Building Technical Capability the Right Way
Career Tracks: Due to the existing archetype that career growth in the organization is offered to those who display the potential to lead larger teams and manage bigger budgets, organizations are sustaining a loss of technical depth as high performing technical talent is opting to move towards the traditional managerial tracks, in order to gain access to the career growth opportunities available to managerial talent. The second step in designing the technical career framework is to identify the possible technical career paths (across job families), detail expectations from various career levels on each track and communicate to employees that both paths are equally important to the fabric of the organization and thus, success on either path will be rewarded with parity. Technical Competencies: Once the career tracks across various job families have been identified and expectations from various levels on each track have been articulated, the next step is to develop technical/functional competencies for each job family. A technical competency framework serves as the bedrock of the technical career framework as it articulates how knowledge and skill requirements progress through different levels of proficiency in the organization. This articulation becomes critical in measuring where the organization's technical capability stands currently and paves the way for the identification of true learning gaps. Similar to how a leadership/behavioral competency framework provides a consistent language for an individual and his/her manager while having a discussion focused on vertical movements/promotions, the technical competency framework provides the language for movement of talent from one technical domain to another. Integrated Role Profiles: The fourth step in designing the career framework is to bring all of the elements mentioned above (career tracks, career level expectations, existing behavioral competencies and the technical competencies) together into integrated role profiles. A role profile provides succinct information about a role, integrating expectations that are common for the organization (at a particular career level) as well as those that are unique for the job family. These role profiles provide a framework for building job descriptions that are more customized to particular job roles.
Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Embedding the Technical Career Framework
A well-developed, clearly articulated technical career framework serves as an anchor for many other HR programs and processes. In fact, the technical career framework by and of itself remains to be a collection of spreadsheets and presentations; the success of the framework is determined by the strength of the linkages to other HR processes and likewise the success of other HR processes is enhanced by a clear linkage to the technical career framework. Performance Management: Aside from evaluating employees on assigned performance parameters, organizations must also focus on assessing employees' competencies during the annual performance review cycle. This ensures that performance conversations also focus on the HOW (technical and behavioral competencies) of an employee's job, over and above the WHAT (KRAs and related KPIs), paving the way for capability building at an individual level. Long-term Career Development: Because technical career frameworks help employees visualize multiple career journeys that they could undertake in the organization, the institution of a long-term career development process different from the short-term focused performance management process becomes imperative. Managers and HR partners should be able to help an employee navigate his/her career by designing customized development roadmaps that will enable the employee to move from his/her current role to target destination role(s) elsewhere in the organization.
Training and Development: With the concept of blended learning steadily gaining strength in current T&D practices, the development of a structured learning academy that aggregates learning infrastructure (e.g. classroom trainings, eLearning modules, content literature, etc.) helps organizations streamline (and, more importantly, uncomplicate) the development process for employees. A robust dashboard tracking individual and organizational metrics helps gauge the efficacy of the learning ecosystem.
Rewards: Similar to how incentive-based pay mechanisms are designed for managerial talent (with metrics around organization performance, function performance, team performance, etc.), organizations need to deploy mechanisms that reward superior technical contributions and capability suitably. These could be in the form of salary premiums for unique technical skills, lump-sum awards for business impact due to technical excellence/innovation or financial support for advanced degree programs.
Recognition: Aside from financial incentives,organizations can also appreciate technical contributions and capability through a plethora of non-financial incentives. These include mechanisms most relevant for technical talent like sabbatical periods for research/ education, off-time for thought leadership creation, stars/belts/stripes recognizing technical prowess, etc.
In Conclusion
Technical functions of organizations across industries are struggling with this challenge, and some have shown the commitment needed to achieve an equilibrium that positively impacts both an employee's career and the organization's capability. All elements of designing and implementing an intervention of this kind require organizations to have a clear line of sight of the experience an employee will have as he/she charts out his/her career journey. While the task of building organizational capability rests on the shoulders of the business/HR, the employee must feel empowered to take charge of his/her own career journey, truly bringing the technical career framework alive in the everyday workings of the organization.
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