“Career” intentionally tops the list of core values at freight brokerage England Logistics LLC. Company president Jason Beardall aims for the organization to provide a fulfilling career complete with progression and growth built into every position—not simply a job.
While career growth has been carefully planned out ahead of time, the intention of England Logistics’ Career Development Program is to set the tone of “Employee driven, leader guided.” The organization believes that when an individual employee takes control of their career progression, they are more engaged and will be more successful.
Program Details
The Career Development Planning program reaches every employee across the organization who has been employed for at least 60 days. At day 60, it all starts with a 360 Evaluation. Each employee chooses at least eight of their peers to provide anonymous feedback regarding their performance, strengths, and weaknesses. They use this information to help them better determine where they are now and where they can grow. With this information, they are better equipped to set career goals that make an impact on their career growth.
The Career Development Plan begins with a personal SWOTH (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and hurdles) analysis filled out by the employee. The feedback provided by their peers in the 360 Evaluation is useful in this stage of planning.
Next, they choose from two general career paths:
- Growth along their current career
OR
- Growth pursuing a different career within the organization
The last part of the career plan is to identify and set goals that will guide them along their chosen career path. Once the plan is complete, it is shared in a one-on-one with the employee’s leader, who helps them clarify anything that needs realignment. The leader then directs, assists, and helps the employee remain accountable to their goals.
At this stage, the leader creates an individualized learning plan designed to systematically guide their employee along their chosen career path. This plan may include specific classes, tasks, and/or job shadowing with the intention to help them acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and experiences so the employee is set up for career success.
Weekly one-on-one accountability meetings between the employee and their manager help keep the employee’s career trajectory on track. These meetings encourage open communication and feedback between both parties to make sure objectives are hit.
Also, annual reviews are scheduled for each employee’s Career Development Plan to make any adjustments needed. These adjustments may come by way of a new career path, updated SWOTH analysis, and/or new goals.
Results
As a result of the Career Development Planning Program, all employees throughout the organization remain focused on the next step of their career path. According to employee engagement surveys, being career focused in this way has had a positive impact on employee satisfaction growing year over year by 9.2 percent.
The Career Development Planning program was designed specifically to impact the corporate goal to achieve more than 200 internal promotions by the end of 2021. As a result of this program and the adoption by all levels of leadership, England Logistics was at 82.7 percent to goal last year.
