Get there faster with a career-driven learning plan

Stephannie Jonovska FCPA has reinvented herself multiple times during her two-decade career at BlueScope. 

She began in finance before moving to procurement, business improvement, finance transformation and finance operations. 

Today, Jonovska serves as BlueScope’s head of commercial services and transformation. 

“My career has always centred around transformation — of people, of teams, of process, of culture. I’ve got a deep curiosity in, and a real drive to deliver, change that is meaningful for the organisation and our people,” she says.

Each new role has required Jonovska to acquire new knowledge and skill sets. “Learning has guided and supported every stage in my career,” she says. 

Her approach to learning is driven by mindset, rather than the need to meet set milestones.

“It is about learning as a lifelong journey. It is not ‘tick and flick’, I’ve now achieved my degree, now I’ve done my Masters. You need to be flexible at every stage in your career,” she says.

“It is about being curious and adaptable, especially as technology moves so fast and as our business expectations evolve, especially in finance. We can no longer be back office number crunchers; we’ve got to be there driving strategy.”

How to build a career-driven learning plan

Continuous learning is an essential component of career development, but it needs to be intentional rather than haphazard.

“There is no point undertaking training unless it is going to achieve a particular goal,” says Dr Ash Jones, chief learning and innovation officer at CPA Australia. 

“You need to develop a clear plan of what capabilities you wish to hone or build in order to upskill or reskill, and how you wish to progress or pivot your career aspirations,” she continues. 

“Otherwise, given the availability of learning content and the variance in quality available, learners can spend a great deal of time going down rabbit holes exploring forms of training that won’t support them to build the capabilities they need for progression.”

 

"I ask what’s going to matter to my organisation and our industry over the next few years, but also what is going to stretch me as a leader right now."

 

The most effective development plans are tailored to individual career goals and include a range of learning activities.

“Rather than relying on the traditional model where HR or learning and development provides annual workshops or static courses, individuals need to take personal responsibility in adopting a living, breathing ecosystem of professional development, which involves just-in-time learning practices — whether that is accessing modules on your phone during a commute or engaging in an interactive webinar across time zones,” Jones says.

Effective upskilling is geared towards new skills that are required in an individual’s current role. Jones suggests finding opportunities to undertake micro-learnings that can be applied to day-to-day tasks. 

“This has a two-fold effect: first, it demonstrates your willingness to experiment and try new things, and second, it affords the opportunity to build examples of how you have applied your new learnings.”

Strategic upskilling

Over the course of her career, Jonovska has undertaken a mix of formal programs, micro-credentials like those offered by CPA Australia, and hands-on experimentation, prioritising skills that are personally and strategically relevant for both her career and her organisation.

“I ask what’s going to matter to my organisation and our industry over the next few years, but also what is going to stretch me as a leader right now,” she says. 

Often it begins with a problem. In one instance, Jonovska identified an issue with forecasting accuracy within her organisation — a problem she believed artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning could solve. 

 

"You need to develop a clear plan of what capabilities you wish to hone or build in order to upskill or reskill, and how you wish to progress or pivot your career aspirations."

 

She invested time in acquiring the necessary skills to address the problem, undertaking her own research and calling on the expertise of internal technical experts. The result was the development of a new algorithm that improved forecasting accuracy. 

“I made a point of understanding the business problem and how technology could potentially solve it,” she says. “I’m not a data scientist, but now, because I’ve implemented machine learning into finance, I can talk the language with IT and, importantly, I understand it enough to drive the strategy and culture.”

Jonovska is now investing in skills that will give her a competitive advantage in the next phase of her professional life, such as digital fluency.

“I am not just thinking about my current self but also my future self, around what is going to be relevant and marketable if I choose to do board work after I retire.”

What does success look like?

It is important to track progress and evaluate the outcomes of the learning process.

In this new learning environment, success is measured not by the completion of a certificate, but in the application of new skills to achieve a specific goal.

“Success is measured in different ways across the learning ecosystem,” Jones says. “It could be that a clearly defined learning plan provides the structure to work towards the next promotion, or it could be that the adoption of AI increases operational efficiencies and provides more work–life balance.”

At monthly meetings, Jonovska reviews the performance of the algorithm she has implemented. 

“We also talk about what our customers are doing, how their behaviour is changing and other things that are happening in our business that could impact the model,” she says.  

“It is a really good example of human + machine = better.”