Page 230 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

Job Enrichment and Professional Growth C217

— Maintain a fair, consistent, and clearly understood internal job-posting
system.
— Allow employees to internally “post” their own jobs as a way of letting
other employees know they would be open to “swapping” jobs.
— Consider internal candidates for openings before interviewing outside
candidates.

— Create an internal “skills bank” using an IT system that can match em-
ployee skills and experience with current needs and opportunities.
— Reduce months or years of tenure required to compete for internal job
vacancies.
— Allow good performers to move to new jobs without permission of their
managers after serving in their current jobs for a specified period.
— Have managers discuss employees’ development periodically, and not
just at appraisal time.

— Base promotions on demonstrated talent, results, and true readiness, not
tenure.

— Build an effective organization-wide talent review and succession man-
agement process based on in-depth assessment of emerging leaders and
key contributors.

: FINAL THOUGHTS

A few years ago we were engaged to conduct a series of focus groups
where employees at a large bank were to give us insights into how
the organization could better support their career advancement. We
were told by several employees in different groups that if an employee
wanted to gain promotion into another department, he or she would
need to leave the bank for a year or two, gain experience outside the
firm, and then come back. The organization’s “stovepipes,” as they
called them, hindered employees from moving into other areas. Man-
agers overtly told employees they would be penalized for their “disloy-
alty” to the department.
We found this attitude troubling, in large part because we were
aware that most of the successful senior leaders at the bank had