If it takes your organization months on end or years to get people up to speed and into meaningful roles, you’ve got a serious problem in today’s short-term environment. Don’t tell me you have a staffing crisis and then tell me it’s going to take years to train new people to do the work. No wonder you have a staffing problem.

As unique as your field of work may be, it is exactly the same as every other in that there is tons to know if one is to do the job, whatever the job may be, as it is currently conceived. This simply cannot be the end of the discussion. It is only the first consideration. Of course nobody can develop overnight the kind of depth and breadth of knowledge that we used to expect from people who were taking “career positions” on the old fashioned organization chart. It remains the case, however, that neither individuals nor the organizations that employ them have time any more for traditional long-term knowledge acquisition.

Still, one thing hasn’t changed. The only depth and breadth of knowledge people are going to acquire in the new economy, just as in the old economy, will come from much experience over time. But it will have to be the long-term experience of moving from one short-term role to another.

For most employers, the logistical challenge will be creating valuable bundles of tasks and responsibilities for employees—meaningful roles—at much earlier points in the employment relationship than their current development processes support. Creating meaningful roles earlier usually requires unbundling the elements of more complex existing roles and creating new more narrow roles which people can learn and assume in short order. This approach very quickly gives individuals a great sense of ownership in their work and thus a greater commitment to its quality because their reputations are tied directly to observable results within their control. As a person gets up to speed on each set of tasks and begins performing them ably, the goal is to keep adding new responsibilities, training the person in stages for each new bundle of work. Every new bundle of work is like a proving ground which enables her to earn more responsibility right away.

The good news is that you can put important work in the hands of people without depth and wisdom. But you won’t be able to do that and just walk away. Like every management strategy for the short-term flexible workforce, this approach to training requires a high degree of engagement—ongoing negotiating, coaching, and measuring—on the part of managers.

Stay strong!
Bruce