April 18, 2024 | Case Study

Coffey and MyCareerPath

MyCareerPath.ie pilot programme with Coffey
Industry: Engineering
Keywords: Continuous Professional Development, Upskilling Career Assessment, Career Learning Pathways, eLearning Courses, RPL Toolkit, Career Guidance, Workplace Learning, 1-to-1 Mentoring

What We Did

1. Business Needs Assessment

MyCareerPath collaborated with the Coffey HR team in bringing a group of employees through a four-stage mentored career pathway – with a focus on supporting, developing and nurturing personal career development plans and progression within Coffey.

2. Planning Phase

We worked with Coffey to understand their career framework, and support their learners in progression planning.

3. Onboarding

Online presentations of programmes to participants, including timelines, six-eight-week programmes, anticipated outcomes, terms of engagement and Q&A sessions.

4. Engagement

Individual appointments using online booking system, meetings with Career & Learning Pathways Advisors, Recognition of Prior Learning Coordinators.

5. Evaluation & Outputs

We evaluated all the learners' experience of the pathways and measured individuals' employability, both at the beginning and at the end of their learning pathway.

Summary

Founded in 1974, Coffey is a family-owned company operating across the UK and Ireland, specialising in water infrastructure and civil engineering.

Step 1

Idea

Supporting Coffey in developing skills and progression plans for their employees.
Step 2

Process

A 4-stage mentored programme from career and learning pathway advisors.
Step 3

Goal

Nurture continuous professional development within Coffey.

Input

Background

Coffey prioritises their employees and highly values their skills as they provide services in a range of areas, which include: water supply and wastewater infrastructure, road and bridge construction, turnkey design, build, and operation of water and wastewater treatment plants, utilities, renewable energy, power, specialist engineering techniques, and design and construct projects.

Coffey highly regards the diversity within its workforce, who are equipped with a range of skills and experiences to meet the specific demands of each project. The company actively promotes the growth of its employees within the organisation, encouraging a culture with a strong emphasis on teamwork. By collaborating with MyCareerPath, Coffey aimed to strengthen its commitment to employee development. The goal was to further cultivate a skilled, innovative, and adaptable workforce that aligns seamlessly with the company’s core values and mission.

The services offered by mycareerpath.ie aligned with Coffey commitment to support its employees by:

  • Assisting them in planning their personal growth, navigating and advancing their careers within their organisation.
  • The career & learning pathway advisors (CPLA’s) leveraged e-learning resources to cultivate skill development, focusing particularly on areas that enhance project management, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving.
  • Working with each learner on their individual pathways that met the needs aligned with the specific demands of employees in the construction sector.
  • Through personalised one to one mentoring, the career and learning pathway advisors assisted employees in identifying their own development and career progression within Coffey by:
  • Recognising the need to be adaptable to meet future business needs.
  • Assisting employees in exploring further education to help achieve personal and business goals.
  • Helping employees to understand what recognition of prior learning is – and, if applicable how this can enable their progression for further development.

Coffey’s overall aim of piloting and collaborating with mycareerpath.ie was to support and recognise the importance of employee growth and prosperity within their organisation.

Placing a high value on employee skills, Coffey was interested in supporting employees through Career Development, leading to exploration of further education and encourage career growth within their teams, aligning with their organisational culture.

Chosen Pathways

Career and Learning Pathways

The MyCareerPath team introduced the five distinct pathways to HR and the group of employees undertaking the pilot.

6 learners completed the Career Accelerator Pathway

1 learner completed the Entrepreneur Pathway

4 learners completed the Mastery Pathway

Career Pathways: Visit Our Pathways page fore more

Output from the Process

Employee Career Development Plan

  • Employees receive guidance from a qualified Career Advisor
  • Employees have clearly defined pathways and skills gaps analysis
  • Employees now have the right mix of skills for their future business needs
  • Employees are more engaged
  • Access to resources to support learning goals
  • Guided support throughout the process
  • RPL information
  • Ultimately you have the skills and confidence to pursue a rewarding career within your organisation

Testimonials

Fiona Flaherty, Human Resources Generalist

"Having gone through MyCareerPath programme, I found it hugely beneficial. When thinking about your development you don’t often stop and deeply reflect on yourself. I feel that mycareerpath.ie really gave me the opportunity to do that. Having an independent person to speak to about where you think you are now and where you want to go, was sometimes challenging but also reassuring.

The vast number of resources available on the platform were extremely impressive, interactive, and engaging. Overall, I would highly recommend the MyCareerPath programme, I found it very beneficial and worthwhile."

Emma Bolger

"MyCareerPath was incredibly beneficial for my professional development. The resources available were very accessible and strongly supported my CPD.

I particularly valued the opportunity for 1:2: 1 coaching as it made the programme tailored to my specific needs. Through the coaching I identified career and personal goals that hadn't
crossed my mind before starting the programme.

The whole journey on mycareerpath.ie was very enjoyable and I would highly recommend it to others.:

Overall feedback from Coffey on the Platform, Career Assessments and E-learning tools:

The career development and learning pathway programme received very positive feedback from learners continuing with their professional development and undertaking further study. The group from Coffey, embraced the e-learning resources on our platform and together with our one-to-one career advisors, they received a better understanding of themselves by engaging with our self-reflection and career assessment tools. The major benefit of this was that they could really grasp where their strengths lay when working on projects; teamwork being a fundamental aspect of Coffey organisational structure.

Furthermore, on completion of the pilot, a number of employees applied for further study demonstrating increased motivation to pursue career progression within Coffey.

Additionally, many learners actively engaged with information around Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) and were interested in exploring how RPL could benefit them in their career progression.

What is Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)

RPL is a process whereby evidence of learning (formal, non-formal or informal) that has taken place prior to enrolment in higher education is recognised and given value. A fundamental principle of RPL is that a learner should not be asked to relearn something they already know. With RPL, prior learning can count towards entry, advanced entry, credit or exemptions from modules. Learn more about it here.

Engineers Ireland | Continuous Professional Development (CPD)

Since the completion of this partner collaboration with Coffey’s, MyCareerPath are delighted to announce that we are now listed as registered training providers on the Engineers Ireland website.

  • 22 (1:2:1) mentoring hours
  • 130 eLearning resources accessed
  • 17 Career assessments completed
  • 13 CareerEdge+ completed
  • Visited MyExperience [now priorlearning.ie] 8 times
  • Uploaded 6 CVs to CV360

Contact Us to Transform Your Workforce