1. Staff updates their personal journal by Friday before our 1:1
2. Staff takes a one time skill assessment of all the tech dimensions we use on a likert skill so I know what they are strong and weak at (like might be weak in batch processing, containers, etc).
3. Staff periodically updates their career journey which has
-Start Date
-Elapsed Time
-What were your expectations in the elapsed time you were here?
-Review of skills matrix and what you want improved
-Current Role
-Desired Next Role
-Projects worked on in this year
-What skill sets did I learn in this years projects?
-Certifications
-Next year I want to accomplish
-In 5 years I want to accomplish
[ these are all the artifacts I use as a reference point ofr myself]
-- then during the 1:1 I ask
1. 'how are you?' --> And then I listen to see how their response is. Are they sighing a lot, are they stressed are they bored. I then follow up to make sure everything is okay emotionally or they have issues. I have noticed a lot of employees are not honest in what they say
2. I then assess how they are doing in terms of their
- project delivery
- tech skills
- soft skills
and get feedback accordingly.
Most engineers I have are doing well on projects and tech skills, but often need work on soft skills. I ask them to focus on soft skills by thinking of
- communication
- writing
- reading
For those who need help in communication I advise them to attend a Toastmasters class in person. Also I have been advocating for staff to read 'Supercommunicators' as a way to think about communication as a framework.
For soft skills, I believe the way of improving is being well rounded in the humanities, and not just going hard core tech.