We are arriving at another crossroads: a company needs to decide whether they want to adapt themselves to the next generations that join their ranks or to have them follow suit. But the millennials, centennials and synthetic generation have different needs and don’t want to be compromised. So how to prepare yourself? Here I will make the case for taking that first step and stop confining your staff: judge people by their skills!
My observations
As I joined Sogeti my first interview was with my now-unit manager. At that time, I had been working in infrastructure and steadily climbed to the level of an architect but wanted a change. My interview was on software development, something I did not have great experience in. However, instead of talking about all the things I didn’t know too much about, we spent our time looking at what I had been doing and what were my skills. It was a good conversation leading to an opportunity to prove myself. Being enthusiastic about this I took it, and this leads me here. Now as I joined the company, a couple of things happened: I got assigned a business unit and a rank. This is what normally happens when you join any company. From that point on, any assignment came to me through these channels. This process is similar in all companies, but it does have some side effects:- Sales is filtered through this one dimension. A person is found by going to the most likely unit and selecting the best fit there. This could lead to a suboptimal fit, in statistics a local maximum.
- An employee’s growth is matched to the available patterns. Any unit may have their growth paths set, confined to what is considered a good fit in that context.
- Getting an assignment for another unit is very difficult unless you are properly connected or have a particular skill. In that case, it is only difficult.