Mobilize from Within and People Will Stay
With only a few weeks before the start of Major League Baseball spring training, I got to thinking about the dynamics of a major league clubhouse. One of the most underrated sources of good team chemistry comes from a veteran utility player. A utility player is someone that can play multiple positions, and in general each MLB team counts at least one among their roster. The Tampa Bay Rays are an example of a team that thrives by having multiple utility players, thereby enabling them to withstand the inevitable injuries that come with grinding out a 162 game regular season. And although baseball rosters are undoubtedly in an era of specialization, the presence of a player with the varied skill set of a Swiss Army knife is required and in many cases indispensible.
In my career I’ve had the privilege of working for organizations that allowed me to learn different positions that built upon pre-existing skills while creating opportunities for learning and development. From my days as a jack of all trades within the food service industry, to learning the ins and outs from within a transportation company, there has been mutual benefit for both employee and organization in allowing for flexibility in job role and responsibility. The opportunity to move across different job functions was, in my experience, born from the necessity of the start-up nature of the organizations for which I was employed. But these same principles are becoming more prominent in global corporations as they strive to become more agile in today’s frequently changing marketplace.
Because of my personal connection to the topic, internal talent mobility is one area of human capital management that I’m very interested in. A few months ago HCI featured the talent mobility practices of Arrow Electronics, as presented by Heather Erickson, Director of Global Talent Management. Each of her fascinating examples of practical talent mobility methods is built on the guiding principle that organizations with good talent management practices have better financial results.
However, deploying talent within an organization is actually the final move in the strategic process of talent mobility. The actions that precede it; ensuring an understanding of organizational needs and the preparation of talent for mobilization are vital to a successful talent mobility practice. One organization that does this very well is Cardinal Health. In a recent webcast, Julie Holbein, Director of Global Talent Management at Cardinal Health, demonstrated the approach her organization takes when looking to develop both individuals and teams. The results of an ambitions five year plan have enabled the employees of Cardinal Health to be prepared for new challenges and able to embrace new roles.
As talent management professionals charged with taking a talent inventory of their organization begin to see the lack of bench strength in one area or the dearth of viable successors in another, look to baseball for inspiration. Look to create easier paths for internal mobility through training, development and rotational assignments and I’m sure you’ll find that the more utility on your bench the more adept your organization will be at managing for success.