6Career Management

Career Management

Getting Started with Career Management

Career Planning

The Career Planning feature of Taleo Performance allows an employee and/or the manager to lay out a series of career scenarios in the employee's career plan. The scenarios are independent of one another so there can be overlaps in the jobs contained in each scenario.

Career planning is based on job roles rather than positions, which enables you to build more generic career scenarios. For example, there might be a Regional VP of Sales job role and three positions -- one for an eastern region, one for a central region and one for a western region. When outlining your career scenarios, or the career scenarios of your employees if you are a manager, you would indicate the person's interest in the job role of Regional VP of Sales rather than in one of the individual positions.

Additionally, there are no requirements that force a particular job progression or sequence. For example, a person may be in an Vice President of Support role, but has a desire to move to Sales. The Career Planning feature allows to account for “demotions” as well as lateral moves. The Vice President of Sales can add a job role of Sales Manager followed by Vice President of Sales.

The Career Planning feature is available in Taleo Performance when the Career Planning Enabled setting in Taleo Performance Administration is set to Yes. The setting is located at:

• Taleo Performance Administration > Settings > Career Planning

The Career Planning feature is also dependent on the Job Roles configuration.

Career Plan

A career plan is one or a series of career scenarios (or paths) that an employee might be interested in pursuing in the organization. Each scenario is composed of a series of steps and each step is associated with a job role. A step (and the corresponding job role) can be unique to a scenario or can be used in multiple scenarios.

A career plan is composed of one or multiple scenarios and each scenario is composed of one or multiple steps. The number of scenarios possible in a career plan as well as the number of steps (and corresponding job roles) allowed in each scenario are determined in Taleo Performance Administration.

• Taleo Performance Administration > Settings > Career Planning > Maximum Number of Scenarios

• Taleo Performance Administration > Settings > Career Planning > Maximum Number of Career Steps

Employees can create their own career plan or managers can perform this task on behalf of their direct reports. Any action taken on a career plan is applied automatically and requires no approval either from the employee or the manager. For example, an employee could create a career plan for himself/herself and the plan could be modified afterward by the person's manager without obtaining the employee's consent.

Career Scenario

A career scenario is a series of steps for career advancement. A career scenario and its steps are defined by the employee himself/herself or by the employee's manager. A career scenario can be “vertical”, for example, manager > director > vice president, or “lateral”, if the employee seeks to gain broader experience, for example, business analyst > solution consultant > consulting director.

The number of scenarios possible in a career plan, as well as the number of steps (and consequently, job roles) allowed in each scenario, are both determined in Taleo Performance Administration.

• Taleo Performance Administration > Settings > Career Planning > Maximum Number of Scenarios

• Taleo Performance Administration > Settings > Career Planning > Maximum Number of Career Steps

Furthermore, although a specific job role can only be included once in the same scenario, it can be included in any number of other scenarios.

Career Step

A career step corresponds to a specific job role in a career scenario. Though a particular job role can only be used once in a scenario, it can be used in any other scenario, at the same step or at a different step.

The number of steps (and consequently, job roles), allowed in each scenario is determined in Taleo Performance Administration.

• Taleo Performance Administration > Settings > Career Planning > Maximum Number of Career Steps

Furthermore, although any one job role can only be included once within the same scenario, it can be included in any other scenario.

As stated earlier, though a particular job role can only be used once in a scenario, it can be used in any other scenario. For example, you could have multiple scenarios with identical steps and associated job roles with the exception of the last step whose job role would be different for each scenario.

Job Role Search

The job role search capability offered in Career Planning allows you to search job profiles to find job roles that represent career moves that might interest you.

You can perform three different types of searches.

• Keyword Search - Used when you want to search for a specific text string. Keyword Search will search all the following sections for the string.

  • Name of job profile

  • Description of job profile

  • Name of certification

  • Name of competency

  The following keyword search options can be selected.

  • Search for exact match of a string with the use of quotation marks.

  • Search for partial strings of text with the use of wildcard characters.

  • Search for multiple words without the use of the AND boolean operator.

  • Search for any of a list of words with the use of the OR boolean operator (the operator needs to be in upper case).

• Advanced Search - Used when you want to perform complex searches for job roles that include, either as a requirement or an asset, a specific job level, job field or competency. If the criterion is optional, you can specify the relative weight of the criterion, from 1 to 5.

• Best Fit Search - Used to perform a search for job roles that best correspond to the competencies of the employee's current job.

Fit Analysis

The Fit Analysis tool available in a career plan allows you to see the list of competencies that are part of a particular job role and the gap between an employee's current rating and the recommended rating for the job role.

The Fit Analysis can be performed for any job role card related to a specific job role or for the current job. The Fit Analysis tool panel displays up to three different sections: Strengths, Improvements and Unknown Areas.

• Strengths - This section lists the competencies where the employee has been rated higher than the recommended rating for the job. The competency must be a requirement for the job for it to appear in the strengths.

• Improvements - This section lists the competencies where the employee has been rated lower than the recommended rating for the job.

• Unknown Areas - This section lists the competencies that are required for the job but for which the employee has not been evaluated.

For each of these sections, the recommended rating as well as the employee's current rating (if available) are displayed graphically. If no competencies match the criteria of the section, the section is not displayed. By default, three competencies are displayed per section, but a More link is provided to display all available competencies in each section.

Fit Analysis Display Configuration

A configuration setting in the Administration pages allows the Fit Analysis to be turned off or on in the Career Plan and Snapshot cards. Some customers do not use a competency model and find the Fit Analysis irrelevant. Or, at times even customers that do use competencies prefer not to display the Fit Analysis as it can be distracting and possibly misleading during career planning activities.

Fit Analysis Display - On

Selecting a job card highlights the card and opens the Tools panel if it is closed. When the Fit Analysis is enabled, the competencies related to the selected Job Role display along with the employee competency ratings categorized by strengths and improvements.

The Snapshot Card display mimics that of the Career Plan depending on whether the Fit Analysis is enabled or disabled.

Fit Analysis Display - Off

Selecting a job card highlights the card and opens the Tools panel if it is closed. When the Fit Analysis is disabled, the competencies related to the selected Job Role display in alphabetical order without the employee competency ratings.

Competencies

A competency which is not already on an employee's Talent Profile can be added to the Talent Profile directly from the Career Plan.

Proper user permissions must be in place. This encourages career planning by providing the ability to add competencies required for future job roles or personal development.

Performing a Keyword Search for Job Roles

Performing a keyword search for job roles allows to search for entire words or word stems in job profiles, more precisely in the name or description of job roles or in the name of competencies or requirements included in job profiles.

1. Open the career plan (your career plan or the career plan of a direct report if you are a manager).

2. When the Career Plan window is displayed, select Add a career step to bring up the search .

3. In the Job Role Search section, enter the text string you want to search for in the Job Role or Job Field fields.

   You can enter any of the following types of information, depending on what you are searching for:

   • Text string - Enter an entire word or just a part of a word to search for all occurrences of that word or word stem. For example, if you entered “manage” (without the parentheses), the result list would include all occurrences of “manage” including words such as “manage”, “management”, “manager”, “manages”, etc.

   • Exact match - Enter the exact string in quotation marks that you are looking for. Example: You would enter “sales manager” including the parentheses to search for job roles that included that specific string.

   • Multiple words and/or word stems - Enter a combination of words, separated by a space, to search for job roles that contain all the words. For example, you would enter “manage direct” without the parentheses to search for all job roles that contained both words that begin with “manage” and words that begin with “direct”.

   • One string or another - Enter multiple words separated by the boolean operator OR to search for job roles that contain any of the words. The operator OR must be entered in uppercase. For example, enter “manager OR director OR sales” (without the parentheses) to search for all job roles that include at least one of the words. The search results might contain job roles that more than one of the words.

4. Click Search.

   The system searches for the text string in the following sections of job profiles:

   • Name

   • Description

   • Competency Name

   • Requirement Name

The job roles that correspond to the search criteria are displayed in the Job Role Search Results window.

Performing an Advanced Search for Job Roles

Performing an advanced search for job roles allows users to search for job roles based on a specific job field or job level or competencies, which can be requirements or assets for the job role.

1. Open your career plan or the career plan of a direct report if you are a manager.

2. When the Career Plan window is displayed, click Add a career step to bring up the search.

3. In the Search for a Job Role section, click Advanced Search.

4. In the Advanced Search window, click the check box next to a criterion you want to include in the search.

   For the Job Field and Job Level criteria, you must also select a value.

   Use scroll bar to move up or down in the window as necessary.

5. Indicate whether the criterion is mandatory or optional by selecting the corresponding option.

   • If the criterion is optional, you can specify the relative weight of the criterion, from 1 to 5.

6. Perform steps 4 and 5 for each criterion you want to include in the search.

7. Click Search.

The job roles that correspond to the search criteria are displayed in the Job Role Search Results window. The Fit column indicates the match percentage of the job role in relation to the search criteria.

Performing a Search for the Best Fit Job Roles

Performing a search for the best fit job roles allows to quickly search for job roles that include competencies that are the same or similar to those of the employee's current job.

1. Open your career plan or the career plan of a direct report if you are a manager.

2. When the Career Plan window is displayed, click Add a career step to bring up the search.

3. In the Search for a Job Role section, click Best Fit.

The Job Role Search Results window displays all the job roles that best correspond to the current job.

Performing a Fit Analysis

Performing a fit analysis is useful to see how well an employee fits with a particular job role included in a career scenario by showing the gap between the recommended rating for a competency included in a job role and the employee's rating.

The Fit Anaylsis panel must be configured to display.

1. Open your career plan, or the career plan of a direct report if you are a manager.

2. In the Career Plan window, click the Tools icon to expand the Tools panel.

3. In the Career Plan window, click the job role card for which you want to view a competency fit analysis.

4. The competencies of the job role are automatically displayed in the Fit Analysis panel, under any one of three possible categories - Strengths, Improvements or Unknown Area. The rating of an employee for a particular competency compared to the recommended rating specified in the job role determines the category in which the competency is displayed.

   If the More link is displayed, you can click it to view additional competencies and to scroll through the information.

5. To see the fit analysis of another job role included in a scenario, click the corresponding job role card. The fit analysis information changes automatically.

6. To close the Fit Analysis panel when you are done, click Hide the supporting tools.

Viewing a Career Plan

Viewing a career plan allows to see all your career scenarios or, if you are a manager, those of a direct report.

Prior to viewing a career plan, the Career Planning Enabled setting must be set to Yes in Taleo Performance Administration and a career plan must already exist.

1. Perform one of the following steps.

   • To view your own career plan , click [Navigation bar] > Career

   • If you are a manager and you want to view one of your direct report's career plan, click [Navigation bar] > Career

2. If you are a manager and you want to view a direct report's career plan, select the employee's name in the employee list. You can also view the career plan of a different employee by selecting the name of the direct report in the employee list.

The Career Plan window displays your career scenarios or those of the employee you selected.

You can add a new scenario or edit or delete an existing one.

Working with Career Plans

Creating a Career Plan

Creating a career plan involves creating career scenarios that include a series of job roles. Each scenario corresponds to a career path that the employee could potentially pursue within the organization. A career plan is created for an employee by the employee himself or by the employee's manager. A career plan is created only once and remains active even if it contains no scenario.

1. If a career plan has never been created, a message appears asking whether you want to create a career plan. Click Create. Note that the Create button only appears the first time a plan is created.

   The first scenario is created automatically and is named My Scenario by default. If you do not want to use the name My Scenario delete this first scenario before adding job roles to it because scenario names cannot be changed afterward.

2. If the career plan already exists (your own or the career plan of a direct report if you are a manager), open it.

   • To open your own career plan, click [Navigation bar] > Career

   • To open the career plan of one of your direct reports, click [Navigation bar] > Career

3. Create a scenario. See Creating a Scenario.

4. Add job roles to the scenario, either by performing a job role search or a fit analysis, or by dragging any job roles included in another scenario to the scenario you are working on. See Adding a Job Role to a Scenario.

The career plan can contain the maximum number of scenarios allowed or no scenario at all. Even when empty, a career plan cannot be deleted.

Creating a Scenario

Creating a scenario allows users to add a sequence of job roles that together form a career plan. You can create scenarios for yourself or for any of your direct reports, if you are a manager.

You can create a scenario if you have not exceeded the maximum number of scenarios allowed in a career plan. The number is set in Taleo Performance Administration > Settings and the setting isMaximum Number of Scenarios .

1. Open your career plan or the career plan of the direct report if you are a manager.

2. In the Career Plan window, click Start New Scenario .

3. In the New Scenario window, enter the name of the scenario you want to create.

   Because scenarios are sorted alphabetically and the name of a scenario cannot be edited once created, you might consider naming your scenarios such that they are listed in a particular way.

4. Click OK.

   In the new scenario section displayed in the Career Plan window, the job card of the employee's current job is automatically inserted.

5. You now need to add job roles to the career plan scenario, either by performing a job role search or a fit analysis, or by dragging job roles included in scenario to the scenario you just created.

Adding a Job Role to a Scenario

Adding a job role to a scenario is used when creating or editing a scenario, either by performing a job role search or a fit analysis, or by dragging job roles included in a scenario to the current scenario.

A job role can be added to a scenario at any time as long as the maximum number of steps has not been reached. The Maximum Number of Career Steps setting is defined in Taleo Performance Administration > Settings.

1. Open your career plan or the career plan of a direct report if you are a manager.

2. Select one of the following actions.

   • Adding a Job Role from an Existing Scenario - This is the only job role addition task that can be performed directly in the Career Plan window. There are 2 possibilities - when you drag a job card from a scenario that is displayed to a location in the current scenario, the job role is copied and will therefore be in both scenarios; if you press the shift key at the same time as you drag a job card, the job role will be moved to the current scenario instead of being copied.

   • Adding a Job Role from a Job Role Search - This method offers various search criteria you can use to search for job roles that you can then add to a scenario.

Adding a Job Role from an Existing Scenario

You can add a job role to a scenario by dragging the job role from one scenario and dropping it on the first scenario. This method is typically used to quickly create multiple scenarios that all have the same sequence of job roles with the exception of the last step.

1. Open your career plan, or the career plan of the direct report if you are a manager.

2. In the scenario that contains the job role you want to add, click the card of the job role and drag it to the desired location in the destination scenario.

   When the enclosed Plus icon appears, you can drop the scenario.

   If an enclosed X icon appears instead, continue to drag the card until you find an acceptable location and the enclosed Plus icon appears. You can then drop the scenario.

Adding a Job Role from a Job Role Search

Adding a job role from a job role search is the most common method to add job roles to a career plan scenario.

1. Open your career plan, or the career of a direct report if you are a manager.

2. In the Career Plan window, select Add a career step.

3. Use one of the following search types:

   Keyword Search - Enter the name or partial name of the job role, along with words from the job role profile (Description, Qualifications, Responsibilities).

   Advanced Search - This enables additional job role fields to be included, such as Job Level, Job Field, and competencies.

   Best Fit - This displays job roles that correspond the best to the competencies that are part of the employee's current job role.

   The Job Role Search Results window displays all the job roles that correspond to the search criteria you specified. For each job role found, the list also displays the corresponding job field, job level, status (whether the job role is already used in a scenario or not) and the fit percentage compared to the current job's competencies. On the result page, you can also view the job profile of any listed job role by clicking on the name of the Job Profile.

4. In the Job Role Search Results list, locate the job role you want to add, click on the name to highlight it, and then select Add Step.

You might want to reorder the job roles in the Career Plan window, which provides a better view of a scenario and its job roles.

Viewing Feedback on a Career Plan

Viewing feedback on a career plan, either yours or the career plan of a direct report, is used when you want to view someone else's opinion and rating on an entire scenario or on specific job roles with regard to you or the direct report.

You can only view feedback when it has been provided for the job role that corresponds to the card selected in the career plan.

1. Open your career plan or the career plan of the direct report if you are a manager.

2. In the Career Plan window, click the Tools icon to expand the Tools panel.

3. Click Feedback to open the corresponding panel.

4. In the Career Plan window, click the job role card for which you want to view feedback that might have been provided.

   Note that if no feedback has been provided, you might want to request feedback by clicking Ask For Feedback.

5. If there is feedback, it is displayed in the Feedback panel along with the name and job title of the person who provided the feedback, the date of the feedback, the rating given (if any), and comments (if any).

   • To view the entire content of the feedback, double-click the feedback text in the Feedback panel.

6. To close the Feedback panel, click Hide the supporting tools.

Reordering Job Roles

Reordering job roles is frequently performed after you have run a job role search and dragged job roles from the result list to the Career Plan.

1. Open your career plan, or the career plan of the direct report if you are a manager.

2. In the Career Plan window, click a job role card you want to move to a different position and drag it to the desired step, dropping it between two cards or directly on top of one. The enclosed X icon indicates that the current position is invalid.

   If a job role card is dragged from one scenario to another, the card is copied to the second scenario and the job role card is part of both scenarios.

Removing a Job Role from a Scenario

Removing a job role from a scenario deletes it from the scenario. You or your manager can perform this action.

1. Open your career plan, or the career plan of the direct report if you are a manager.

2. In the Career Plan window, locate the scenario that contains the job role you want to delete.

3. On the job role card, click the down arrow icon to open the option menu and then select Delete this step.

4. Confirm the deletion by clicking Yes.

The job role is deleted from the scenario. It is not deleted from other scenarios that include it.

Deleting a Scenario

Deleting a scenario removes an entire sequence of job roles from a career plan.

1. Open your career plan, or the career plan of the direct report if you are a manager.

2. In the Career Plan window, click the down arrow icon next to the scenario name that you want to delete and select Delete this scenario.

3. When a confirmation request appears, click Yes.

The deleted scenario is no longer displayed in the Career Plan window.

Career Plan Fields

Fields and buttons related to career plans in Taleo Performance are presented in the following table. Each entry in the table includes a field or button, a description, possible values (when they are predefined), the part of the application to which the field applies and the field's section header.

Field	Description	Applicable to	Header
Actual Rating	Actual rating of the employee for any competency of the selected job role, if the competency has ever been evaluated as part of an employee review. If the employee's actual rating is higher that the recommended rating, it will be shown under Strengths, and if lower, it will be under Improvements. If the competency has never been evaluated for the employee, it will be shown under Unknown Areas.	Career Plans	Fit Analysis
Advanced Search	Search option that enables you to specify a series of criteria when you are searching for job roles.	Career Plans	Job Role Search
Best Fit	Search option that allows to find job roles that best correspond to the competencies of the employee's current job.	Career Plans	Job Role Search
Current Job	In the Career Plan window, this column of the plan automatically displays the employee's current job, in every scenario.	Career Plans	Career Plan
Feedback	Tool used to request feedback on a career plan scenario and/or on specific career steps of a scenario.	Career Plans	Toolbox
Field	Field on which the search will be performed. To make a selection, you only need to check all desired fields. For Job Level and Job Field fields, you also need to select the applicable value.	Career Plans	Advanced Search
Fit	Percentage that indicates how the job role fits the search criteria specified.	Career Plans	Job Role Search Results
Fit	Gap between the employee's ratings - as viewed in the Fit Analysis - and the expected ratings for the job role. 100% means there is no gap. For instance in the Fit Analysis there may be 10 items and the employee meets or exceeds 7 of those items. Their fit percentage would be 70%.	Career Plans	Job Card
Fit Analysis	Tool used to obtain an analysis of the difference between the recommended rating for each competency in the job role and the rating the employee has obtained for each competency (where applicable).	Career Plans	Toolbox
Job Field	Job field associated with the job role, as per the job role definition in SmartOrg.	Career Plans	Job Role Search Results
Job Level	Job level associated with the job role, as per the job role definition in SmartOrg.	Career Plans	Job Role Search Results Job Card
Job Role Search	Tool used to search for job roles.	Career Plans	Toolbox
Name	Name of the job role, as per its definition in SmartOrg.	Career Plans	Job Role Search Results
Options menu	You can use the Options menu to view the job profile that corresponds to the job role or to add the job role to an existing scenario. From a job role card included in a scenario, you can use the Options menu to view the corresponding job profile or to delete the job card from the scenario.	Career Plans	Status Job Card
Recommended Rating	Recommended rating required for any competency of the selected job role.	Career Plans	Gap Analysis
Search Type	When a field is to be included in the advanced search and the corresponding box is checked, the search type options become active. There are two options: Mandatory - The selected field MUST be present for a job role to be returned in the search results. Optional - The selected field is optional and will be searched according to the specified weight.	Career Plans	Advanced Search
Step	In the Career plan window, the Step column displays any job role that has been added to the scenario. The number of steps that can be added to a scenario is dependent of the corresponding setting, Maximum Number of Career Steps, defined in Taleo Performance Administration.	Career Plans	Career Plan
View Job Role Profile	Actions menu option, available from the job role card or the Job Role Search Results page, that opens the profile of the related job role, with a complete description and all associated competencies and certifications.	Career Plans	Options menu
Weight	When a field is selected as a search criteria and optional, you have the possibility of specifying the relative weight from 1 to 5.	Career Plans	Advanced Search