Resources for you to guide your employees through successful career paths and conversations, and to also focus on your own growth and development as a manager or people leader.
As a people leader, engaging with your staff in meaningful career conversations can enable them to take ownership of their career path, and ties into an important aspect of UBC's strategic plan: attracting, engaging and retaining good people. Performance enablement is a continuous process of two-way communication between an employee and their leader that occurs throughout the year in support of an employee’s career development and accomplishing UBC’s strategic objectives, and we want to enable staff to perform their best whenever possible.
Just as important for your role as a leader at UBC is engaging in your own leadership development through an ongoing process of setting and pursuing learning goals that advance your ability to remain highly engaged with your work and bring out the best in others. When you commit to strengthening your leadership attributes and presence, you set an example for others, making learning and development a part of everyday conversations.
Access resources and services developed at UBC that are available to assist you in enabling your team members to have a positive workplace experience and to find career satisfaction, and also for you to reflect upon your own impact as a leader and model lifelong learning by identifying and pursuing development goals that align with your interests, strategic objectives and your teams’ needs.
Performance and career conversations
As a manager, you are encouraged to have ongoing, authentic, open dialogue and check ins with your staff members, and cultivate the conditions where employees can thrive and grow. It is highly recommended that you take a genuine interest in your staff’s career ambitions, and work with them to achieve their goals and identify related opportunities for growth, which is critical for their wellbeing and sense of purpose at work and beyond. A key way to accomplish this is to hold regular performance and career conversations, depending on where your staff member is in their annual performance cycle, with a minimum of one career conversation every year.
As a leader, you also have the opportunity to have meaningful performance development conversations with your own manager. Successful conversations with your manager can lead to necessary insights, deeper reflections, and more robust learning plans while ensuring the goals remain relevant and aligned to institutional values and commitments.
Learn more about performance conversations.
COEC conversation model
The Connect, Open, Explore and Close (COEC) conversation model is an established UBC communication approach developed through a partnership with HR, Coaching Services and Extended Learning. The COEC Model supports effective learning conversations of all kinds, and provides employees and managers with structure, questions and prompts and can be easily applied to your annual and ongoing performance, career and development conversations.
View the COEC video transcript.
Conversation guides for managers and leaders
- View the COEC Conversation Model - A Leader's Guide: Learning and Development Conversations (PDF).
- View the Leadership Development: A Leader's Conversation Guide (PDF).
LinkedIn Learning playlist
View a playlist of recommended videos centered around the topic of goal setting, available via LinkedIn Learning .
- Performance Management: Setting Goals and Managing Performance
- Setting Team and Employee Goals Using SMART Methodology
- Defining and Achieving Professional Goals
- How to Set Goals When Everything Feels Like a Priority
Career coaching
You and your staff members may benefit from partnering with a professional coach from UBC Coaching Services in order to focus on career aspirations and advance professional goals and development. Working with a professional career coach may involve clarifying and defining short or long-term goals for career growth, development or planning. You may also explore expectations, values and visioning, determining what success looks and feels like and committing to action. These services may be valuable to you as a leader, and also to your staff members for their own career goals.
Learn more about Coaching services at UBC.
Career retention services
As a leader, you can take advantage of the services available for understanding how to successfully retain and engage your staff members, support them during times of change, and motivate them to continue performing well in their roles. The career retention services available at UBC offer one-on-one consolations or coaching sessions, career conversations practice workshops, and more.
Learn more about Career retention services.
Management fundamentals
View resources and guides to enable you to successfully manage your team with topics like managing underperformance, managing conflict, job evaluation and reclassification, and performance enablement.
Management fundamentals resources - COMING SOON.