Our previous post mentioned the effect of not having employee development processes in place. Organizations can’t remain passive about employee development because the cost of losing talent is high. Natural attrition generally will not scale back the workforce according to the overarching plan for the agency. Too often, according to numerous sources, the wrong people are leaving (productive good-fit people are leaving and unproductive poor-fit people remain) and, as a result, the remaining organization is weaker.
Conversely, adhocism often sets in when there is not an intentional effort to develop employees. Adhocism is when organizations promote people without following any policy but just to meet the needs of crucial or urgent times or situations. Buyer’s remorse is often the outcome when, under the crunch, management gets “whoever’s available” to do the job.
Because the foundation of any organization is the people, developing the talent in any organization must be a critical initiative – made so by interconnecting it with the core non-negotiable values, vision, and mission of the agency. Designing and developing an effective corporate culture is a multi-dimensional effort, with no “cookie cutter” solutions. However, our experience/research into sustained world-class organizations reveals similar patterns and key enablers. A well-crafted culture requires a holistic approach that considers all aspects that impact the “personality” of the organization, including recruiting, developing, promoting, and retaining.
“We make thousands of people decisions every day—who we should hire, how much we should pay them, who we should promote, who we should let go of…what we try to do is bring the same level of rigor to people decisions that we do to engineering decisions.” –Google People Operations
