One of the things that will stand out about your career at IBM and ISL is that you are responsible for managing it. That isn't to say we won't support you; far from it. We take both your professional and personal development seriously, supporting you in carving out your own individual career path. We have numerous and comprehensive tools in place to help you; but ultimately, how far your career will progress, is entirely up to you and what you contribute to it. The diverse nature of our business, along with the support and guidance we provide, means that you have a huge range of potential development paths to explore.
So, where do you want to go? How do you want to get there? We have a goal setting approach to careers.
At the beginning of your career with us (and each year after that), you will set personal business and development goals. Your personal business goals will align with IBM's overall business goals and values. Your development goals will identify ways that you can improve to achieve your business goals.
These goals will guide you through each year and will be documented with your manager as part of our Personal Business Commitments program. At the end of each year, your manager will evaluate how well you have achieved these goals compared with your peers, and rate your overall performance. This is a key factor in determining any performance bonus and future career opportunities. This framework is designed to reinforce our high performance culture and will effectively differentiate employees based on their contribution to the company. To sustain markplace leadership, we operate in an environment where every employee is stimulated to perform at their best.
Where else in the world could you work and have so many opportunities?
Learning to manage your career is one of the best investments you can make right now. Your career does not just happen by itself; you must manage it, just as you would manage anything else that is important in your life.
We have developed a virtual career coach designed to help you understand who you are, where and how you do your best work. Once you have evaluated your personality, workstyle, interests, skills and experience the coach will then help you explore the options available to you by identifying the experience you already have and where there are areas for development. This will all then feed into your individual development plan.
Everyone at ISL has an individual development plan - a framework to identify strengths, interests, goals, needs and development activities. This will then be aligned to your personal business commitments identified each year. You will work with your manager, putting together your individual development plan, and it will provide you with a clear layout of your short-term objectives as well as long term goals and aspirations. You will then review this on a regular basis with your manager to keep it up to date.
So, you've set your goals and you're on the way to managing your career. What happens next? We need people who will focus on building their expertise continuously in line with the ever-changing business environment.
We have a program called fast_forward, which is a highly interactive program designed to help employees and managers learn about resources and tools they can use to grow their skills and create an engaging and energetic working experience for themselves today and into the future. fast_forward demonstrates in a tangible, high touch, high collaboration and human way that career vitality is an IBM business imperative. Topics discussed during fast_forward include Careers and Professional Development, Career Coaching, Speed Mentoring, Employee/Manager Collaboration and Tools and Methods for Your Career. ISL also has a community called LiveWire which organises in-house debates and paper presentation on relevant subjects. This is a community where you can get answers to your questions about career development and learn a lot by just sharing your insights and experiences about your work.
Continuous learning and development is fundamental for furthering your career.
As your career develops, you will use your Individual Development Plan to plan the learning experiences necessary for you to excel at your current job or pursue new opportunities.
Part of this will involve not only understanding more about the IBM Foundational Competencies but focusing on developing these continuously both for your current role, career growth or both. Collectively these will give you a very solid base for continued development. |
