Providing opportunities to continue to develop, learn and grow are most likely to retain the interest and commitment, of staff with the passion that we want in MVDC.
There are a huge variety of courses and opportunities that staff can tap into. Even our leavers say we do ‘plenty’.
So much choice, regular new offerings, and the fact that one size does not fit all, can present a problem. Deciding what or who would benefit most is difficult for managers of busy services.
Learning and development fulfils many different objectives. It can be for skills improvement for existing jobs, perhaps to move with the times (e.g. ICT skills); it can be for an employee with a technical or professional background that they need to strengthen or, a high performing employee may want to move beyond their original profession, to broaden their career within local government. Career aspirations are all different – so different types of progression are needed.
Often the best person to know how to meet their own career aspirations is the individual themselves. In addition, many of our managers have built up good knowledge and contacts of how to progress within a particular specialism. However, if you are identified through your PDR (Performance and Development Review) as a Progressive Performer you may be provided with more of a focus to explore whether there are mutually beneficial ways the organisation can meet your career aspirations. For the second year (2021/22) we are piloting an enhanced PDR for Business Managers that incorporates this assessment and discussion, as appropriate, alongside identification of the ‘core skills’ regarded as necessary to succeed at a senior level. Depending on feedback this may be rolled out wider.
PDRs are a crucial tool for you and your manager to get together and talk about your performance, your targets and your career objectives. Discussions around what L&D may be appropriate and available will therefore help you plan for the year ahead. If you are not having at least an annual PDR (by the end of each financial year) raise it with your manager, or if you need to – with your manager’s manager.
Statistics show the vast majority of our staff are having their PDR – but if that doesn’t include you – do something about it.
So far work under this priority has informed various strands including a new Learning and Development policy, refreshed Performance and Development Review (as above), improvements to our induction processes and finalising a specific Manager’s Induction.
In the current year work is underway to procure a new e-learning portal and an exciting new soft skills portal to be launched next year – more information will be available on this later this year.