Menu

Career Development

How It Works

We recognize that the future success of our company is primarily dependent on our ability to engage and develop you, our people, and we know we need to do better at both.  We want to become one of the best companies at developing our employees and giving you the opportunity to love what you do.

We also recognize that many employees are nearing retirement and we don’t want to lose valuable years of accumulated knowledge and experience.

We believe that developing our own people is far better for our company and for our employees in the long run than attempting to recruit experienced external candidates.

In addition to helping all employees develop themselves professionally, we want to focus on increasing the leadership skills of our managers.  We believe that people who strengthen their leadership skills will produce better results and create a better working environment for everyone.

We have developed a plan to accomplish this.

Career Development Program

The Career Development Program Works Like This:

1. Objective

The intention is to promote internally, identify staff to fill roles and help prepare them to be successful.

It gives our staff opportunity to advance their careers with NWM and enables long-term planning for both employees and NWM.  This allows us to not depend on external candidates.

2. Establish Promotion Criteria To Assess Leadership Capability

In most organizations, people are generally promoted to leadership positions based on their technical ability or their seniority.  Although both are important considerations, we believe that these are not the best predictors of success as a leader.

Last Spring focus groups consisting of managers and non-managers helped to identify the most important qualities our managers must demonstrate to be successful leaders.  We refer to these criteria as our Leadership Compass.

https://www.careerdevelopment.newworldmedical.com/leadership-compass/

3. Provide Career Coaches

a. Separate Processes. We have decided to separate career development discussions from our performance review process.  Reviewing past performance and discussing future career development are distinctly different discussions, and they should be treated as such.  If we want to help our people accelerate their career development, we must dedicate the appropriate amount of time for it.

b. Trained Career Coaches. A group of managers and some non-managers have received training on how to help others better manage their careers.  The purpose of Career Coaches is to help employees advance their career however they like, including preparing for more leadership responsibility, deepening their expertise, or broadening their skillset.  All employees will have the opportunity to have regular career development discussions with a Career Coach.

i. Career Coaches are not limited to only those who are interested in obtaining a critical position. All employees who want to develop themselves may sign up for a career coach.

c. Voluntary Sign-Up. Participation in career development discussions with a Career Coach is voluntary. Employees may choose from any of the trained Career Coaches.  Because of the time commitment involved, each Career Coach will coach a small number of employees.

i. If you are interested in having a Career Coach, please apply on the Career Coach section link of our Career Development site.
https://www.careerdevelopment.newworldmedical.com/request-a-career-coach/

ii. Career Coach assignments will be made based on a first come first served basis as well as other practical organizational considerations.

iii. Because direct managers are primarily concerned with improving employee’s performance in their current role, it is beneficial to have someone else work with employees to help them navigate their career, broaden their experience, and learn new skills. Having someone other than a direct manger act as the Career Coach eliminates any potential conflicts of interest, or perceived conflicts of interest.

iv. We may train more Career Coaches in the future based on demand.

d. Regular Career Development Discussions. Human Resources will inform you of your Career Coach assignment. Your Career Coach will contact you shortly thereafter to schedule your first Career Development discussion.

i. It will likely take several career development discussions to identify employee’s strengths, development needs, career objectives, and creative development activities to achieve their career objectives.

ii. Employee’s career development activities, and the support they will receive from their Career Coach and manager, will be documented in a Personal Development Plan (PDP).

iii. Employees are responsible to share their PDP with their manager so their manager can help them integrate their development activities with their work responsibilities. If a manager and employee are unable to agree on how to integrate the employee’s development activities, they should consult the HR Director together.

iv. Ideally, career development discussions will occur quarterly, but may be more or less frequent depending on employee’s need and Career Coach’s time constraints. Career development discussions will be held at least twice a year.

4. Establish a People Committee

a. We will establish a People Committee comprised of about six senior managers that will be primarily responsible to:

i. Brainstorm and recommend creative development activities to accelerate their development and readiness.

ii. Recommend organizational changes or other ideas to improve people development.

The People Committee will have additional flexibility to make organizational changes or unconventional arrangements to advance the development of employees who consistently demonstrate the Leadership Compass.

b. Make Promotion Decisions by Committee. Decisions about who gets promoted to leadership positions are too important to leave up to one individual. Because of its importance, all promotions to leadership positions will be made by our People Committee.

c. Promotion decisions to non-leadership positions will continue to be made the way they are currently being made.