Goal setting
Does your company offer a mentoring program? If not, it should. The benefits of mentoring programs are vast and range from individual-focused benefits, such as improvement in critical job skills, to organizational-level benefits, such as reduced employee turnover.
Read more “3 Tips to Help Protégés Achieve Goals in Mentoring Programs”
Career development
Updated: December 1st 2023
If you’ve ever hired an employee, whether you’re a recruiter or a hiring manager, you’ve probably experienced the challenge of finding qualified candidates who are willing to take ownership of their career development. You probably have not thought of the issue in this way, or even realized that you have this problem.
Read more “How To Interview Candidates That Will Own Their Career Development”
Experiential learning
In my last post, I provided a few examples of SMART goals for developing competencies or “soft skills” (as opposed to technical skills). Samples were written for the common yet vague goals to “be a better communicator” and “improve leadership skills.” If you haven’t already done so, I recommend you read that post first before continuing with this one, because this post is a continuation of that example. This post will focus on leadership development activities as opposed to leadership development goals.
Read more “SMART Goal Examples Part 2: Leadership Development Activities”
Individual Development Plan
If you’re reading this blog you’re probably looking for SMART goal examples targeting a competency or “soft skill” for development in your IDP template (or perhaps helping a client to do so.) When setting development goals, people have little trouble translating the tangible ones into SMART goals. “Increase revenue by X% within six months”….”Reduce customer wait time on the phone by 4 minutes by end of Q3”….and so on.
Read more “SMART Goal Examples for Competency-Based Development”
Feedback
The redefining of performance reviews and the feedback that goes along with them continue to challenge HR. Companies are continuing to drop or revamp their performance reviews. Some changes are more drastic than others. I recently found this SHRM article describing how some organizations are shifting their performance reviews to be adjective-based as a replacement for the now-doomed numerical rating scale. Surely words are better than numbers! The rationale is that adjectives are more personal than numbers, provide more information, and therefore increase employee motivation.
Read more “Performance Reviews: Are Adjectives Really Better Than Numerical Ratings?”
Feedback
We often get asked how the features our Fast Mirror platform help motivate people to give and accept feedback. We also get asked how it can be used to hold people accountable for providing feedback. Not just managers, but all levels of employees. They’re trying to create a “feedback culture” and often in the early stages of determining what this new feedback culture will look like. So, they’re checking out the new HR technology to get some ideas.
Feedback
Recently I attended a session at a conference about feedback. I was looking forward to hearing material about feedback-related issues such as 360 assessment, the neuroscience associated with feedback, and examples of companies that have created a “feedback culture.” While these subjects were briefly mentioned, it didn’t take long for the audience Q&A to turn the discussion into a plea for help with performance management.
Read more “Let’s Take the F Out of Feedback – It’s Not Performance Management”
Individual Development Plan
If you work on your company’s succession planning program, raise your hand if any of the following statements sound familiar:
“Our leaders are engaged in the succession planning process but not so much in the development planning that follows.”
“The development plans of individuals in the succession plan are pretty weak.”
“Leaders have a hard time identifying the development needs of their successors because they think they’re so skilled at everything they don’t need further development.”
Read more “How to Integrate Succession Planning with Development Planning”
Individual Development Plan
Well it’s about the end of the quarter. Time to check in on your goals. And don’t forget about your development plan. Do you even know where it is?
A quarterly check-in may sound stressful if your behind on your development plan or even your goals, but it will only get worse if you don’t do it. Everyone falls behind at some point. The good news is checking in regularly provides you opportunity to review your progress, assess your obstacles, and take action to get back on track.
Individual Development Plan
After searching far and wide, or perhaps by asking HR or a colleague for help, you’ve obtained a development plan template because you realize it’s important for you to have your own development plan. You’re committed to work on your development and really looking forward to it. It’s all downhill from here.
Read more “I’ve Got My Development Plan Template – Now What Do I Write?”