The success of any organization depends on the success of its people. At Weyerhaeuser, we feel so strongly about this, we’ve made “people development” a critical focus area on our company vision.

HOW WE APPROACH GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT

We believe in the 70-20-10 approach to professional growth, which acknowledges that most development occurs on the job through direct experience and skill-building. Here are some of the ways we ensure our people have opportunities to develop throughout their careers:

  • Setting “stretch” targets during our annual goal-setting process
  • Using our Individual Development Plan to assess strengths and work on gaps
  • Participating in our leadership development programs
  • Working with a mentor
  • Participating in cross-business/functional projects & opportunities
  • Encouraging people to take on assignments and roles in different businesses, teams, and/or locations
  • Taking classroom and online training courses

70-20-10 development graphic-01.png

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT 

We’re focused on building a strong pipeline of leaders who are always learning and improving their ability to inspire teams and deliver extraordinary business results. We’ve developed three programs to target leaders at different stages of their careers:

  • Front-Line: for leaders who directly manage most of our employees and contractors
  • Mid-Level: for leaders with significant responsibility and/or who lead other leaders
  • Executive: for leaders who have the desire and potential to move into executive roles

These programs focus on building core leadership skills, developing peer relationships and strong networks, providing exposure to senior leaders in the company, and strengthening alignment to our company vision. We’ve also developed a set of competencies that we expect our leaders to strive for, and we integrate those attributes into our hiring, promoting, development and succession-planning programs and practices. 

PEOPLE MOVEMENT

Since most learning and development occurs through direct experience, we encourage our people to get involved in challenging projects that may not be directly related to their area of expertise, and to be open to stepping into roles outside their current business or function. We've found that when people move around in an organization, it's great for the individuals because they gain new skills, experience and exposure, and it's great for the company because it helps foster learning and eliminate barriers between teams.

MEASURING SUCCESS

Succession Planning

When we get people development right, the result should be a “ready-now” pipeline of excellent internal candidates for critical roles. Each of our businesses and functions set people development goals every year. In 2018, we rated ourselves "achieves" against our internal people development targets.

Attraction & Retention

Another way we measure the success of our people development goals is to look at our recruiting activity and retention statistics. We know job seekers look for companies where they’ll have the opportunity to grow and develop, and they expect the company to live up to that promise once they join the team. In 2018, our external recruiting activity was strong, with 1,442 hires (both new hires and rehires), and our voluntary turnover rate was 8 percent. 

Employee Engagement

We periodically measure the effectiveness of our overall work environment via employee surveys, and we know from the feedback we collect that a key driver for employee engagement is whether people feel they’re getting enough opportunities for growth. In our latest survey, issued to all employees in 2018, we asked a number of questions related to growth and development. Our overall score on those questions was 82 percent favorable. In the same survey, 95 percent of our employees said they’re proud of the work they do, 90 percent agreed they are able to make decisions that affect their day-to-day work, and 93 percent said they know how they contribute to our company vision. Our overall employee engagement score was 87 percent. 

View our employee data