Manager Journey
A robust, scaled, and global manager development program, which standardizes what we expect of HashiCorp People Managers and promotes consistent capability across a core set of HashiCorp manager competencies.
This article was an RFC written in March 2022, that was converted to this website template. It's a good example of an RFC as described in our writing practices and culture article.
| [RFC] Manager Onboarding Refresh | |
| Summary: Re-work the onboarding journey for new Managers, giving the best possible start in their new role. | Status: WIP | In-Review | Approved | Obsolete |
| Created: March, 25, 2022 | Owner: Vince Golding |
| Current Version: 1.0 | Contributors: Talent Development Team |
| Approvers: Kat Williamson, Ivette Guintu | |
Background
HashiCorp has experienced exponential growth over several years, which means that many of our organizational structures have grown organically along the way. In many cases, employees were promoted into people manager roles because of tenure and/or technical expertise, not necessarily because they had demonstrated the skills and experience to manage people well. Many of our current people managers are leading teams for the first time.
Strong people management often leads to higher engagement, employee retention, and performance. As HashiCorp continues to grow, the importance of the people manager role increases. Our Manager Journey manager-development program includes robust, scaled manager-onboarding programs designed to level set what we expect from HashiCorp people managers, uplevel our current people managers to meet those expectations, and future-proof HashiCorp as we continue to add more people managers.
Proposal
The Manager Journey is a curated and sequenced manager-development program based on a set of core manager competencies. This program is mandatory for all HashiCorp people managers, and is arranged into a logical progression of skill building. First-line managers with limited experience leading teams will benefit the most form this initial version. Future iterations of the Manager Journey will provide a tailored experience for more experienced managers, including content designed directly for them (e.g. managing managers).
Beginning with HashiCorp's principles of Beauty Works Better and Pragmatism, we built this project to meet the needs of our people managers, weaving in easy-to-understand concepts and hands-on practice and feedback. We also included mechanisms to make the program durable, relevant over time, and scalable.
The Manager Journey consists of a combination of live events and asynchronous materials, spaced and delivered across the first seven months of a manager’s time in the role, split into two distinct phases:
Finding your feet [0-4 months]: establishing the basics of managing at HashiCorp
Continuous development [5-7 months]: fostering a culture of ongoing development
Program Content
The program is sequenced to introduce managers to a competency via a Slack message containing written information, an internal link to HashiCorp async resources, and an external link to resources for specific industry expertise. The manager is then enrolled in a live workshop aligned to their timezone, where they practice that competency with a cohort of peers who joined the organization in the same calendar month. The live-learning component is interactive and designed for the learner to practice in a safe space and receive real-time feedback. This learning is then reinforced by a follow-up Slack message to consolidate the learning and spark curiosity to go deeper and learn more.
For the Future
Future plans include tailoring content to multiple levels, such as a manager-of-managers track, and greater automation of the program administration. We regularly review feedback on the program and iterate content as needed based on the changing needs of our people managers.
