Career Pathways for Administrators

Sue Pandey

Human Resources Division

Career Pathways Project: Aims

assess skills and

attributes

identifying

development needs

plan their future

career moves

support SRD

University-wide

framework identify ‘career paths’

workforce planning

better utilize skills

make the most of

our people

Career Pathways for Administrators

Objectives

• identify ‘career paths’ for administrators

• identify development needs to support both current and future roles

• encourage progression of under represented groups into senior

administrator roles

• identify potential challenges and blockages to career progression, and

make recommendations to resolve these

• identify gaps in development provision and set up this provision, within

budgetary constraints

Benefits of Career Pathways for … individuals

Career Pathways offers the potential for individuals to build and transfer

job skills and behaviours from one context to another, to broaden their range

of expertise and to seek out different challenges.

• identifies learning required for current role and to make next career

steps

• identifies potential ‘career paths’ through the grouping of roles into job

families

• increases the transparency and consistency of role requirements

across the University (skills, attributes)

Benefits of Career Pathways for … the organisation

Career Pathways offers the organisation the potential to have the right

people with the right skills to perform the work that needs doing, both

currently and in the future

• offers managers a University wide framework to support their team

members with career development

• enables the organisation to align individual aspirations and abilities

with organisational resource needs

• highlights issues for workforce planning eg skill shortages,

succession planning

Career Pathways: Key Messages

Career Pathways is … Career Pathways isn’t …

about current role as well as

future roles

just for those that want to

progress

about development a quick fix for a performance

issue

about focussing on the

individual

about PD33 content or grade

a voluntary process, open to

everyone

required by everyone all the

time

Staff Review and Development and Career Pathways

Prepare for SRD discussion Use framework to assess

skills and attributes

SRD discussion; review targets,

future aspirations, identify

development

Following SRD

Agree assessment and

identify skills gaps;

Complete devt plan

Carry out development;

Review devt plan – 6/12m

Career Pathways Process

Behavioural attributes framework

Skills analysis for each grade in job family

Match and Gap – self/manager compare your skills/attributes

to current or next role

1:1 with manager to agree development plan

Behavioural attributes framework

4 levels A – D, covering University roles at Grades 1-12

• Communication

• Relationship Building

• Valuing Diversity

• Achieving Results

• Strategic Focus

• People Development

• Negotiating and Influencing

• Innovation and Change

Skills Framework

Administrator skill areas

IT Committee skills

Organisational/time management Policy, process and systems

Training/facilitation/presentation Customer service and public relations

Analysis and investigation Facilities management

Project management Teaching and learning support

Budgeting/finance management

Research administration

HR management

Learning opportunities

• On-line learning

• On the job training

• Coaching with manager/colleagues

• Courses, workshops

• Work shadowing/exchanges/secondments

• Reading/own research

• Projects

Challenges

• Departmental support – involvement from managers

• Individuals are realistic about their expectations re vacancies,

promotions

• Ensure skills frameworks address more specialist areas

• Culturally acceptable to discuss career aspirations and move between

University institutions

• For future, system and resources in place to capture and use the

information eg for talent management, succession planning,

secondments