Career Nurturing at Xerox

Career development is anything but haphazard at Xerox Information Management (XIM).

When Pat Brewer joined the team last July as its HR director, CIO John McDermott asked her to develop a global framework for career development. The idea was to create a blueprint for determining the steps that XIM should be taking to develop and nurture the career paths of its 800 IT professionals worldwide.

To that end, Xerox developed a Web-based software tool called Global Talent Builder. With the software, which Xerox will begin using this year, IT workers and their supervisors will be able to assess their skill levels and growth potential as well as their competency gaps, says Mark Laffin, a performance and productivity manager at XIM.

Once IT workers have completed their self-assessments, the software helps them choose activities that will address their competency gaps and provides instructions on how to go about doing so, says Laffin.

Working with a third-party vendor, XIM has also created a methodology for assessing IT professionals' potential. The assessment can lead to strategies like giving people "stretch assignments." For example, a US-based worker could be assigned to an international project or to a special project in addition to his usual role.

XIM plans to have its 500 US-based IT workers fill out self-assessment and career development plans during the second half of this year. The effort will go international beginning in 2009, says Brewer.

-- Thomas Hoffman