Employees have much to gain by engaging in career development. If the process is implemented properly, it provides employees the guidance and resources they need to advance in their careers. Career development also provides other benefits including the following items:

Managers play a key role in supporting their employees’ career development. It is the manager who guides employees on career development. The manager can influence an employee’s decision or enable the appropriate network to ensure the employee is exposed to the right experiences needed to achieve career goals. Managers also benefit from the company having a career development process and overarching framework. These benefits include the following items:

Clients are the recipient of a successfully implemented career development process. When employees of the selling company have the appropriate levels of capabilities required to serve clients, these clients procure products or services that will better satisfy their needs. Other benefits include the following:

Shareholders also benefit from a company’s career development process, which signals that the company invests in its workforce. This benefits shareholders in a variety of ways:

The course of employee development is often determined by the different products or services provided by the various business units across a company. At IBM, on the one hand, there are employees such as consultants or project managers who provide services and who often move from one short- or long-term engagement to another. Employees such as these often need a versatile set of skills in order to provide service to many types of clients. These employees might require different learning paths, and/or certifications to maintain their skills to remain competitive.

On the other hand, manufacturing employees or engineers who work on the creation of product have “static” work environments. They typically do not move from client to client or even engagement to engagement. They support the manufacture of a particular product and are often specialists in its production. Their learning paths are very different from employees who provide services. Certifications, if required, may be more process- or product-related.

Adults often have different learning styles; some can read a book or instruction manual and be able to perform the activity, whereas others need a hands-on demonstration of how to do it. Still others are able to learn from various types of self-study e-learning, although their preferred learning style may be in a more collaborative environment. These style differences are further compounded by cultural and generational differences.

Some countries and cultures prefer—and even demand—a more collaborative environment for learning. The type of learning provided for such countries may have to be more classroom or collaborative-based than would be necessary in other cultures.

It is also important to understand the values of the different generations that are now found in the workforce today. According to organizational development scholar, Dr. Morris Massey, “If we examine the value system shared by generational groups then we can better understand their diverse beliefs and behaviors.” Dr. Massey goes on to say that it is important to “understand the mind-sets of different generations and how each group sees the world based on their experiences.”⁴ It then becomes critical to understand what motivates members of different generations and to institute teaching techniques that are flexible enough to meet their needs.

In a world where four generations of employees might well be sitting side-by-side with different needs and desires as to their careers, flexibility in how these employees are developed is mandatory.

Employees close to retirement age may be deep experts in their fields and have reached their ultimate levels of capability. They are still highly productive workers; however, their career needs are going to be very different than those of new employees who have just joined the company—and the workforce. Seasoned employees may need to learn some new skills as the work changes. They often accomplish this in innovative ways, using informal learning methods that may require very little help or support from their manager. They also seek help from peers across the company, using the networks they’ve created over the years.

However, new employees fresh out of college have not yet made the kinds of networking connections to other company employees that their longer-term colleagues have, so these younger workers look to their managers to guide them in navigating the company. New employees are also eager to progress—often rapidly—in their careers, but they don’t always know what path might be the best approach for them. Therefore, the career development process must support both tenured, experienced employees who might only need to focus on a few skills, as well as brand new employees with little experience, who could require extensive training, mentoring, and job changes over time in order to advance in their careers.

IBM’s corporate strategy drives the particular skills employees need to do the jobs required to achieve the company’s goals. As corporate strategy changes over time, so must the workforce strategy, including the types of employees hired, the jobs they do, and the skills they need. The career development process plays a critical role in enabling the company to determine what expertise the company has—or doesn’t have—to meet new challenges. This helps determine where to invest in employee training to ensure that the company has the expertise necessary to meet client demands. It also helps managers set career expectations with employees to guide them in growing required skills. In addition, the career development process provides an avenue for employees to advance in their careers in a way that is meaningful, motivating, and exciting. A career development process can help managers level-set with employees on realistic career goals and can be used as a positive lever in employee retention.

Enterprises stand the test of time based on a foundation of core values. In 2003, IBM re-examined its values through a rigorous yet dynamic approach. According to IBM’s internal website, “Through ValuesJam—an unprecedented 72-hour discussion on the global IBM Intranet—IBM employees, managers and executives came together to define the essence of the company.”⁵ The result was a set of core values that shapes everything the company does and every choice made on behalf of the company. This shared set of values helps employees make decisions and, in the process, shapes the company. But the real influence of these values occurs when employees apply them to their personal work and their interactions with other colleagues, clients, and others around the world. IBM Values therefore provide a foundation for how employees should carry out business and develop themselves.

IBM’s strategy targets the intersection of technology and effective business. According to IBM’s internal website, “Today’s networked economy creates a new economic landscape and a mandate for business change. IBM’s strategies are designed to help its clients be successful through information technology and services.”⁷ As the company strategy changes, so must the job roles that are required to execute that strategy. Employees must keep their skills in alignment with these changes. As part of the annual performance management cycle, IBM employees identify their business and development goals early in the year. Employees identify the business goals required to achieve the organizational goals that align to IBM’s corporate strategy. The ongoing ability to meet these goals is used as an evaluation criterion at the end of the year when managers report on how well employees performed against the goals they had set. Additionally, employees identify development goals and learning activities that will strengthen the skills needed to help them achieve their current-year business goals.

As employees explore their development goals, IBM provides them with guidance to help them define these goals. The following are some thought-provoking questions related to IBM strategy that employees should consider in setting and achieving their business and development goals:

Throughout their careers, employees periodically need to re-assess where they’re at. Over time, situations and personal desires change. As an example of a situational change that drives career decisions, take Jane Doe. She joins IBM as a business transformation consultant, with several years of related experience. She is married but does not yet have any children. By joining IBM as a consultant, she can fulfill her current desires to work on consulting engagements. This often requires that the IBM consulting team be physically located at a client site. This lifestyle requires frequent business travel, which in Jane’s current situation, suits her. Over time, however, Jane eventually starts a family. She now has to re-evaluate her situation. Frequent business travel does not allow her to be home during the week. As the children grow to be of school age, she would like to be able to participate in their activities, so Jane decides that she’d like to pursue some different career options by exploring other IBM jobs that utilize her consulting skills, but which do not require such heavy business travel. At some point in the future, as Jane’s children age, she might take yet another turn in her career as her personal situation changes.

This is only one short example of the many changes that can impact one’s career. An agile career development process needs to provide a way for employees to explore their aspirations over a period of time, re-evaluate, and even change jobs as situations or desires fluctuate. A flexible career development process helps employees explore what they’re passionate about, what skills they have or need to grow, and who and what can help them achieve their goals.

As IBM defines the job roles needed to execute upon its strategy, it provides potential career opportunities for its employees. IBM offers resources to employees to define the expertise they need in their current jobs or for future aspirations. Employees need to consider whether their career goals are realistic based on their skills and the needs of the company—and to reset those expectations if they are not realistic. This requires that employees take the time to reflect on what their strengths and current expertise are, what they really like to do, and how this aligns to company needs. It is often helpful to think of past job activities or assignments that were fulfilling and that the employee has been passionate about. Employees should also talk with their manager and/or a mentor to get a better perspective on career opportunities at IBM. This leads to a vision of what a job in IBM might look like for that individual and could help define the career goals needed in order to attain the job. Employees should document these goals for a discussion with their managers as they identify their development goals for the year. Here are a few questions that employees use to identify their career development goals and career aspirations:

Employees need to determine what their career desires are within the context of a partnership among the employee, the organization, and the manager. They need to achieve a certain level of performance, and the organization is responsible for ensuring the right learning environment and career development opportunities so employees can keep their skills razor sharp. Managers need to work with their employees on setting career expectations and helping them achieve realistic career goals.

A formal career development process provides the appropriate checks and balances needed to ensure that employees are not led down the wrong path. It provides guidance on what job roles are in demand—or are no longer required. It also provides guidance on how to achieve career goals. It is the manager’s responsibility to work with employees to understand their career desires in light of the needs of the business and to set employee expectations. It is also the manager’s responsibility to approve development plans and learning activities that the employee wishes to take. Managers also must approve job rotations and promotions. Hence it is important that employees work with their managers to ensure that the right career expectations and plans are set.

At IBM, career development begins even before a new employee walks in the door. IBM has identified competencies that are characteristics of people who demonstrate outstanding performance. IBM’s competencies have been established through rigorous research to differentiate high performers from average ones and to establish a common standard for high performance across IBM. The competencies include personal characteristics such as knowledge, skills, social role, and motives that enable behavior. They describe behaviors that IBM employees should possess and exhibit to effectively deliver client value, be effective leaders, and demonstrate the IBM values. Competencies are broadly applicable across IBM and are key capability enablers.¹⁰

IBM takes these competencies into consideration as part of its recruitment process for prospective new employees. According to IBM’s Behavior-Based Structured Interview Reference Guide, “The activities and requirements of the job are matched with the knowledge, skills, abilities, and values described in the competencies.” The Guide goes on to say that, “Subject matter experts, including managers and employees, confirm that the competencies reflect critical requirements for success on the job.”¹¹ The competencies provide the framework for interview questions and rating criteria for interview guides. This enables hiring managers to identify and make offers to applicants with the right qualifications who will help IBM meet the challenges of the Information Technology market.

After candidates have been selected for hire, their prospective managers assign them a “buddy,” even before they join IBM. Consistent feedback from new employees has emphasized the importance of having a buddy when the new employee joins IBM. Creating an early connection to IBM helps retain top employees, which is a win for the new employee as well as for the business. The buddy gives managers the opportunity to match new employees with experienced ones who can answer questions and provide guidance during a new employee’s first 60 days, thus helping to ease the transition into IBM.

The buddy’s role is to provide insight into the values and culture associated with IBM. Buddies also help new employees navigate the organizational structure of the company and become familiar with key websites and tools so that the new employees are productive and engaged as soon as possible. Furthermore, the buddy assists with the basics, such as pointing out the site cafeteria, explaining processes, and giving newly-relocated employees information on the local area.

According to IBM’s internal website, managers need to select as buddies volunteers who are enthusiastic and passionate about being an IBM employee and have a sincere willingness to help new employees as they begin their careers at IBM.¹² Because the buddy is assigned prior to the employee’s arrival, he or she is available from the onset of the new person’s entry into IBM.

While the role of a buddy might not be a significant amount of time for any one employee, it is indeed time he or she must take from an already busy work day. Hence a manager should acknowledge the buddy’s role as part of the annual performance evaluation plan to acknowledge the value the buddy provided the new employee. IBM’s experience in talking with former new employee buddies has shown this to be a very valuable experience for the buddy. They often report it is a very rewarding experience to help a new employee, and often these initial relationships end up being lasting friendships.

Employees begin their careers at IBM by attending a new employee orientation in a continuum of learning. While the orientation provides the basic information employees need to be productive at the company, it is more than just a class. Rather, it is a mandatory orientation program that introduces new employees to the history, culture, values, and strategic vision of IBM. Successful completion of the program has been proven to lead to improved early career success for new employees. Interviews with new employees has revealed that the program provides new employees faster integration into IBM, faster project deployment, more effective collaboration, and higher overall satisfaction with joining IBM. In addition, a study comparing participants to nonparticipants over a two-year period revealed that a higher percentage of attendees received a top performance rating, compared to those employees who did not attend the program. The study also showed that more attendees would remain with IBM, even if offered comparable jobs and salaries elsewhere.

The orientation program begins with a classroom experience and continues with an e-learning program and “Touchpoints” that span the employee’s first year, to help new employees become successful in their careers. The following list provides a high level description of the various components of the program:

The program is used by all hire types, including university/college hires, professional hires with years of experience, employees who are part of company acquisitions, and experienced professionals who become IBM employees through strategic outsourcing deals.

Once new employees complete the program, they then follow the same career development process that all IBM employees follow. As outlined in Figure 3.2, IBM’s career development process includes a variety of recommended and some mandatory steps that employees follow, typically on an annual cycle. However, these steps are flexible and will vary based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to tenure with the company, personal aspirations, current and prior level of expertise, business goals and needs, level of employee, and job role.

This description outlines IBM’s new employee orientation program, which has been in place since 2003. It is important to note that the program has gone through various transformations over time to reflect changes in the types of new employees being hired, the needs of new employees, market conditions, company strategy, and various other factors. In fact, at the time of the writing of this book, the program is going through yet another transformation to reflect the needs of tomorrow’s new employees. We will further explore the current program details in Chapter 4, “Selecting the Best Talent and Developing New Employees,” as well as highlight upcoming changes.

As employees meet with their managers to discuss their annual business and development goals, employees need to consider what skills they need in order to achieve their business goals. If there are gaps in the required skills, the development plan can help identify the learning that needs to occur to close gaps. IBM has initiated the Expertise Assessment to help employees understand development needs. The Expertise Assessment is based on IBM’s Expertise Taxonomy, described in Chapter 2. It is a process IBM developed that allows employees to assess their skills for their current job roles against a target level of mastery for each skill. Managers then review and approve the assessment. The ideal time to complete an expertise assessment would be early in the year, as employees are creating their annual business and development goals. This provides a foundation for the current year’s development plans.

Employees can also view target skill levels needed for other job roles to which they want to aspire and can also do a self-assessment to identify future skills they may need to acquire. The Expertise Assessment provides information about the individual’s job role, associated skills, and a list of associated skill development activities that can help the employee advance in his or her career, while meeting the business needs of IBM. Once an assessment is completed, IBM employees are able to identify the gap between their current skill levels and their expected targets. This step is critical for employees to understand the areas of development that would improve their effectiveness as employees. In most cases, learning is available to close those specific gaps.

Expertise Assessments are important for a variety of reasons:

In the previous section, we outlined the processes used to identify skills needed for a current or future job role. Expertise Assessments are very important, as they focus on the individual skills necessary for success in one’s current job role or even future job role. Skills can be developed in a relatively short period of time. The focus shifts, however, as employees increase their skill levels and move from job to job. They ultimately grow levels of capability that lead to achieving a significant milestone in one’s career. Capabilities require a combination of applied knowledge, skills, competencies, or other characteristics, and are developed through experience. Capabilities are a core element of IBM’s career framework, as described in Chapter 2 and are necessary to drive client value and advance an employee’s career. Capabilities can take a relatively longer time to build. The two programs complement each other and provide a broad overall perspective on how employees can develop themselves and their careers over both the short- and long-term.¹⁵

The expertise that an employee grows is a key building block for developing a professional career. However, to set a direction and prioritize the goals employees want to achieve, they need a plan. As employees define their development goals early in the year, they also identify their plans for development. This includes identifying the learning activities that help employees close skill gaps.

This necessitates a discussion between managers and their employees. The discussion that employees have with their managers regarding their development needs and plans is critical to ensure that the manager sets appropriate expectations related to employee career goals. Some employees may find that their long-term goals are unrealistic and have to make different choices. For instance, employees may desire to become executives in the company, but they might not possess the right types of skills or have the appropriate executive characteristics. In this case, the manager needs to work with the employee to ensure that the chosen career path matches the employee’s capabilities. The manager also approves the learning activities identified by the employee. The manager may have to suggest other alternatives if some learning activities are not available or achievable.

When the plan is reviewed and approved by the manager, employees then execute the plan throughout the year. Having well-thought-out plans greatly improves employees’ abilities to attain their career goals, but success also depends on acting on the plans, and monitoring progress.

Learning activities can take on many formats, from formal classes and e-learning, to readings and experiential on-the-job learning. While IBM employees have the opportunity to partake in formal learning, they also have the opportunity to gain new skills by learning on the job.

IBM provides a formal experiential learning program designed to help employees take advantage of a range of experience-based learning opportunities such as stretch assignments, cross-unit projects, job rotations, and more, which will enhance their careers and expertise. “Opportunity” in this context refers to the many ways in which IBM employees can utilize the resources available to them, enlist guidance from fellow IBM employees from across the business, and leverage experience-based activities to both enrich their careers and adapt to the demands of a rapidly changing marketplace.

This formal program provides structure and guidance for managers on how to create unique opportunities that may help the managers achieve their mission, as well as meet employee needs and help shape development plans. Getting involved doesn’t require a huge commitment on the employee’s part. Opportunities can range from as little as a few hours, to one day per week, to several months.

IBM also has a very robust mentoring program open to all employees. Mentoring has become a hot topic in IBM and many other business organizations today. Competition and changing technologies are putting pressure on businesses to make improvements in cost, quality, speed, and service at rates never required before. Organizations are realizing that they must become “learning organizations” to enable quick deployment of employees throughout the business to respond to these pressures. Mentoring is an important tool in the development of the learning organization. Mentoring joins two or more people together to achieve specific objectives for skills growth and development. Simply put, the mentor has the skills, knowledge, and experience that the mentee needs.

At IBM, the mentor agrees to share this know-how and act as a role model. The mentee agrees to make a conscientious effort to acquire the development offered by this program. A mentor can have more than one mentee, and a mentee can have more than one mentor.¹⁶ IBM’s mentoring program is anchored on three pillars:

An organization can invest millions of dollars in developing its employees, but at the end of the day, how do organizations know that the investment has paid off? IBM has a very robust measurement process that leverages Donald Kirkpatrick’s four-level training evaluation model.¹⁷ In addition, IBM uses various internal surveys to capture employee opinions on its learning investment and career development processes. These surveys include

These various data points collectively provide ample input back to management to make improvements to the learning activities and career development process.

In this chapter, we explored the many advantages of career development and also outlined how IBM approaches its career development process to enable employees to grow in their careers. While the practices shared are approaches that work in IBM, there are many facets of IBM’s career development process that could equally be applied to other organizations. Here are a few key points to keep in mind:

The remaining chapters in the book further explore the concepts introduced in this chapter. Each chapter is dedicated to one or more of the career development process steps as outlined in Figure 3.2.