{"id":577,"date":"2006-09-08T01:00:30","date_gmt":"2006-09-08T09:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=577"},"modified":"2006-09-08T01:00:30","modified_gmt":"2006-09-08T09:00:30","slug":"about-stretchwork-and-career-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=577","title":{"rendered":"About Stretchwork and Career Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

Julia Hanna recently wrote<\/a> about the use of stretchwork applied to career advancement in the August 9 issue of HBS Working Knowledge.\u00a0 Stretchwork has been a tool utilized by performance management professionals for ages.\u00a0 In truth, we in HR have known about stretchwork long before the academics decided to study it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The concept of stretchwork is simple.\u00a0 When you have employees who are already sufficiently competent in their current jobs, how do you get them to grow?\u00a0 Stretchwork is simply a term that means you\u2019ll give them projects outside their normal comfort zone which will force them to utilize new skills, work with different people, and consider new ways to think about their work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Old school \u201cmanager trainee\u201d positions that were once sought after by new college graduates employed this exact methodology.\u00a0 Knowing these new grads didn\u2019t have any of the competencies to be managers, they inserted the trainees into the business, and once that part of the business was learned the trainee was rotated.\u00a0 It was understood that the quickest way to get the trainee to desired job was to expose them to broad aspects of the business and move them to new areas when the time was right.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do we identify appropriate candidates for stretchwork?\u00a0 Well, there are a couple of concepts you should consider:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. <\/span> <\/span>In theory, everyone should be a candidate for stretchwork:\u00a0 In order to highly engage your employee base, each employee needs to be challenged and every employee needs to see the growth path.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. <\/span> <\/span>In reality, your managers hopefully know who the employees are that want the growth opportunities and if they are qualified for them.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. <\/span> <\/span>Also in reality, there are some employees who really don\u2019t necessarily strive for growth, but they are great candidates for future growth.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If we take points #2 and 3, the idea that employee growth should be applied for the sake of employee engagement (and all the benefits thereof), are especially true for these populations.\u00a0 If an employee wants to grow but isn\u2019t presented the opportunities, they will leave.\u00a0 If an employee is a consistently high performer, but is satisfied where they are, another competing firm will hire them away.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Once again I tackle the sensitive subject of whether we (in HR) trust our managers to monitor all these activities and desires of our best employees.\u00a0 The answer as usual is a resounding \u201cno.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say that many or even most managers are incapable.\u00a0 The small percentage of managers who aren\u2019t great make it necessary for us to have more focus.\u00a0 The solution is technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Unified talent management solutions obviously help us identify our best employees through performance management.\u00a0 Through the integrated workforce management and competencies modules, we should be able to identify the best means of presenting career ladders and career planning tools to both the employee and manager.\u00a0 The hope is that the manager and employee would then execute some of these plans as part of their performance objectives for the next performance period.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We have amazing tools these days and the integration possibilities are expansive.\u00a0 While stretchwork is not a new concept in HR, it\u2019s critical that we\u2019re able to apply some of these older concepts to our theories and strategies of managing and engaging our workforce.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Julia Hanna recently wrote about the use of stretchwork applied to career advancement in the August 9 issue of HBS Working Knowledge.\u00a0 Stretchwork has been a tool utilized by performance management professionals for ages.\u00a0 In truth, we in HR have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,12,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engagement","category-strategies","category-learning-management","category-talent-acquisition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}