It’s a cliche backed by hard data that people don’t quit their jobs; they quit their managers, their teams, and their organizations.

To address a longstanding need at Mozilla for manager training, both onboarding and continuous improvement, a small team of Mozilla employees from across the organization have begun a pilot Engineering Manager Training Program. This program is intended to dramatically improve organizational alignment, employee engagement, voluntary retention and operational effectiveness at Mozilla in the near term.

For a long time, Mozilla has seen engineering success as a leading indicator of managerial success; strong engineers, the theory goes, will make strong engineering managers. But whether you’re new to management or a veteran team leader here, odds are good that you’ve privately realized that this isn’t the case. You’ve discovered on your own that people management is an entirely different skill set. It involves balancing different, sometimes contradictory, goals against limited resources, including money, time, attention, and motivation.

This is an org-crosscutting effort that brings together representatives from many groups that have been working on manager training over the last eighteen months, and consolidates everything we’ve learned, inside and out, about building and leading effective teams. The initial cohort has been selected

For the next six months, our initial cohort of managers participants will be provided with: A set of empirical evaluations, based on our CultureAmp surveys, designed to both fully understand our current situation and drive cultural change towards known best practices. Monthly coaching/support sessions with your colleagues. Manager training sessions (“Manager 101”, Tribe, others) provided in collaboration with HR. Other resources and training sessions relevant to Mozilla’s goals and managers’ specific domains.

Victory conditions for this program are demonstrably improved organizational alignment and employee engagement, higher voluntary retention rates and better operational effectiveness across the program’s participants. If we are able to demonstrate success, our aspirational goal is to include continuous improvement in our bonus assessment and promotion practices in 2018.

In addition, the training material and courses curriculum we’re offering to participating managers will be available to employees as well, including org-supported manager training sessions (“Manager 101”, Tribe, others) and instructional materials relevant to your and your team’s career goals.

FAQ

Can I get involved? 

This program is full up for now. If you're interested in being in a future expansion or iteration, please send us an email