Creating Career Development Plans | Season 2 - Episode 1 | Recruitment and Beyond Podcast

The Power of Career Development Plans with Hayley Reaper

Welcome to the latest episode of the Recruitment and Beyond Podcast, your go-to resource for navigating the dynamic world of HR and recruitment. This week, host Ewan is joined by Hayley Reaper, People Lead at Create Future, for an in-depth conversation about the transformative potential of career development plans.

In today’s fast-evolving workplace, career development plans are more than just an HR tool—they're a strategic cornerstone for attracting, retaining, and empowering top talent. Hayley shares how her team at Create Future has created a thriving culture of continuous learning through their innovative performance framework, Own Your Own Potential (OYOP).

This episode dives into how career development plans align individual ambitions with company objectives, fostering engagement and enhancing performance at every level. From nurturing early-career professionals to supporting senior leaders, Hayley highlights the importance of personalized growth opportunities and how they contribute to both employee satisfaction and business success.

Hayley also offers practical advice for businesses looking to introduce or refine their own career development strategies. From gathering employee input to iterating on frameworks as needs evolve, her insights will resonate with leaders of teams both large and small.

Whether you’re looking for tips on engaging employees, boosting retention, or fostering a culture of learning, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways. Join us to learn how to empower your team, invest in their potential, and drive long-term success for your organization.

Hit play now and discover how to transform your approach to career development—because your team’s growth is your business’s growth.

All about Hayley:

Hayley Raeper has been in the people profession for 7 years. Her current role is People Lead at CreateFuture; she joined the business in January 2022 when the business employed around 150 people; 2.5 years later, they are around 450. 

CreateFuture is a digital consultancy and delivery partner that works with clients to find the right solutions together, covering strategy & innovation, product design and engineering, data/AI & cloud & dev ops with employees all over the UK. 

Hayley is passionate about the people profession, helping people grow and develop and bridge any gaps between employer and employee, ensuring people and the business thrive together.

Hayley lives in Scotland and, in her spare time, enjoys spending time with her family and exploring everything beautiful Scotland has to offer!

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Transcript

Ewan (00:05):

Hi. Welcome to the Recruitment and Beyond podcast. This is your essential guide to navigating the ever-changing world of human resources and recruitment. We chat to industry leading figures to give you the inside track on growing and developing the very best teams. This week we chat with Haley Reaper, the People lead at Create Future on the value of career development plans and the importance of getting these right for you. Hi, welcome back to the Recruitment and Beyond podcast. Joined again today by Haley Reaper from Not X Design Create Future. Yes, that was close. That was close, yeah. We're in to talk today to Haley about career development plans. So welcome Haley, nice to see you.

Hayley (00:57):

Thanks you. Thanks for having me back. I can't believe that's probably almost been a year since the first one. I'm sure it was January, so year. That's right.

Ewan (01:05):

Where's the team going? That's what happens when you're busy, isn't it?

Hayley (01:08):

That's what happens. Time flies when you're having fun. That's what

Ewan (01:12):

They say.

(01:13):

That's what they say. No, absolutely. So no, listen, today we wanted to just chat about career development plans. I think a crucial part of obviously any HR team, but involved in just developing the team and ensuring that that you can attract the right people in. But obviously then to retain them and ensure that they want to stay with your organization. Create Futures is really kicking on and developing a great business there. And clearly the last time we spoke you were getting a lot of applications coming into you. They didn't need any kind of support with that because people really recognized the brand and saw it growing and developing. And so I suppose then it's then thinking about, well, how do we keep that great talent and develop them? So from a career development plan, is that on your agenda? Is that part of what you're doing as part of your team just now and your HR team?

Hayley (02:00):

Yeah, absolutely. And they're obviously, they're well on the priority list at our agenda at Create Future, but I actually think they should be on every business's agenda. It's so important, isn't it, that those development plans and just fostering that culture, which is something we continue to work on at Create Future, but that culture of continuous learning is absolutely fundamental to our culture and to that feeling of belonging with our people as well. So I think, yeah, it's definitely, definitely a priority on the agenda and really important.

Ewan (02:33):

Is it hard to make that leap or that connection between say a career development plan and continuous learning and then the business objectives? Is it hard to knit that together? I presume you have to present some of this to the board, you have to present this to working group, whatever it might be to get buy-in from people. Is it hard to make that connection or is there a link there that you can show?

Hayley (02:56):

I think there can be a link. I think development plans can also help bridge maybe personal career goals and they can help make that link to the businesses like strategic objectives as well and getting that overall alignment and that then sort of allows your people to contribute more meaningfully. They ensure that what they're doing that's filtering into the bigger picture, isn't it? And they're making that difference to the business as a whole as well. And at the same time, they're developing the skills that are valuable to the company's success as well as theirs, as well as the clients, the bottom line. So I think it's really important, and I think if ever you have to put a plan forward to the board for sign off, for example. Well first and foremost, you want to retain your top talent, your best people. They're your biggest asset that you want to invest in.

(03:42):

It's your people's growth and development. That progression, the skills development is absolutely huge for our people at Create Future. They are, if any of them are watching, I'm not just saying this, but they are technically brilliant individuals that always want a better themselves. So if we can empower them to do so, I am all for that because like I said, in turn they will do better work for our clients. So empowering them to have that control over their work, their career trajectory, which also makes them more engaged, more engaged project teams as well. I just think it's so important for HR leaders, for HR teams to be investing in.

Ewan (04:21):

Yeah. Does it matter in terms of where you are in your career, do you find that it's more when people are coming in at early stage of their career, they want to know that career development opportunities there or does it matter if people get to that management level? Obviously there's different aspects of what they're looking to learn, but does everybody now looking for that as they come in and they want to start working for a create future?

Hayley (04:44):

Yeah, I think if I had our talent lead on this call, they would be saying that they're asked that a lot. What would my career look like at Create Future? How can I progress? It's really in this generation it's all about that learning and development. So I think it's really great to be able to take in more junior employees and watch their career thrive as they progress through as well. But also I don't think the learning stops, the development stops at any level. I've been in the people profession for seven years and I still feel like I'm showing up to work every day and learning something every day. Every day is a school day still, isn't it? I'm just learning different things. I may be learning more about people leadership, about coaching and mentoring, the more junior members of the team rather than being the one that's mentored. So I think there is always a balance regardless of seniority. I'm sure our chief people officer would say that they are still learning things every day as well. They're just learning different things based on their role.

Ewan (05:40):

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think it doesn't matter what career set career sector you're in, sorry, what sector you're in. I think everybody's wanting to learn and develop and grow. And I know that from a marketing point of view, it's continually evolving and developing and you need to stay on top of it, don't you? But I guess it's aligning that learning then with career development really being structured about it and really understanding what do you need to do to get to the next step or even take a side step into a different area. So I suppose that was where we wanted to go with this next is just to really understand what are the key elements of a good development plan, a career development plan.

Hayley (06:19):

So I don't think for a well-executed career development plan, I don't think you need to have a massive budget if that's what you are worried about. Of course budget helps. It always does. It opens up more opportunities, maybe different tools to use. I am thinking about things like maybe LinkedIn learning for your people. That's obviously a cost associated, but I think as well, there's so much that people can own themselves for their development. So as a bit of an example of what we do at Creek Future, and I think I did touch on this back in January when we had just started. So we've evolved this performance framework a little bit more in 2023, we created a performance framework and it's called Own your Own Potential, OYOP, oily up. I can't say oily up reminds me of that fruit, that yogurt drink. But anyway, everyone in the business is very familiar with it.

(07:11):

Now this is about 12 months, 14 months well into that journey and that encompasses a whole host of areas. So we're talking feedback, we're talking performance-based success ratings, progression, promotion tools, learning growth, and so much more. It's a real umbrella framework and all of your everyday can flow into that. And what that means for our people, that means proactivity, they're setting their goals, they're pursuing what learning works for them, they're driving their development forward. We are looking at embracing feedback. We're seeking out, we are learning and growing for that feedback. We want to build a culture where everyone feels comfortable getting that constructive input. That's how we learn, that's how we grow, that's how we develop. And also clear expectations so people understand what is expected for growth, what's expected within their role profiles, their competency frameworks, their career pathways for example. And it also means it's their pace.

(08:08):

So we know everyone develops differently. There is no race, there is no comparison. It is their unique path to success and development, and that means it gives them autonomy. They are driving their development, they're in the driver's seat, focusing on the activities that resonates with them, brings them joy and you can expand your network like connecting the colleagues across the business outside of your project team, your department. You're building those relationships gives you a bit of career calibration. Development isn't just about promotion. O-U-I-O-P lets you tailor your growth to your broader career aspirations that you mentioned. Maybe a bit of a sideways step rather than up all the way, bit of T-shaped development there as well. And that flexibility, we know life happens, I'm a working mom, we get it. Sometimes you have to drop everything and go and school run or oh, he is been at school brilliant.

(09:02):

So if you need to take some time off and just take your foot off the pedal, slow down a little bit, that's fine. Adapt. We just allow people to develop at their own pace and we've created quite a lot of tools to help people own their own potential as well. Like competency framework. There's no cost associated with those. That's just a timing thing to bring them all together and that's where they can review their current performance, see what they need to accomplish to be maybe promoted, if that's where they want to go. If they don't want to be promoted, that's also fine. Like I mentioned, LinkedIn learning for online courses, we have that dedicated learning time and some budgets as well and a bit of a change. What we've implemented this year with our learning strategy is we've tiered our learning to foundational learning. So think your compliance training, if you think of foundational, personal, something you personally want to learn about for me in my role and then strategic learning. So that's something the business needs you to learn. So currently we're doing a big push on ai, so everybody within Create Future has to complete their AI course. And Jeff, if you're watching, I'm halfway through, so it's really good to break down the learning in that way as well.

Ewan (10:14):

Yeah, that's fascinating. They own your own potential. I think it gives people the freedom, but there must have been, I mean how do you go about starting something like that? Is that a blank sheet and saying, because there's a lot to connect there. You've got your performance management as well, or not performance management, your appraisals and so on. You've got your job specs. That all needs to be prepared before people come in. So I mean I know you're saying this has been going on for 12, 14 months now, but there must have been a lot of work going in at the start to really pull that framework together. And it seems to me it's all based around learning. Your whole job is based around learning to then develop and grow. Would that be right? And where do you start with something like that? Let's connect the dots.

Hayley (10:58):

Do you know what I'm saying? 12 to 14 months time really does fly. We actually started it I think in March last year, so it's a little bit longer than that. And obviously there was a lot of thought, a lot of work has going as well from so many people across the business. But what we did, we phased it because you can't do everything at once. So phase one was, well, how are we going to know if people are doing well in their roles? Well, we probably should have a competency framework, shouldn't we? For each grade and each role and probably some core competencies as well, which I'll come on to later. So yeah, so that's obviously a bit of work. We were partnering with our leaders with our departments to get a bit of a one of a competency framework now I think we're on a V three at this point.

(11:43):

So they have evolved. That's not just one piece of work you do once and that's it because roles changes, the business changes. We then decided, well probably we had job ads for recruitment, but we should probably get job descriptions as well off the back of these new competency frameworks. We call them role profiles. Well, our team had to write a hundred role profiles as well. Yeah, it's been a lot of work to be where we are today. So then we thought, right, well we've got a competency framework, we've got role profiles. We can probably now introduce success ratings, which is our end of year performance because we now have something we can measure people against properly. Now that has been very trial and error. We've on reflection, we maybe made mistakes as a business rolling that out without getting input from everybody. It was quite not rushed, but we did have quite a tight turnaround, so we maybe didn't take people on the journey as much as we normally do with some change, but we have definitely learned from that so that everybody got a success rating in January this year, which was also linked to salary, which was something new as well.

(12:50):

So there's obviously the emotion and the conversations that we have to have there as well. Then we spent the first couple of months of this year doing some focus groups and some retros on how we can improve that For this year we created journals for people's self-advocacy off the back of that feedback so they can document all the great things that they're doing and share that with their manager because within create future, your manager doesn't necessarily work with you on the day-to-day on your project

(13:21):

And some of our engineering team, so they found it quite difficult to know how they're performing. They have to rely on their project manager. So we introduce journals from that point of view as well. We also introduce a mid-year rating, so we have a bit of a touch point at the six month mark this year. Give you a bit of an indicator of your trajectory towards the end of the year, which would be more formal. And also if nothing else, a little bit for practice run, which has made it much more of an easier transition for this year. We've still done some training, share some documents, but we will get to a point where these ratings, they've just become BAU. Each time we do it, it gets easier. We act on feedback, we learn from the feedback and we adapt. And who knows next year I think we've done a V three, we could be on, sorry, phase four next year, mentoring, coaching, like you say, everything you can link everything back to on your own potential if you really wanted to some way or another.

Ewan (14:16):

Absolutely. And I think actually, so just touching on that because that was one of the questions we're going to talk about, what does success look like? But you've kind of mapped out there really well, but because you're going through those iterations and you're changing and you're just adapting as you go, as you should, has it been sometimes hard to bring people with you? Because obviously it's quite an emotional thing when you're a success rate and it sounds great, but obviously it's aligned to salary and bonuses and whatever else. It's quite an emotional thing. Has it been a challenge bringing people with you on that and knowing fine, well that you're going to go through some changes or has maybe support from leadership really ironed some of those challenges out? Has that helped?

Hayley (14:54):

I think with any change you need that buy-in from leadership, don't you? And they've been great and continue to be great as we evolve on your own potential. I think overall it is gone well. But yeah, I think more communication was maybe needed at some point. But I think we've definitely learned from that with the focus groups and showing also people as well, this is what you've said and this is what we've done about it. You said last year that only the line manager could input where's the staff advocacy or this year here's your journal to input all of the great things you've done. And at the midyear review, the individual got to input their proposed rating as well as the line manager. So I think just showing that you are listening to that feedback, and I think that's with any engagement, people go, well, what's the point in feeding back?

(15:42):

They're not going to do anything about it. If you can show that you are listening and off the back of that, this is what's changed. I think that's critical. And I think in terms as well, what does good look like if you see people progressing towards their individual goals as well and tracking their achievements with the journals, their long-term, their short-term goals. I think that just gives you some great insight as well. And as a manager, if you've set your direct reports and growth areas and they've absolutely smashed it, that gives you a little bit of pride as well, doesn't it? Or they've got a promotion that you've advocated for. I think all of that builds into an overall success.

Ewan (16:21):

Yeah, no, absolutely. And it builds that trust that I think, excuse me. You're absolutely right. That two-way communication to say, you've suggested this, we've implemented this, or if it wasn't quite right, we've taken your idea, we've kind of adapted it and here's the result of that. Thanks for the feedback kind of thing, because you're absolutely right. Nothing worth than feedback just disappearing into a black hole and thinking, well, what is the point? And I think that's a really valuable point is increasing that communication to just highlight, this is what you said, this is what we did, and helping it to evolve. Do you help people create some time for that as well? So obviously going forward, you've got to have time to do some of the career development stuff, whether it's additional learning or even just a wee bit of time to write in your journal. I know it can be one of those things. Reflection, I've been talking to my team quite a bit about reflection recently and just taking that time to take 20 minutes to the end of the day or whatever it might be, and just reflect on what's been happening. I presume you try and help people create that time for journal rating or whatever it might be.

Hayley (17:20):

Oh, absolutely. Even those that are putting their time into our time tracking system, for example, you can still have internal miscellaneous for input in your journal, giving feedback maybe via our engagement platform. And I think it's so important. If you don't put time in for it, you just don't do it. And I'm my own worst enemy. Obviously you don't get many meetings. Well, we don't on a Friday afternoon, so at four o'clock every Friday I just put 30 minutes in and I'm like, focus time, complete journal. And it also means that I just look back over that week. Now, there might not be anything that week for me to input, but I'd much rather that than wait three months and then it's a much bigger task, more time consuming for me to have to put that detail in.

Ewan (18:06):

Yeah, no, absolutely a hundred percent. And just giving yourself that wee extra time. But I suppose talking to the team and making them feel like I can put that time in place. I think sometimes everybody's under a lot of pressure and get things done or whatever, and they don't see it as, it's one of those things, I'll do it later, but it's really, it's an invaluable part of development and growth, isn't it? And giving people the reassurance that they can take that time. We're happy for you to take that time, take that 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it might

Hayley (18:34):

Be. And we've been really clear in that to ensure that people feel confident they can take the time, but also we had feedback again, or the journal doesn't work for me. Some people are more creative. So we're like, well, if you want to do Miro, I actually don't mind how you evidence all your accomplishments this year. Just evidence them if that's a Google doc, because that's how you work. If that's a visual, something beautiful with shapes and popups, I don't know. As long as it's getting across what you've done, your manager has a better idea of your performance, you go for it.

Ewan (19:13):

Yeah, and that's one of the things I was going to ask actually just during the challenges of implementing this, and you've touched on some of them, but if you've got someone who's not interested in that and not that it seems like the culture you've created there is very much around, we want people to develop personally and professionally and grow. And inevitably sometimes people are just, look, I'm quite happy, just let me be. Is that a challenge or presumably that goes partly back to your recruitment around bringing the right people and bringing in people who are ambitious and want to grow. Would that be right?

Hayley (19:46):

Yes. I mean, but we do listen. If someone is performing and they are performing well, but they're saying, Hey, I don't want to be promoted. I am at the level that I am comfortable at and I'm happy with my work-life balance, that is absolutely fine. Obviously don't fall behind on the tech if it changes. But hr, you can't fall behind on the legal changes and requirements like the fundamentals and the basics of that role. But promotion isn't for everybody. Even progression to a degree isn't for everybody. So as long as you're doing your job well, which is our core rating for your own potential, doing a great job, we are okay with that. And I think you do want some, obviously you want motivation, you want engagement with things like this, otherwise they probably can falter a little bit or I think some of it as well as employees might lose interest because they fail to see the relevance or how to see how it's going to help them if maybe progression isn't visible. So I think that's where line managers play a really critical role here in ensuring that they're checking in with their direct report at least quarterly, not only from a wellbeing perspective, but also how are you getting on with maybe those growth areas? Have you done any learning time recently?

(20:57):

And if they're not engaged or if they're disengaged, maybe we need to rethink one of the areas that they were interested in or look at something else that maybe they're passionate about to get that spark back. It may just be that we were looking in the wrong area.

Ewan (21:10):

Absolutely, and I think that's again an interesting thing. You've given the employees time to develop that right in their journal, whatever, but it's important that the managers take that time as well and see it as valuable time to actually just sit down with your employee and help them on that, help them on that journey. And again, see that as a valuable time. Again, I say there's lots going on, but that is a really important part of the process, isn't it? Because these little aspects, the little one percents there just taking time to sit with your team or writing in your journal. They all add up to that bigger picture of an organization built on professional development and growth and learning. It sounds like that's exactly what you're trying to do there.

Hayley (21:52):

Yeah, absolutely. And I think as well, if you ever got any pushback again from the board, I think I mentioned explain, having the pros far outweigh any cons in my opinion, of having a personal development plan. If you want to retain your top talent to ensure they continue to develop, otherwise they'll just go somewhere else that will invest in their development. And then you've got costs for recruiting, onboarding, you've got potential client impact to consider as well. And I used to work for Virgin many, many years ago, and one of my favorite, Richard Branson quotes kind of ties into this as well, like train people well enough so they can leave, but treat them well enough so they don't want to. And I think development plays a crucial role here in how people feel within the business as well.

Ewan (22:42):

That's a really good point. Yeah, absolutely. And just touching back on the point that you were talking about that some people, it's maybe not the right path they want to go on. Do you help people if they want to transition into maybe another part of the business, if you want to go from, and I don't know if you do this, but maybe want to go from a software development role into a market role, appreciate their different skills, but is that there for that support? It always goes back to marketing.

Hayley (23:08):

I want to come and work with you in marketing. We have people within create future that have cross skilled, for example, so that might be into another engineering capability or they're learning another language. So knowing that their job is still very much their wheelhouse, but they've expanded their knowledge, which I never think is a bad thing. And they're learning about more engineering areas, meaning that we can also, they're more utilized in client work as well, which is very exciting for some people. They're more full stack engineers. So it's probably not quite a career change in that example. It's more a broadening of skills. But I think if it was a complete, if I wanted to leave HR and go into marketing, we'd obviously, we'd need to look at the needs of the business and if that could fit in with the company's vision and what our short term plans are as well. And if we could, great. If we couldn't, there could be aspects of the role that the person could learn about while I still work, so I could stay in hr, but maybe you would be my mentor. So we'd have a couple of hours a month where you would teach me about the basics of marketing. So I'm still getting that interest, of course, still staying within my current role, and I think that's important as well.

Ewan (24:19):

No, absolutely. No, that makes total sense. And in terms of, there's obviously a personal development here as well and keen to keep developing the individual itself, themselves. Sorry, is that a key part of this as well? I know that for inclusive leadership and so on, really it's important that the individual grows as much professionally as they do personally. Is there a part of that within that career development plan that you pulled together?

Hayley (24:48):

Yeah, I think professional and personal are quite linked. They, I think they, an interlink I think can be a bit interchangeable sometimes. Personal growth forms foundation for professional growth. And like I said, in some scenarios they might run concurrently. I think it depends what role you're in, where you are in your career journey as well. But I think it's important to nurture the individual as much as the profession, if that makes sense. So by doing this, they'll get their personal development, but that will enrich their professional capability. So they just get that well-rounded foundation that then supports their career, supports the business. And overall, I think probably satisfaction, career satisfaction as well.

Ewan (25:38):

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's what people are looking for, is that their job is such a big part of their life that they want to grow in both areas. So as they grow professionally, they grow personally as well, whether it's confidence, whether it's the ability to go and engage in different areas in different spheres of their life, or even just getting that personal professional development, sorry, work-life balance, really developing the skills and the knowledge to allow you to have that freedom and that ability to, or even look at other areas of development. It's something that's really important to the individual to help them. And I think when you have that feeling as an individual, you bring more to your work anyway. You have that confidence, I suppose, as much as anything else. Yeah,

Hayley (26:20):

Absolutely. I might read a book in my personal life, it's not necessarily a HR book, but I might just be reading it for pleasure rather than work, but I might read something in that and I'm like, my goodness, I never thought of it that way. And I could actually take that and put that into a professional concept and that could really help me. So I think there is definitely overlaps in many ways, even with teaching programs.

Ewan (26:42):

Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, listen, that's been a great chat around the career development plans and how you guys are tackling that. So if somebody's listening just now and they're looking at this, whether they're a smaller business or a larger organization and sitting with a blank sheet of paper, have you got any maybe top three tips that you might give us just in terms of starting that career development plan process?

Hayley (27:05):

Yes, I think do what feels right for you as a business to develop that strategy. It needs to work for you, it needs to work for your goals, and it needs to work for your people. So perhaps speak to the people, focus groups, I dunno, a survey, and just take them on that journey with you because when it lands, they'll be much more engaged with that as well. I think also look at having some core development pieces that fit across the whole business that can link maybe to your values if you have them as a business as well. And so that's communication, your behaviors and everyone should be held accountable to those at all levels. That's your core fundamentals that have a core competency, for example. And then I think as well, and this is how I feel like in the world of creative future, don't be afraid to pivot, be agile, collect that regular feedback and make adjustments where it's required. It doesn't have to be perfect. Get it out there, get that feedback and amend as required. Like I said, I think our competencies are on version three now because they're going to change as the business evolves as well. And that's all right.

Ewan (28:15):

No, that's brilliant. That's absolutely spot on because you need people to have that confidence to say, look, we're on version three now. We've adapted. It's not mistakes. It's adapting and growing and developing and making it better. So absolutely spot on. That's great. Thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciate that. And yeah, I look forward to catching up again soon.

Hayley (28:36):

Yeah, thank you. Anytime. Anytime.

Ewan (28:40):

Perfect. Thanks for listening to the Recruitment and Beyond podcast. Hopefully there was plenty of insight for you to date back to your team. So subscribe today and never miss an episode. And if you want to leave us a review, it will only help us learn and improve.