Development Planning

Learning budgets or no learning budgets

For organizations that must track development budgets and actual costs of development activities, the Development Planning solution provides a tight integration between budgets, activities requested against the budgets, and estimated and actual costs. This lets the learning manager plan and track resource development activities and their associated costs and report on them. For those organizations in countries with very specific legal requirements regarding employee development, this solution provides organizations with the controls to ensure that they are in compliance.

Development Planning provides these options:

• You can set your organization rules to not use learning budgets. This lets you streamline activity assignment and registration processes significantly.
• You can set your organization rules to always use learning budgets. This requires you to follow more complex processes for activity assignment and registration, but also gives you tight control of the process and the ability to monitor costs and meet reporting requirements.
• If you have a multinational organization, you can set your organization rules to use learning budgets only for resources that are employed in a French location. This lets you comply with French regulatory requirements, while using streamlined processes for your non-French resources.

Development activities and catalog (without Infor Learning Management)

You can define development activities that can be part of a catalog or outside of the catalog.

• Development activities can be of any type (from formal instructor-led classes to mentoring, self-directed study, or competency assessment).
• The system accommodates development activities without sessions.
• The system also accommodates development activities that are not in the catalog.
• Development activities can be grouped under topics.
• Resources, managers, and mentors can locate development activities in the catalog by searching by keyword or by activity, or by browsing through topics.
• You can associate development activities with resource goals, which in turn can be associated with the organization's strategic development goals.
• You can define skills, competencies, or credentials as the outcome of a development activity that will be automatically added to the resources' talent profile when they complete the development activity. You can also decide whether the skills, competencies, or credentials should be added as verified, or not verified (requiring a manager verification).
• You can define flat-amount or activity-defined costs that you can assign to development activities so that the costs can be displayed in the catalog.
• You can maintain a list of development activities providers (internal and external), including their contact information and contract information.
• You can maintain a list of instructors (who must be resources in Infor HR Talent, but not necessarily employees).
• You can export provider contract payments and cost type changes to files that can be imported to a non-Infor Lawson accounts payable application.

  For information on the universal interface utilities provided by Infor HR Talent, see the interface guide specific to your configuration.

• Resources can be assigned to development activities in these ways:
  • Resources themselves can request an activity. By default, the activity is not required, but the resource's manager or mentor can change it to be required.
  • Managers can assign an activity to their direct reports individually or mass assign an activity to all or some their direct reports. The activity can be required or not required.
  • Learning managers can assign an activity to any resources individually or mass assign an activity to all the resources in an eligibility group.
  • Resources can be automatically assigned to an activity that is a component of a checklist, when the checklist is assigned to them by their manager or mentor (or the learning manager). Checklist activities are always required.

• Resources can withdraw from non-required activities. Managers and mentors can cancel non-required activities and waive required activities.

Development activities and catalog (using Infor Learning Management)

You can define development activities that can be part of a catalog or outside of the catalog.

• Most of the development activities (courses) in the catalog will be created in Infor Learning Management and imported back to Development Planning.
• Development activities created in Development Planning cannot have any sessions. For example, Mentoring.
• Development activities can be grouped under topics.
• Resources, managers, and mentors can locate development activities in the catalog by searching by keyword or by activity, or by browsing through topics.
• You can associate development activities with resource goals, which in turn can be associated with the organization's strategic development goals.
• You can define skills, competencies, or credentials as the outcome of a development activity that will be automatically added to the resources' talent profile when they complete the development activity. You can also decide whether the skills, competencies, or credentials should be added as verified, or not verified (requiring a manager verification).
• You can define flat-amount or activity-defined costs that you can assign to development activities so that the costs can be displayed in the catalog.
• Resources can be assigned to development activities in these ways:
  • Resources can request an activity. By default, the activity is not required, but the resource's manager or mentor can change it to be required.
  • Managers can assign an activity to their direct reports individually or mass assign an activity to all or some their direct reports. The activity can be required or not required.
  • Learning managers can assign an activity to any resources individually or mass assign an activity to all the resources in an eligibility group.
  • Resources can be automatically assigned to an activity that is a component of a checklist, when the checklist is assigned to them by their manager or mentor (or the learning manager). Checklist activities are always required.
• Resources can withdraw from non-required activities. Managers and mentors can cancel non-required activities and waive required activities.

Activity sessions and registrations

• Learning managers, managers, mentors, and resources can register resources for a session.
• If your organization does not use learning budgets, managers, mentors, and resources can register for a session at the time that they are making the activity assignment, or they can register at a later time. If your organization uses learning budgets, managers, mentors, and resources can register only after the development activity is approved by the learning manager.
• You can require manager approval when a resource requests a session registration.
• You can use wait-listing for specific sessions.
• If you use wait-listing for a specific session, you can switch between automated and manual processing of wait-listed resources.
• For development activities with sessions, you can create classes and class rosters that can be emailed to participants.
• You can track participant attendance.
• You can define automatic or scheduled email notifications to resources and managers when activities such as changes in registration status occur.

Personal activities

• Resources, managers, and mentors can create resource personal activities that are not displayed to the learning manager and can be associated with goals.
• Personal activities can be required.

Additional functionality for learning budgets

• You can define development periods that include multiple budgets. Each budget is associated with a currency. Each budget is calculated as a percentage of the total salaries of the resources eligible for the budget. Salaries can include or exclude allowances and other pay rates.
• You can distribute organization budgets to managers so that they can compare the costs of the development activity they assign against their budgets.
• To build your learning budgets for a development period, you collect all development activity requests submitted for that period and assign them to the appropriate budgets.
• Learning managers, managers, and mentors can reject requested development activities if they are not required.
• Only the learning manager can approve development activities. Only approved activity requests will be part of the finalized budgets.
• In addition to the flat costs and activity-based costs that can be used by all organizations, you can define costs based on a resource "other rate", and costs based on a professional category. If these costs exist on a development activity, the costs are resolved when a resource is assigned to a development activity and associated with a budget that has the same currency as the costs.
• As you associate a resource development activity for a budget, all estimated costs associated with the development activity are automatically added to the resource development activity. You can make changes.

  Costs for all development activity requests within a budget are totaled and can be compared with the budgeted costs for that budget.

• When you finalize a budget, you can specify actual costs against the estimated costs.
• You can track personal development balances (for non-French resources) and DIF balances (for French resources).
• Additional analysis views help you ensure that the organization is in compliance with legal requirements with regards to employee development.

Checklists

• You can define checklists that comprise a set of skills, competencies, checklist tasks, and/or development activities that must be completed by a specific due date.
• Checklists have a version number and a due date that can be specified or calculated. Only one version can be active at any given time. Resources assigned to inactive checklists can still complete their own checklist components and their manager or mentor can still complete their checklists.
• Checklists can be assigned to resources by their manager, their mentor, or the learning manager.
• The learning manager can mass assign checklists. by eligibility group or by checklist type. The learning manager can also check whether resources that were assigned to a checklist by way of an eligibility group are still eligible.
• You can add competencies or skills to a checklist one by one, or by adding a competency model. You can let criteria default from a competency or skill behavior or attribute and/or you can add your own criteria. Specifying criteria is not required.
• A competency or skill component requires validation before it can be completed. The component itself determines who can validate the competency or skill (manager, mentor, and/or peer) and whether the person must be validated for the competency or skill they are validating. You can also require a resource to acknowledge that they are ready to be validated. The component is complete when all requirements defined on the component are met.
• Checklist tasks are tasks that are neither competencies or skills nor development activities. They are associated only with checklists. For example, you may ask a resource to read personnel policies.

  A checklist task component may require validation by a manager or mentor, or may require only acknowledgment from the resource. The checklist task component is complete when all requirements defined on the component are met.

• An activity component is automatically defined as required. It is processed in the same way as other development activity. You can request the resource to be registered for the first available session. If you do, and the organization does not use learning budgets, the resource will be registered automatically (unless there is no availability). If the organization uses learning budgets, the activity must first be approved by the learning manager. It can be waived, but it cannot be rejected. Once it is approved, the resource will be registered automatically, based on availability. If the resource is not registered automatically, the resource, the resource's manager, or the resource's mentor can register the resource.

  The resource, resource manager, or resource mentor can report the activity as finished. Only the learning manager can complete the activity.

• Managers and mentors can waive any component that they are allowed to validate, or any activity component.
• Managers and mentors can complete a resource-assigned checklist once all the components have been completed or waived.
• Managers and mentors can change the due date of a resource checklist.
• Validation history and due date compliance analysis views are available for learning managers.

Development Tasks list

Learning managers, managers, employees, and mentors have access to a Development Tasks list. For learning managers, the list includes all the checklist components awaiting actions and all the active development activities for all resources in the organization. For managers and mentors, the list includes all the checklist components awaiting actions, all the active development activities, and all the active personal activities for the resources they are responsible for. For resources, the list includes their own checklist components awaiting actions, active development activities, and active personal activities.

Mentor space

• Learning managers and managers can designate resources as mentors and assign mentees to them.
• All mentors have access to a Mentor space.
• Mentors can perform the same tasks for their mentees' checklists, checklist components, development activities, and personal activities as managers can perform for their direct reports, with the exception of associating an activity with a goal. They do not have access to their mentees' goals.