Staff Professional and Career Development Policy - College of EducationThe College of Education is a learning organization, and we are committed to investing in our most precious resource, our people. Learning organizations are adaptive, flexible, and embrace a culture of learning that promotes the growth and progress of its employees. As such, the COE has developed a professional development and career development policy to help facilitate this culture of learning and to grow and nurture our talent. These policy guidelines are designed to provide our staff with the tools, opportunities, and resources that will enable them to advance their job-related abilities and pursue broader career growth opportunities within the college and beyond. DefinitionsProfessional DevelopmentProfessional development centers on efforts to gain new skills and knowledge in order to advance current job-related performance and success. It can involve efforts to keep up with new technological, systems, and processes, learning about new developments in a field, and improving existing skills. - Example: A COE Administrative Associate is directed by their supervisor to attend a workshop focused on a new database system for tracking travel approvals and documents.
Career DevelopmentCareer development is the ongoing process of setting career-related goals and establishing routes to achieving them. Career development is focused on growth and advancement towards future roles and positions. - Example: An Administrative Manager asks to attend a lecture series focused on the intersection of connected technology and college student learning.
Both professional development and career development activities can include formal trainings, courses, presentations, seminars, conferences, and/or workshops led by expert facilitators. These activities could also include more informal presentations from webinars (e.g., UTLearn modules), lectures (e.g., Dean’s Distinguished Lectures), podcasts, organized book groups, asynchronous or self-paced online courses. COE Professional Development- Employees should have access to routine initial and recurrent training and professional development necessary to intentionally develop their job-related skills.
- Supervisors are expected to lead conversations about employee professional development needs and expectations at least annually, as part of the performance review process.
- Supervisors are expected to allow for time away from an employees’ normal job duties to engage in training and professional development activities.
- Participating in required professional development activities is considered paid time.
- Units are expected to internally manage budgets to accommodate costs, if any, associated with expected professional development activities.
COE Career Development- Well-performing employees should have access to career development opportunities beyond any planned or required professional development activities.
- Employees may initiate conversations with their supervisor about possible career development activities at least annually, as part of the performance review process.
- Approval of specific proposals for career development activities are at the discretion of the supervisor.
- In general, employees may request up to eight hours of paid time per year to participate in career development activities. Supervisors may approve additional hours for career development.
- Supervisors are expected to allow for time away from an employees’ normal job duties to engage in career development activities.
- Participating in career development activities is considered paid time.
- Employees eligible for career development are those who: (1) are full-time A&P and classified staff who have completed at least one-year of uninterrupted service to the college, (2) are not on a performance improvement plan, and (3) received a “meets expectations” or “exceeds expectations” rating, or equivalent, in their latest performance appraisal.
- The Office of the Dean may make discretionary funding available to provide supplemental support for career development activities with specific associated tuition/program or travel expenses.
Timekeeping for Professional and Career Development Employees must count training and professional development activity on their timesheets and enter it as hours worked. Overtime or comp time cannot be claimed on days where professional development hours are reported, and the overall work time reported for the week must not exceed 40 hours. Please reach out to COE-HR@austin.utexas.edu with any timekeeping questions. Professional Professional and Career Development Resources |