting, and other experiential learning activities
• An extension of the business planning process, connecting business objectives and personal growth to ensure a closed-loop process
• Stronger integration with other career development online IT applications and programs, including Expertise Management (skills, capabilities, and competencies)
• A dynamic, ongoing process with checkpoints for the employee and manager to ensure employees stay on track with their development and managers are enabled to support them
• Enhanced management support by revitalizing the management community with best practices
• An expansive view of what career development means that includes formal and informal learning, expertise growth, potential project opportunities and job roles, and participation in talent programs including those for business and technical leadership4
• Updated program measurements to reflect the new facets of the program to ensure that it stays fresh and continues to meet the needs of employees and IBM
At IBM, the plan and the process of creating meaningful development plans provide a variety of benefits for employees, managers, and business leaders.5
Employees get help exploring what they want in their careers, learn what their career options are, see how to achieve their goals, and discover ways to manage their own careers. They learn how to clearly communicate their interests and aspirations, to managers, mentors, and colleagues. They become more aware of resources (programs, people, content, tools) available and how to take advantage of them. And they understand the way to align their career development with the IBM business and get feedback on areas for improvement. Managers can better prepare their teams to align with the expertise required in the marketplace and that is valued by clients and are better equipped to guide and coach employees. They know what their employees want in their careers and can leverage their interests with business talent requirements that drive organizational goals.
Business leaders are provided with a process to ensure development planning is aligned with business objectives and client value. They receive better information and can make better workforce management decisions (including expertise management, ensuring retention of key talent, and so on). They are better able to optimize learning and development investments and have more flexibility in how to conduct the employee development process in their businesses.
Most employees are genuinely looking for ways to improve their performance by enhancing their expertise. They do this through many of the suggestions that have been outlined in the previous chapters. The career development plan is a way for employees to reflect upon their needs and aspirations and align them with the goals of the organization. A meaningful development plan creates a platform to discuss with their managers, mentors—and others who are instrumental in supporting employees as they move forward in achieving their career milestones. The plan needs to be reviewed and refreshed on a periodic basis so that it does not become stale or outdated and to help ensure that employees have taken action on their plans.
In Chapter 8, “Linking Collaborative Learning Activities to Development Plans,” we continue the discussion of career development planning by looking at the many innovative ways beyond the typical classroom training by which employees can learn new skills. These types of innovative learning offer employees a robust array of opportunities to get closer to reaching their career goals.
Endnotes
1Communicating about Performance (Career Development Plans) Manager’s Toolkit, IBM, 2008.
2Stringer, Robert A. “The Power of a Development Plan,” December 1, 2003, www.albusiness.com.
3Communicating about Performance, IBM QuickView, IBM, 2008.
4IBM IDP Transformation Team, IBM, 2008.
5Bopp, Mary Ann. Transforming the Development Process, IBM, 2008.