Career Development
As an institution of higher education, lifelong learning is an integral part of VCU’s core values. As such, the university is committed to offering learning opportunities for employees to improve current job effectiveness, prepare for career advancement, and enhance personal career development.
Career Progression
VCU provides a number of different ways that an employee can progress in their career:
- Learning new skills to support excellence in current role
- Career pathing (moving up the levels of expertise within a role)
- Promotion in place (getting a new title in the job series)
- Moving up to a new job title within your current school/unit at VCU
- Moving to a similar role in another unit within VCU
- Moving to a completely new role within VCU (career change)
Employees
Employees are the drivers of their own careers, and no matter what your career aspirations may be, career development is an important part of working at VCU. All employees are expected to participate in some form of career development on a regular and ongoing basis to sustain, enhance, and improve their skills and competencies.
By clearly identifying and actively participating in their own career development opportunities, including collaborating with their manager to determine and track progression toward career goals, employees can build the career of their dreams at VCU. To chart the course, employees and managers work together to create a career development plan in Talent@VCU to document agreed upon development opportunities in which the employee will participate.
Managers
To support employees in realizing their full potential, managers are expected to facilitate their employees’ pursuit of career interests, adopt practices that promote career development throughout their area and allow employee participation in appropriate opportunities for learning and growth. This is specified in the Working@VCU: Great Place HR Policy.
Two critical competencies have been identified for effective leadership at VCU: leading others and leading change. Managers are evaluated on these expectations in their annual performance reviews. The university's leadership development offerings are designed around these competencies, so managers have the support and resources they need to be successful in living up to the high standards expected of those who serve in these challenging roles.
Quick Reads:
- Think strategically about your career development (Harvard Business Review)
- Tips to improve your career development (The Balance Careers)
- The Career Development Gap (Forbes)
- The motivational value of clear career paths (Forbes)