Illustration in the Real World

Karen Upright, Systems Manager

Memo

After graduating from Florida Community College with an associate’s degree, Karen Upright went on to earn her B.S. from Florida State University and her M.B.A. from Purdue University. As a systems manager at Procter & Gamble, Karen writes memos, systems development plans, speeches for presentations, talk sheets to provide background at meetings, and technical design documents, and e-mail. Below is an example of one of Karen’s memos.

From: Upright, Karen

Subject: Women’s Network: Assignment Planning Matrix

Vocabulary development

retain: to keep

matrix: a grid or table

aspects: parts of

align: to be in line or parallel (in this case, to agree)

objectives: goals

As you know, we have an enrollment goal for 30 percent of our employees to be women, but we are currently at 20 percent. We need to grow our enrollment, but we also need to retain the women currently in the organization. Greg and I met a few weeks ago to determine how to improve assignment planning for the women in our organization. We agreed to use the Assignment Planning Matrix as a starting point. The matrix is a good career-planning tool, with a section on career interests, rated from “highly desirable” to “undesirable.” It also contains a section on specific P&G career interests, with sections to describe aspects that make a particular choice desirable or undesirable and a place to give weight to the various career choices. Completing the matrix requires thought as to what course an individual wants to pursue and why. I have reviewed a sample with and provided training to the women in our organization. Each of them has been asked to complete the matrix, meet with her manager to align on content, and submit a final version to her manager. This information can be shared at the next Leadership Team meeting.

This initiative has several objectives:

  • Have each member of the network start a long-term plan for her career.
  • Use the long-term plan to develop a short-term plan for assignments and competency development.
  • Share this information in written form with the immediate manager and section manager of each member of the network, enabling the manager to speak for each woman’s career interests and providing a reference point for each member’s career goals.
  • Enable the Leadership Team to plan assignments within the organization for each member of the network, matching individual goals and interests to organizational goals and needs.

I encourage you to support the women on your teams as they work through the Assignment Planning Matrix over the next few weeks. Please let me know if you have any questions.

  1. Question

    What is the main point of the memo?

  2. Question

    Karen gives examples about two topics. What are the two topics?

  3. Question

    What is the purpose of the memo?
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