It might sound like an oxymoron – how can you be both an expert and always learning? It takes a unique perspective to realize that it isn’t one or the other. VERTEX’s CEO, Bill McConnell PE, JD, MSCE, CDT is fond of saying: “VERTEX grows because our people are always learning!“
VERTEX operates with a unique approach to delivering an ever-increasing level of expertise to our clients. This approach centers on supporting and enhancing our employees’ development. Employee development has always been a key objective at VERTEX; we hire intelligent and motivated people interested in a true “lifetime of learning”. In the last several years, this objective has become a cornerstone of much of our growth – we believe that we can enhance our clients’ experiences by helping our employees grow in their abilities and in their career. VERTEX supports employee learning and growth through a dual system comprised of our Performance Development Program and our Talent Development Program.
Performance Development Program
As part of our Performance Development Program, our employees participate in formal and informal developmental meetings on an on-going basis, to coordinate success through setting objectives and key results, holding on-going dialogue for coaching and guidance by their managers, and using other performance tools focused specifically on enhancing our performance with our clients and projects.
Career Growth
Because our people are professionals driven to succeed and grow, we offer a Career Progression Program (Career Map) that allows them to self-identify a Career Path that aligns with their interests as well as see the various levels to which they can grow while working with VERTEX. This allows them ample opportunity for variety and growth over a long career with us, which supports our ability to retain experienced, knowledgeable experts as they advance their technical expertise and professional business acumen. For our clients, this translates to receiving support by people who not only know the technical aspects of their work, but also who know the industry, our business processes, and, therefore, how to deliver the results our clients need by tapping in to the full resources of our organization.
Talent Development Program
Our employees drive their own development, through multiple career progression options that are used to design each employee’s own Career Development Plan. To support our employees’ career progression, our Lifetime of Learning Program (LOLP) offers fully funded university degrees, at all levels from BS to PhD. VERTEX is a co-developer of several MS degrees, providing our employees ways to increase their expertise through a graduate education taught by university scholars, VERTEX experts, and some clients! Our latest joint degree in Dispute Resolution/Forensic Engineering is being developed with a law school partner and will be announced shortly.
Management Learning – “People Skills”
As scientists, engineers, and technical experts, many members of our team have learned how to manage “People” through experience and challenging work in personal development. To help our People Managers, VERTEX offers monthly training topics in people management skills. These programs are specific to the company, the industry and the nature of our changing work environment and are taught by our expert HR and learning teams, as well as select external experts.
Performance and Talent Development are not new to VERTEX, but our heightened and expanded developmental programs are designed to enhance our employees’ experiences which translates to an improved client experience in working with VERTEX. Check us out today!
