CivicActions set a goal of developing individual Professional Development plans for all team members in early 2014. We also set a goal of strengthening Community Participation in 2014 and leveraging the intersection of participation and Marketing (See 5% Presentation). We value Professional Development and Community Participation for a number of reasons:
- professional development provides career mobility for each person - increasing our feeling of safety, which leads to
- having the courage to fail - which leads to experimentation, innovation, and learning
- having the courage to challenge the status quo - which leads to organizational learning
- having the courage to be vulnerable - which leads to authentic communications and connection
- open minded thinking - which leads to increased tolerance of others ideas and personality styles
- professional development increase your skills which can result in increased revenue opportunities for CivicActions and higher salary for us
- community participation provides numerous benefits, including
- strengthened relationships with experts that can help when we are stuck
- career advancement opportunities (potential new employment offers) for each of us, whicn increases our feeling of safety
- opportunities to increase the impact of the work being done by our entire industry - which helps with our mission to transform the way professional services are delivered in government
- opportunities for CivicActions to popularize the idea of radical openness, which strengthens our brand
Below is a first flush implementation which we believe will enable us to address our goals. We anticipate future revisions, based on retrospective feedback and learnings.
// NEEDS UPDATING
Below are the initial logistic and policy information. We shall assess these as part of future retrospectives and update as needed.
Each team member shall meet with their line manager for a Professional Development and Community Participation meeting. We are planning for 2 meetings in 2014, where the 2nd meeting would include a retrospective of the workflow/logistics as well as the specific vision, plan and implementation sections. We do not know what the ideal frequency will be, (e.g. yearly, twice yearly, quarterly etc) so will be trying out some options and reflecting to identify an effective, achievable and scalable frequency.
The output of this meeting will be an initial Professional Development and Community Participation plan, customized to address individual needs and captured on a Trello board. Please see Rollout section at the link below for additional information and guidance.
Each full-time team member is eligible for a yearly stipend of $1,200.
The stipend will be pro rata for team members contracted to work less than full-time (40 hours/week).
New team members will have a 3-month (90 day) wait period before becoming eligible for a professional development stipend.
No more than 20% of the team can be out on planned vacation & professional development events at a time. We are assessing if the % should be per department or company-wide.
Two (2) months’ notice is needed on spends above $300. From time to time we may also cap the total monthly professional development spend across the company, dependent on the budget and cash flow outlook for the month.
Purchases under $50 can be made without approval, as long as they support professional development goals. Receipts and expense sheets should be submitted in the usual way, noting as professional development costs.
- We have a #prodev Slack channel for prodev-related communication.