Growing someone internally

What this achieves

Developing somebody into a bigger role crosses four parts of Humavera and takes months rather than clicks. This guide sets out the sequence, and marks the point where accepting an internal applicant does not actually move them.

The shape of it

Skills say what somebody has. A role says what it needs. The difference between the two is the gap, and everything in between — learning, a development plan, a stretch assignment — exists to close it. The move at the end is a separate act with its own approvals.

1. What the person has is recorded

Growth starts from evidence rather than impression. Skills are assessed against a proficiency scale, and an employee or their manager can request an assessment where nothing current exists.

Recorded skills go stale, which is why skill freshness matters more than it sounds. A development conversation built on a three-year-old assessment is a conversation about somebody who no longer exists.

2. The gap is named

Once an assessment completes, a gap report compares what it showed against what a job profile requires. The employee can do the same for themselves from their readiness screen, comparing against any target role.

Both answer the same question in different directions: what stands between this person and that role. That is the list everything downstream works from — and it is a list of requirements, not a judgement about the person.

3. The direction is agreed

A gap only means something once somebody has chosen a destination. Employees explore their career options and submit their aspirations; managers read what their team has said and record the conversation.

Where your organisation has mapped routes between roles, career paths make the options concrete rather than notional — see Setup Considerations: career paths for how far to map before it becomes maintenance.

4. The plan is written down

Create a development plan turns the gap and the direction into a target role, a timeline, and goals somebody can finish. An employee can create their own; a manager or administrator can create one for somebody else.

Then track and review it. A plan nobody revisits is the most common failure in this whole journey — the gap analysis was right, the plan was reasonable, and nobody looked at it again for a year.

5. Learning closes what learning can close

Assign the courses and paths that address the gap: enrol and assign learners, and let people find recommended learning for themselves. Where a capability is not taught in-house, the training directory lists outside providers.

Learning closes knowledge gaps. It does not close experience gaps, which is what the next stage is for.

6. Experience is arranged deliberately

Some of what a bigger role needs can only be learned by doing it. A stretch assignment gives somebody work beyond their current scope; a gig or project assignment adds defined work alongside their existing role without changing it; a secondment places them elsewhere for a period and brings them back at the end.

The distinction is worth stating to the person. A gig is extra work on top of their job. A secondment moves them, with a return date that the placement carries — they are not signing up to leave.

Where you are developing somebody towards a specific position, succession planning is the other side of the same work: the role’s view of its candidates, rather than the candidate’s view of the role.

7. An opportunity opens

Internal roles are posted as opportunities with their own requirements, and Humavera can generate matches against recorded skills. Matches are a shortlist to review, not a decision — the score narrows who to read, and a person decides.

Employees find and apply themselves, and applying does not notify their current manager. Reviewers then work the applicant list and score applicants.

8. Accepting is not moving — and this is the join to watch

What happens when somebody is accepted depends entirely on the type of opportunity:

Gig or project — an assignment is created against the opportunity. The person keeps their position and their reporting line.
Secondment — a placement is created, the person moves to the host department for its duration, and the return is scheduled against the end date.
Full role — the application is marked accepted and nothing else happens. No assignment, no placement, no move.

For a permanent move, somebody has to request a transfer or role change. That request runs through the current manager, the target manager, and HR, and even then approval is not the move: the transfer is completed as a final step once every stage has cleared.

Read Setup Considerations: opportunity types before posting your first full-role opportunity. A hiring team that treats acceptance as the end of the process leaves somebody accepted for a role they have not been given.

9. The move is recorded properly

A completed transfer changes the person’s position, department, and reporting line. Anything about their pay is a separate change on the employee record — see Record a pay or contract change — and a promotion that comes with an increase runs through a promotion request rather than being typed in.

What happens next

The person’s new role has its own requirements, so the cycle starts again from their skills. That is the point of running it this way: each move leaves behind an assessed record, a plan that was tracked, and a gap analysis that explains the decision to anyone who asks later.