Where do you see yourself...

One of the questions that recruiters usually ask is "What do you expect from a new company, what would you like to get?".??And the answer that a good recruiter won't accept is "Well, interesting projects and development". Oh, I heard it like a thousand times :)

An inexperienced candidate, answering this way, sincerely believes that they have given a comprehensive answer; they know what was meant.?An experienced recruiter understands that the words “interesting project” and “development” mean kinda nothing without a proper clarification, because it is always something different for everyone, and so an experienced recruiter will ask extra questions.??

Let's leave interesting projects for now, I'd like to talk a little about development and development plans people should have at work.

The perfect story is when you already have enough experience to draw up your own development plan based on feedback and your own wishes. But in most of the cases it works in a different way, sometimes weird :) In one of my previous companies it was like "Natasha, go draw up a development plan for yourself, and show it to me". Natasha, at this moment, was somewhere in the middle of her probationary period and was hearing about some development plans for the first time, so she googled it, made it, showed it to the manager, and... for some reason the manager didn’t like it, it was not what they expected. Hm, how did this even happen? :) Anyways, don't do this to your employees.

What I am doing now that I'm a manager myself. I have a very clear understanding of who a good employee in my department is - one who will do the job well and will not be too difficult to deal with (at the same time, I do not expect that everyone will be cute and easy and convenient to deal with, but it is a separate topic to discuss). This understanding forms a matrix of department competencies, based on goals and objectives the department has, and the required level of competencies for each role (we are talking about soft skills, hard skills and motivation).

I evaluate every employee at the very beginning and then every six months. I don’t try to find a perfect employee during the hiring process, if some "points" are missing - it's ok, but in this case I pay attention to the ability and desire to learn, flexibility, and then we can set this missing skill as a goal, and the whole team will help reach the bar. This is the first thing to consider composing a development plan - formal criteria.

The second thing is working with feedback. I collect feedback from all communication participants, and if something was not good - we will quietly fix it. Such things cannot be delayed until the six-month meeting, they need to be worked on immediately, but in terms of development, the result can be and should be recorded for the employee to feel they have accomplished good changes. This part of working on your own development based on feedback is probably the most difficult for people. After all, it always seems you are so good, and you do everything right, and you say the right things, and you didn’t want to hurt someone's feelings, for example, but this is just how it turned out. And in your head you even understand that you should probably have done something differently, but you still might think "Ah, what’s wrong with you that you have reacted like that". Well, that's how it sometimes is with me at least :)

The third thing, but the most important one, is actually the wishes of the employee. Yes, this is already a joke, but in reality every person should be able to answer honestly to the question "Where do I see myself in a couple of years, what I want to do and how?" And based on this, a good manager will find the opportunity to give the employee a try to work with certain tasks, to develop some skills, so that it will be as useful as possible for both the employee and the company.

And what if I develop the employee so well, and they leave the company? Well, be happy for them. That's a lot better than working with an unmotivated employee who doesn’t want any development, just to go home as soon as possible, and hates Sundays. This option is not for me at least.

So, every manager should have a good understanding of the department composition and the roles within it, and every employee should have a clear, achievable development plan, interesting primarily for the employee, but also drawn up in the interests of the company, of course. And where do you see yourself in a couple of years? :)