The four elements of a successful career development plan

As mentioned in the last post, one of the things you should be looking for in your BPO partner is their employee career development and tenure, so let’s explore this point a bit further.

Why is it important for your BPO partner to have a well-structured career development plan for its employees?

First, according to the Gallup "State of Global Workplace 2022" report, businesses with engaged workers have 23% higher profit compared with business units with unhappy workers. They also reference the fact that teams with thriving workers see significantly lower absenteeism, turnover, and accidents; they also see higher customer loyalty, and one of the metrics taken into account to measure how engaged a worker is, is employee development.

Understanding the importance of this metric at UNO, it is a core part of our mission to provide internal employees with opportunities for development with a well-structured plan and a platform where they can train skills that will be transferable to other areas of life.

Our employee development strategy is based on four pillars:

• Employee buy-in
• Collaborative approach to opportunities
• Execution and accessibility
• Evaluation and revision

The first pillar is employee buy-in; a big portion of our success is the belief of the employees that it is worth investing their time in the companies’ programs, since they will learn skills that will maximize productivity in their given functions, place them on a fast track for promotions, and can be used in other areas of their lives.

We get employee buy-in by highlighting the success stories within UNO of employees that have already participated in previous trainings and showing current performance, providing records of career evolution in our Rise at UNO program, etc. This provides the employees with a framework of reference for how far they can go, creating motivation and cementing the mindset of "This training is important to my development, and the time I’m investing will give me results."

 

After we have the employees' buy-in, the second pillar is a collaborative approach to the opportunities, starting with the TNA (Training Needs Analysis).

 

As part of our TNA, we conduct one-on-one meetings with the collaborators of each department to discuss challenges based on the information we have collected and the results of the meetings we have with the manager.

 

By having one-on-one meetings and giving them the opportunity to contribute with suggestions for their own development plans, the employees feel it is a team effort for their own development, and we are able to develop more targeted actions that really address the opportunities and harvest higher engagement in UNO’s development initiatives.

 

The third pillar is execution and accessibility. At UNO, all development initiatives are adjusted for the employee at an individual level to ensure maximum value for each resource.

 

Aside from that, we use microlearning, infographics, role plays during training, and a variety of training formats (onsite, virtual, hybrid, and asynchronous self-paced trainings) to ensure that all employees have access to the trainings in the most effective format based on their learning style.

 

The fourth pillar is evaluation and revision. In UNO, we have a robust follow-up plan to ensure that skills learned in training are successfully applied in their day-to-day tasks and that this has a positive impact on their performance. We determine this based on the metric of success.

 

The determination of the metric of success and the measurement of that metric is a dynamic process that varies depending on the department or the training initiative. They are determined by analyzing the specific opportunity and determining what is the expected outcome or KPI affected by this opportunity, followed by a discussion about the metric of success and setting proper expectations with the training participant.

 

Besides the metric of success, implementing a 360-degree evaluation process to receive input from the training participants and their direct supervisor (via surveys or one-on-one meetings) creates a process of continuous improvement.

 

As all the results of the evaluation process are analyzed and adjustments are made to the training modules to ensure we are providing the maximum value to our employees.