To broaden awareness of career options and facilitate growth for employees in one business segment of a large healthcare company, WTW was selected to develop an engaging, user-friendly career enablement solution. This solution is now driving meaningful employee-manager discussions, and thoughtful decisions regarding development and rewarding career experiences.
The team identified the following goals:
Attracting, growing and retaining top talent was the overarching goal in designing the career enablement solution.
01
The team first established a thorough overview of the range of capabilities and skills needed to be successful within the business unit—and how different job levels are expected to exhibit these capabilities. Then, to better understand group-specific skillsets and delineate career path options for employees, WTW enlisted its Data Science & Innovation team. The team uses leading research technology and web scraping of peer group data to pinpoint job-related skills. Our proprietary role/title taxonomy process incorporates internal and external database analysis to identify prevalent and emerging skills. The result? WTW and the project team utilized these insights to identify ten specific skills needed for each group in the business segment and career path options within and across related business groups.
02
This initiative gives employees a digital tool to navigate their own careers. Instead of waiting for someone to tap them on the shoulder to suggest a career path or relay a business need, an employee can, on their own, map out career opportunities and determine which skills they need to develop. The platform provides comprehensive information on each of the skills. Employees can see where there’s an overlap in skills and which skills they need to develop to progress their careers in any number of directions within their current group or beyond. Employees are encouraged to consider overlaps and investigate how they can fill gaps with company-provided resources to map their future careers. These resources include thousands of external courses, abstracts of relevant business publications and a robust internal education website to access career development resources, tools and programs.
03
Once the knowledge architecture and digital platform were built, it was time to launch and communicate how to use the platform. In addition to developing an easy-to-follow guide for employees, WTW conducted several train-the-trainer sessions with the company’s HR department.
Adhering to a strategic implementation plan and internal communications program focused on generating excitement and support, HR then managed the roll-out sessions — with great fanfare — to leadership and employees.
Benefits to employees, managers and the organization
The career enablement solution: