Hi Everyone,
In partnership with our Recruitment Team, we are looking for development options get our internal pipeline moving. We are recruiting far too much for more senior roles rather than looking at internal talent.
We are looking for ways to develop our employees that is much more experience based - partly because its a great way to learn, partly because our L&D team is very small and we dont have the resource to support programmes.
Does anyone have advice for a framework that would assist managers to effectively execute Job swapping/Job shadowing?
OR do you have any other ideas that might help me out??
Thank you in advance
Natasha
Replies
Hello All,
Thank you all for your suggestions the articles were really helpful. At the moment I am working on a business proposal to implement this but haven't had much time to spend on it. We are looking more towards the middle of the pipeline to prepare people for senior roles.
You have all provided some good food for thought here.
Natasha
Hi Natasha
I came across this piece on job swaps in museums - a sector that doesn't have much money to play with. I also thought this piece on the perceived value of job swaps was interesting too. Not much detail on how it was done but it really worked for the police.
Martin
Loved the museum "swap shop", which was essentially a one week "shadowing" exercise by each of the museum curators, visiting the other curator at their workplace. I liked the term "fluid learning" and clearly the opportunity for each to reflect on their own work practices was beneficial.
The other piece about Lanarksire trading standards working alongside the police is an activity that has been going on in some English Councils for decades. I know because I used to work in the West Midlands in the 90s and we were doing it then (not just trading standards and police, but also the dept of transport and the waste management team and various other combinations of enforcement bodies). It worked well then and, judging by the article, continues to work well for both organisations in meeting their regulatory objectives.
Thanks for sharing them Martin, I enjoyed reading them.
Thanks, Alison! Looks like you have a lot insights into this area - hope Natasha gets in touch! Have a great weekend!
Thanks Martin. I am a proponent of not only internal but also external shadowing or temporary job swap opportunities if they can be arranged, as I think it is beneficial to learn how "others" approach "the same thing", and people can really learn from each other and can get good ideas for improvements within their own workplace.
I once did some European Commission work (developing best available techniques in industrial pollution control) and was mightily impressed that the Italian Glass manufacturing industry created a secondment opportunity for one of their regulators to work with them for twelve months, spending time not only at their federation head office but also at several manufacturing sites, and her employer allowed her to take advantage of this. She presumably gained new insight and was thus better enabled to represent her country's interests in this sector when faced with strong challenges from other countries who did things "differently".
Depending upon the size and structure of your organisation it's potentially a big piece of work to organise strategically and to ensure transparency and fairness regarding development opportunities. You certainly need the buy in of the senior leadership, as well as all the managers involved in creating shadowing/secondment opportunities.
It can be quite complex to organise. For longer term secondments, those involved need to know what they are expected to get from it and what they are expected to deliver in the role in order to meet their objectives, and they also need to be very clear about the time frame involved and what to expect at the end of the secondment. Appropriate support needs to be provided whilst they are in their secondment position. It is a good idea to provide them with a mentor who has the mentoring role as one of their own objectives, so it doesn't get neglected.
If you start off small (perhaps with a pilot study) you can always build on this as the programme demonstrates its worth, and you see some success.
You will be able to find information on the internet about what other organisations approaches look like.
Very best of luck with it. It should theoretically be a very valuable programme, but does need sensitive management, especially around those applicants who are not chosen to go on the programme. We discuss the reasons unsuccessful applicants aren't chosen (interviews are competency based) and we provide mentors for them as well (whilst they stay in their current role) so that they have the opportunity to reflect and address any weak points. Then hopefully next time development opportunities are offered they will perform better in the interview process.
"Shadowing" in our place tends to be short term, and approved and managed informally by the relevant managers. They can back-fill with competent cover if they have the available budget (at some point down the line, a contingent worker will be brought in.)
HI Natasha,
Great question and great discussion to get going thank you. I agree this is a great way for your people to learn and develop.
I think the key for this is to make sure that those that are engaging in job shadowing/swaps have chance to reflect on what they have learned. Perhaps regular coaching sessions would be good. Maybe a diary that they keep and complete each day, a bit like a CPD record. Perhaps getting a 'community' group of people involved together to share how the experiences have been and what they've picked up.
Just wondered, if you've had any thoughts on how you might go about selecting/preparing who they will be shadowing. Any thoughts on that?