Personal development

We are always pushing to reach higher levels of quality in everything that we do. A large part of that is also increasing our offering through Perks and benefits to enable our people to grow and achieve their goals.

We put a big emphasis on personal growth. Our belief is that by developing your career interests in the areas that excite you the most, the more motivated and driven you’ll be to create outstanding results along the way. We do this through various means.

Education and learning

There are two types of people in this world: proactive and passive learners.

The passive ones are those who need someone to guide them, to tell them what to do, what to learn, and how to learn it. These people often require pre-determined schedules or pre-selected topics. It’s like attending school.

The pro-active learners, simply put, are those who are keen to learn by themselves, those who don't require external incentives to seek to deepen their knowledge pool. These people often read and learn broadly and stumble on subjects they had never thought would spark their curiosity. But they do.

At Significa, we prefer the latter type. It goes in line with our Maximum freedom, maximum responsibility, where you are encouraged to take charge of your personal development, goals, career, and dreams.

We place a big emphasis on personal development. It's true. As written multiple times throughout this Handbook, we want you to be the main character in your life, to take accountability, and to drive it forward.

And to help you with it, we have an unlimited budget for personal development opportunities. Whether that's for courses, further education credentials, such as degrees or the more simpler things like books, conferences, or events. Whatever may contribute to your cultivation, we will get it for you.

Now for the small print, we're not backing out – don't worry – this is legit, we will pay for you to return to school if it's agreed between yourself and the Partners that an extensive investment into your career growth, such as degree, will also see a form of ROI at Significa. If you want to go back to school to do a degree in something that costs several thousands but has very little to no benefit for Significa's line of work then perhaps it wouldn't be a justifiable cost.

If you do decide to study a degree or an intensive training qualification of some sort, we'll also back you with the time needed to do it, we don't expect you to also have to do those courses at night and work for Significa during the day for any kind of substantial amount of time. We'll invest in your future even if it means you'll be out of the office for a while in the meantime.

If you've found that next course or degree for you, discuss with your Team Manager in your next one-on-one your motivations and costs, with authorisation then proceed to talk to Catarina and we'll get you booked up.

Development plans

You'll meet with your manager twice a year, having built a Development Plan for yourself. This focuses on looking at your own strengths and opportunities for growth, assessing your short-term ambitions and creating measurable goals that are personal to your development.

The plans are broken into three factors: knowing yourself, building a plan, and then reviewing it with your manager.

Once you've built your plan with clear, tangible, actionable goals for the next six months, it's time to put a roadmap together. Get started with a starting date and plan out any preliminary steps for each item. Some of the initiatives you set yourself to achieve may require anticipated preparation or resource allocation, so make sure you've got it all lined up with enough headway. Ensure you assign yourself realistic deadlines for each goal, considering your workload and project deadlines.

These goals should be a way for you to advance in your career, namely through your Career path.

Try to ensure that you align them with what gets you going. Otherwise, you'll very quickly go off track and lose ambition. Simultaneously, even though these are the goals we expect will drive your career progression and personal development forward, please keep in mind your department and Significa's goals at the back of your plan.

Never forget, this is your Development Plan. You are responsible for taking ownership of these goals because you create them, and, you know… Maximum freedom, maximum responsibility.

Keep an eye on it and adjust

Don't let your plan slide. Keep it nearby and come back to it regularly. Over a few months, you'll know if you've been realistic or too ambitious.

Things happen, and life changes, so remain flexible, ensuring that your plan is working with your life – professionally and personally. If not, don't hold back from re-evaluating and adjusting it.

Making mends in your Development plan is not failing or taking shortcuts; it's a self-learning experience.

One-on-ones

Once you've completed your plan, you will meet with your manager at least once a month to understand your successes, well-being, productivity, blockers, and challenges or as a way to seek help with targeting those goals.

These one-on-ones are not project-based status updates. Instead, they are focused on how you are progressing on your ongoing Development Plan. If both of you and your Lead see fit, and as written above, don't hesitate to change your plan, making it more appropriate for each given moment.

Keep an open communication channel with your Lead to track down your progress. this will help you stay on track and motivated and is a great source for unblocking and navigating around difficulties. We want you to succeed and to keep growing!

Performance reviews

Twice a year, and at the end of the 6-month cycle of your Development Plan, you'll complete a self-reflection about the previous months and your growth.

This will be followed by a Performance Review, which includes shared feedback from peers, feedback for your Manager and a salary review.

Feedback

Creating and continuing to develop a performance culture relies on feedback. Everybody loves great feedback and recognition — but constructive feedback and identifying areas of opportunity for growth create a space for rapid professional development.

Understanding how to give and receive feedback is a critical component of this. We'll give you all the tools to make sure you can digest and share feedback appropriately in order to excel in both your own and your peer's growth.

Remember point 2 of our Playbook — “We shall pursue feedback to perfection.”