How can I help a software developer gain skills *outside* of software development?

Question

Our company is a small SaaS shop with a small team of in-house software developers.

We take professional growth very seriously. I talk to each of the developers that I manage about personal learning objectives and push each one of them to continue to study and improve themselves. We even have a (modest) budget to purchase books and video courses to help employees stay sharp.

However, whenever I bring up professional development with one of our software developers, she insists that she would like to develop skills in areas outside of programming. She has asked that we allow her to work on graphic design and marketing projects during work hours in addition to her duties as a developer. I have tried to explain that we hired her to do one kind job and not other random tasks to no avail.

Since she is a fairly productive employee this isn't really a reason to let her go. I can't see how we would be able to have her work as a programmer and a designer simultaneously.

What, if anything, can I do to help this employee find what she's looking for?

Answer 1

You have a productive employee that you trust, that you know the work ethic of, and that would like to change her career. She is clearly not entirely happy being a developer. There is already a chance she might think about leaving. Maybe she'd like a less stressful role as a marketing or design person who is not required to fix things with long hours, or maybe there's some other reason.

If you want to hang on to this person in your company, you should not only allow her to train on marketing stuff, but actually offer her to work part time in the marketing department, and part time in development. One of two things will happen.

• She likes marketing and you can transition her there.
• She doesn't like marketing and will stay in development.

If she enjoys marketing and wants to switch, you know who you are going to get. She knows she might take a pay-cut because she goes from being in an experienced role to a more junior role in a different field. Your marketing department gets an employee the company already knows. In addition (and the benefit of this depends on what your company does), your marketing department now has someone who thinks like a developer. That means she will start teaching her coworkers how not to do things that make IT unhappy, because she will hate those too. That, in turn, will improve the relationship between IT and marketing, and the company will save money on less time wasted.

On the other hand, if she doesn't like being in marketing, you've not really lost much. Maybe the hours she's spent there. But she's not going to leave to pursuit a career in marketing somewhere else, just to end up being unhappy, leave there again and find a different developer job because she feels bad about coming back.

So in conclusion, allowing her to explore these other fields will help you retain a trusted, well-known employee. Those are hard to find, regardless of what role they fill.

Answer 2

whenever I bring up professional development with one of our software developers

So, don't bring it up, she's not interested in doing things that directly benefit her existing role and therefore potentially the company, so rather than talk to a brick wall, focus on those who are.

I train people in things I don't need them to do, but in the full knowledge that they will leave and apply those skills elsewhere. It's not a potential danger, it will happen. So in terms of retaining staff it's not good for the company. I do it for other reasons and don't want to retain those staff.

Answer 3

Since she is a fairly productive employee this isn't really a reason to let her go. I can't see how we would be able to have her work as a programmer and a designer simultaneously.

Then don’t let her do both during work hours. A company pays its employees to make it money, so pay her for what makes the company money.

That said, could graphic design be helpful to the company in future? I am an embedded programmer, so it would be no good to me.. But I can certainly see potential future value in front-end web work, or just about anything requiring a GUI.

Irrespective of whether it might help the company or not, if that’s what she wants to do, then encourage her to learning her free time.

There are plenty of free courses, plus instructional videos. I have taken a few courses with Coursera which offers free courses from universities some of them world class. Some courses have a timetable and some are learn at your own pace. Take a look – there’s something for everyone.

They offer quite a few courses related to Graphic Design

Answer 4

Some very good points are being made here. Just want to add a couple of quick thoughts.

First, you should find out why she wants to explore other areas. Is there anything that's making her unhappy? It might be a distress signal in disguise, e.g. being bullied by a coworker, too much workload for her to handle, too much pressure, etc. Note that she might not want to raise specific issues, especially if it would mean talking negatively about some of her coworkers (or even you), so if she gives a bland, half-hearted answer, take it as a potential red flag.

Second, ask her how she views her future in the company, if you haven't already done so. That might clear up things a bit more.

Answer 5

There are good points in the other answers, but I feel they do not press enough on what matters. Hopefully, it is not too late :)

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she insists that she would like to develop skills in areas outside of programming

That is perfectly healthy behavior. Many people (I am one of them) like to diversify their work. Another many people (again, I am one of them) have the need to change the direction in their career.

She has asked that we allow her to work on graphic design and marketing projects during work hours in addition to her duties as a developer

Wow! Not only that she knows exactly what she wants, but she also understands the business needs. She asks NOT for the CHANGE of work, but for EXCESS of work!! That is a very strong argument for:

• the fact that she really wants to do something else - even if that means paying a high price (becoming overloaded);
• she is involved in the well-being of the company, and she does not (yet) have plans to leave - which is great again, at least for the company.

I have tried to explain that we hired her to do one kind job and not other random tasks to no avail.

You seem to be a bad judge of characters and bad manager. You do not understand people. You do not understand teams. You need to train yourself in many things, and get a lot more experience, before you can call yourself a good manager. Maybe you should use those opportunities of learning yourself.

Since she is a fairly productive employee this isn't really a reason to let her go

She is still a fairly productive employee. She will be less and less motivated, until she will probably quit. A bad outcome for the company. Unless you do something to keep her.

I can't see how we would be able to have her work as a programmer and a designer simultaneously.

You must not have her do the job of 3+ people. Move her gradually towards what works best. She is just a human after all, like everyone else.

What, if anything, can I do to help this employee find what she's looking for?

You did not get the point of all the situation. You need to do nothing to "find what she's looking for". Just listen to her - with the purpose to hear and understand, NOT with the purpose to complain and reject. She already told you with the most explicit words what she wants. The better question is: What do YOU want, actually?

From your question, I understand that you tend to be a despotic manager, with no people's (leader) skills. Do you really want that? Or maybe you want to "take [your own] professional growth very seriously", and "continue to study and improve" yourself.

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I am sorry if the answer "sounds" less than friendly. That is totally unintended. I just cannot transmit my message correctly, while being entirely politically correct.

Answer 6

It is good that you are prepared to invest in your employees' futures. Not many companies seem to do that, which is baffling to me, so I am always pleased to hear of employers that do.

With that said, there is a tacit understanding in employer-provided training that the training ought to be something related to the job. Training your developers to become better developers - great. Training your developers to become graphic designers - maybe, if you have (or might one day have) graphic design roles at your company. Training your developers to become teachers, lawyers, or police officers so they don't have to be developers any more - no. That's not your responsibility as an employer. If an employee wants to change career, they do that in their own time, by their own efforts; in the meantime they're being paid to work for you. Use your best judgement as to where on that scale this request lies.

If an employee is worth keeping, though, there are a couple of options I've not seen mentioned yet:

• Consider paying for the training, but not allow it to be done on work time. This lets her learn new skills; but the cost to the company is minimal (training courses are cheap, and you're not losing her time).
• Consider providing the training, but with a contract requiring her to repay the cost if she leaves within a certain length of time. If she just wants to learn new skills, great. If she's using it as a platform to leave the company, at least she's not going to be ripping you off on her way out.
• Consider offering her the chance to work fewer days in a week (for proportionally less pay, of course). You're still getting at least some of her time and skills, which might be better than losing her completely; and she gets to do whatever learning she wants in the extra time off.

Those options, alone or in combination, might be more flexible than simply refusing to provide training at all (which might cause bad feeling on her part) or spending company time and money on something that may never benefit the company (which might reasonably cause bad feeling on your part).

Either way, it sounds like this person has plans to change her career. You may want to prepare for hiring a replacement - whether she moves into a new role at the same company, or leaves the company altogether.

Answer 7

If you want to support her in her change, but need her right now as a full time developer, there are multiple compromise options:

• Support her to train in her spare time, potentially providing financial support for courses and the like
• You can also offer to reduce her hours for a month or two so she has more spare time
• Give it a thought, perhaps it is actually helpful for your devs to know how the other departments work. In that case you could make it an official policy that everyone, once a year can spend 1 week in another department. (This would obviously need support from your higher ups and the right company culture etc.)
• You can tell her that you need her know but she could train a colleague well enough that colleague can take over her main duties and then in half a year she can do a 1 month apprenticeship in the other department as whatever, but her old job will be waiting for her
• Following that she could decide whether she wants to transition into another area , and if she wants you can mutually agree that you find a full-time replacement and she then can either fully or gradually (50/50 percent contracts) change into the other role (if the other department wants her)
• If you go a transitioning path, make sure to clarify that the payment would adjusted to match her new role where she would likely be more junior (unless you want to be really nice and keep it the same)