Career Development System: viCareerPath

viCareerPath enables you to implement and manage a full career development program suited to the specific culture and objectives of your organization. It enables everyone to participate in meeting established advancement standards through a blended program of competencies and benchmarks, learning management, work availability, mentoring and career development plans.

viCareerPath is delivered with best practice approaches to every facet of career development programming.

Modules include:

» COMPETENCIES AND BENCHMARKS

In viCareerPath, you can manage employees' progression through sets of benchmarks (skills checklists) organized within competency categories. Employees can update their benchmark information, indicating what they have accomplished. Various reports reveal who needs more experience in certain areas, who has the skills set to take on specific new work, etc. These reports help you insure that employees receive the work they need and progress effectively.

At law firms and other professional services firms, benchmarks may be organized by practice group and level. You may also include broadly applicable competencies such as leadership, teamwork, communication, etc. Associates may update their benchmark information at scheduled intervals.

» AVAILABILITY FOR NEW WORK ASSIGNMENTS

Employees can indicate their availability during the coming week(s). When availability is coupled with benchmark information about skill levels and needed experience, work can be effectively allocated.

» LEARNING MANAGEMENT

viCareerPath facilitates online management of your training curriculum. You can organize training programs by department and role (or level and practice area at professional services firms), and map programs to specific benchmarks for automated training recommendations. When employees sign up for training programs, viCareerPath books the programs in the employees' calendars and sends reminders. After a program takes place, employees can submit an online program evaluation. Reports indicate who signed up for which program and who attended.

» MENTORING

viCareerPath tracks mentoring meetings, notes and follow-up items, and it auto-emails reminders to mentors and mentees. You can enable mentors to see information about an employee's competencies and benchmarks, training programs and goals.

» CAREER DEVELOPMENT PLANS

viCareerPath can accommodate various types of career development plan processes. For example, employees can set forth a career plan, document progress toward achievement of that plan, and modify their plans as they progress. Managers or mentors can review employees' plans and provide feedback. In another scenario, managers can establish departmental goals in alignment with organizational goals, and employees can then set aligned individual goals as part of their career development plans.

Special Features

» REPORTS

Through a wide array of customizable reports, viCareerPath serves as a valuable decision-support tool. For example, employees can see their benchmark accomplishments and whether they are ahead of or behind where they should be for their level. At law and other professional services firms, practice group leaders can view the competencies, benchmarks status, and availability of the group's associates to identify skills gaps and decide upon work allocation. Professional development personnel can view comparisons of same-level employees. Reports can be tailored to your business requirements and accessed according to set permission levels.

» HOMEPAGE INTEGRATION

viCareerPath includes a homepage for each user. Each employee sees a central view of all information relevant to his or her career development. Managers, mentors and practice group leaders can access other people's career development information. All users can see a list of activities requiring action before an approaching due date. The homepage can be customized based on your objectives and security requirements, and it is scalable to accommodate an expanding program of career and performance management.

» SYSTEM INTEGRATION

viCareerPath integrates with viDesktop's performance management and survey system (viEval) for centralizing and integrating all career development and performance information. It also integrates with viDesktop's recruiting system (viRecruit) for housing applicant information and setting forth tailored orientation and training programs for new hires based on their initial skills sets. Accounting system integration allows billable and matter information to be included in availability and benchmark reports. Integration with mandatory continuing education compliance management systems ensures accurate credit tracking. The viDesktop suite enables you to produce people-centric views and reports that display relevant applicant, performance and career development information by person. viCareerPath also integrates with your HR and email/calendaring systems.

Benefits

viCareerPath is a true "best practices" solution for integrating new hires, developing their skills, assuring long-term professional well-being and satisfaction, and achieving maximum retention and advancement of your organization's strategic goals. Benefits include:

• Flexible framework: Plan development activities based on skill levels, skills gaps, availability, background, etc.
• Shared participation: Employees may actively participate in pacing their own career development.
• Audit trail: Maintain a comprehensive record of all career development activities and benchmarks, including related notes.
• Informed decision-making: Give section heads and professional development staff key snap shot information, essential for scheduling resources, matching skills, availability, needs and interests to work requirements, and balancing workloads.
• Strategic training curriculum: Link training resources to benchmarks for targeted development recommendations. Assess training needs, define learning objectives, and refine your curriculum.
• Security model: Access levels may be determined by location, practice group or department, role, etc.
• Scalable: Stagger the introduction of various modules in the system, and set up differently structured career development programs by department/practice area or office location.