Try to apply these words to people. It seems to me that we have focused on reusing things, refreshing things and even retaining stuff rather than toss it in the rubbish. But we do not apply that logic to our employees.
HR needs to adopt the same philosphy about employees. We should be relentlessly retraining people and moving them to new positions. Managers should be required to reuse current employees in open positions – even if they lack a skill or two.
Transfer and training costs, except in rare cases, should be reasonable and retraining can be accelerated in a variety of ways. In a down economy, speed to productivity is often less of a concern.
Laying people off is often just a way to purge our bad hires and cover up mistakes made months or years ago. It’s a soft skill bail out of sorts and leaves managers and recruiters with little accountability for making poor hiring decisions or for not investing in training.
Perhaps an internal policy requiring reuse, retraining or redeployment before layoffs would encourage managers to adopt a sustainable talent strategy and build more flexibility into their employees.
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Hi Kevin,
I found your site by googling “Sustainable Workforce.” I’m curious if you have any compilations of your writing on this subject, or if there are resources you could point me to that have helped or currently help you shape your perpective.
Enjoyed reading this piece. Cheers.
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In response to kbwheeler’s blog on 18 March.2009
You are spot on! I myself was in exactly that position last year and was laid off due to poor management decisions.
I believe fervently in retraining people and using the resources you have rather than dispensing with people in an adhoc and reactive manner. Now is the best time to improve recruitment functions, reduce costs and value add to organisations by building up talent pools now for when the economy recovers.
With your permission, I would like to use your ’3R’s’ as an example to HR managers to rethink about Training and Development.
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