Welcome to the Learning & Development (L&D) page at GitLab! L&D is an essential part of any organization's growth, success and overall business strategy. We want to support the growth of our GitLab team-members' competencies, skills and knowledge by providing them with the tools they need and also the opportunities to progress their own personal and professional development.
GitLab Learning & Development Principles
Meaningful and relevant content. We deliver learning solutions that drive the development and growth of team members throughout their life cycle at GitLab.
Values aligned. Our learning solutions reinforce GitLab’s values, and foster continuous learning and curiosity.
Diverse approaches to learning. We apply a blended learning model for learning solutions, and adapt to various learning needs.
Community. We make our L&D offerings available to the public, aligned to our mission that everyone can contribute.
Learning Sessions
Live Learning
Live Learning sessions will be conducted on a monthly basis. There will be a Zoom video conference set up for each session. Official dates and topics will be added to the schedule as confirmed.
Format for 25 minute sessions:
10 minutes - introduction/content
10-15 minutes - Q&A
Format for 50 minute sessions:
10 minutes - introduction/content
20 minutes - breakout session
15 minutes - debrief
5 minutes - conclusion
Action Learning
Action Learning sessions are designed to give team members a place to practice coaching skills by helping others work through specific challenges. Official dates and topics will be added to the schedule as confirmed.
Format for 25 minute sessions:
3 minutes - introduction
20 minutes - open up for attendees to present a current challenge they are facing. [Note: Other participants ask open ended questions about the challenge. No leading questions or advise is to be given. Once the person with the challenge feels they have received enough coaching, the group works on another participant's challenge
2 minutes - conclusion
Leadership Forum
Leadership Forums provide opportunities for leaders to interact with peer groups in order to gain shared meaning and experiential learning on GitLab leadership skills through a storytelling format. Each Leadership Forums is structured around one leadership topic and organized by leadership groups (e.g., Management Group, Director Group, S-Group, and E-group).
Overview of the Leadership Forum design:
Select a specific leadership topic (e.g., setting performance indicators, managing performance, creating an inclusive environment) for the Leadership Forum.
Participants take an online test (e.g., Google Form) that is created for that topic and based on material in our Handbook.
Organize the live Leadership Forum for participants who have completed the test for that leadership topic. The Leadership Forum is guided by an individual at the next level above the participants' leadership group (e.g., E-group member guides S-Group Leadership Forum, and so on).
A 25-minute Leadership Forum should have a maximum of 5 participants.
Further details about the format as well as topics and dates can be found on the Leadership Forum page.
Career Development
Everyone's career development is different, but we have outlined what it can look like at GitLab.
Language Courses
If you have any language courses you would like to recommend or links to websites please add them to this section.
There is also a way to practice foreign languages and ask for advice in several Slack channels, each dedicated to a specific language. You can find all these channels by searching for channels starting with #lang. If you're missing a channel for your target language, feel free to create one and mention it in #company-announcements so that fellow GitLab team-members can join too!
New Manager Enablement Program
GitLab has a growing resource to enable all team members transitioning to a manager role. It contains a link to a checklist, readings, and a form to help learning and development customize your development as a manager.
Learning Management Systems
We are currently evaluating different learning management systems (LMS) to provide growth opportunities in a more structured, on-demand format. To help us continue to be Handbook First, course content should be structured in the following way:
Text in handbook
Video on Youtube
Test and certification in an open source platform or something without a price per user/student so we can invite all our million of users without incremental costs.
Don't put text or video in the platform itself, only link to the handbook and video, so we have a single source of truth and don't end up with duplicate content that is hard to keep up to date.
Common Ground: Harassment Prevention Training
All team members will be sent an invitation link from the people team to complete this training using Will Interactive's LMS. Once you receive the email please do the following:
Underneath the green Sign In box, click on the Sign Up Now link (also in green) which is right after Don't have an account?
Enter in your name and GitLab email address
Create a password
You may be sent a link to verify your account
Once you have logged in successfully you will be taken to your home screen
Once there you should see the course title GitLab for Supervisors: Common Ground Business for Supervisors or GitLab for Employees:Common Ground Business for Employees, if you live in California the course title will include CA within it.
Click on that to begin the training.
For managers and leaders, this is 2 hours long, but you can stop and come back to it. For all other GitLab team-members, this is 1 hour long.
You can also use the navigation bar at the top right-hand side of screen for volume and screen settings
To the left and right of the center screen you should see this symbol: > which you can click on to move forward and back through the training
Once completed, please upload a copy of your certificate in BambooHR in the verification folder
You may also keep a record of the certificate for your own files. To create the certificate, click on view in the course title
Scroll down to users then click on completion certificates to download the PDFs
If you have any questions or need further help please ping people ops in the #peopleops channels in slack.
Performance Indicators
Engagement Survey Growth and Development Score > X%
Questions related to growth and development on the semi-annual Engagement Survey have a favorable score. The exact target is to be determined.
Rate of internal job promotions > X%
Total number of promotions in a rolling six month period/total number of employees. The target for this is to be determined.
12 month voluntary team member turnover related to growth < X%
This is calculated the same as 12 month voluntary team member turnover KPI but is using the number of team members actively choosing to leave GitLab to growth and development related reasons only. The target is to be determined.
