Supply Chain Frontiers issue #48
Retaining supply chain management (SCM) talent at a time when experienced professionals are in high demand can be a major challenge for companies. Two approaches worth considering are offering special skill-building programs to rising stars and incorporating talent development targets into leaders’ performance reviews.
Talent retention methods was one of the topics discussed at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) Second Annual Talent Management Roundtable for Supply Chain and HR Executives, which took place on the MIT campus, Cambridge, MA, on January 17, 2013.
Offering generous compensation packages is a common way to keep your brightest and best supply chain managers. As the competition for top talent has intensified over recent years, however, these packages have almost become the price of entry into the jobs market. Senior leaders also need to be more mobile in this age of globalization. But maintaining their salary levels as they move from country to country, where compensation practices may vary, can be tricky.
HR managers also pointed out that it takes more than a competitive paycheck to retain talented supply chain professionals; they must be constantly challenged and assured of a clear path for ongoing career development.
As part of its efforts to meet these needs, a multinational manufacturer has introduced a job rotation program that exposes individuals to different departments. The company also has developed a two-week leadership program for 12 people chosen from the ranks of the organization’s most promising talent. In addition to giving these individuals hands-on experience internationally, the program is designed to “look at their emotional intelligence.” A measure of success is the extent to which the lessons learned make a difference in the way top talent do their jobs, but the program is also seen as a way to help retain these employees.
A large retailer has a similar development program for “high potential people” that provides in-depth training in key areas such as leadership and also incorporates volunteer work.
Some companies have opted to provide different on-the-job experiences as a way to provide a more enriching work environment for talented supply chain professionals. A leading international retail organization incentivizes top talent by giving them overseas assignments of 9 to 18 months’ duration to “push them outside of their comfort zone.” Each project tends to be discrete, although some flexibility is built into the schedule since the assignments can change. Relocating personnel in this way provides fresh experiences and also promotes the cross-pollination of ideas.
Ensuring that leaders devote time to helping team members develop professionally is another way to retain promising talent. But as a manufacturer pointed out, often leaders are not given enough information or guidance on the company’s career development expectations.
One retailer is addressing this issue with some specific guidelines. Thirty percent of leadership performance reviews are dedicated to talent development. And this excludes projects that are “self-fulfilling” or milestones that would have been reached anyway as part of the company’s routine talent management programs. To a large extent, this ambitious requirement was introduced because the company is in high-growth mode and urgently needs to keep pace with its talent demands.
Another important factor is the status of HR managers. In order to implement relatively stringent guidelines of this nature, HR professionals must be seen as business partners rather than as support staff who are part of a remote bureaucracy. This is already starting to happen, according to the senior HR manager of an electronics manufacturer. In fact, she maintains that the HR profession is paralleling the growth trajectory of the supply chain profession, which is advancing from the purely tactical to the strategic.
Integrating HR practices into the SCM function could help managers retain the talent they need to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive environment. The HR profession could benefit as well. In the words of one HR manager, “I’ll be successful in talent management when supply chain management thinks they own it.”
For more information on the Second Annual Talent Management Roundtable for Supply Chain and HR Executives, contact MIT CTL Deputy Director, Jim Rice.