Imagine for a moment that in attempting to fill an engineering position for your employer, you bump into obstacles left and right. The major obstacle, however, is not one you expected, such as the shortage of STEM professionals, the changing nature of work, or new technologies. Rather, it's the lack of organizational history in your candidates. The position will require an understanding of how past technologies affect future strategies. Baby Boomers and even some Generation X workers have the relevant skillsets—but they are reaching retirement age, and your organization, like so many others, is feeling the effects of their departure.
What are today's organizations doing about it? Consider the example of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where maintaining institutional history and knowledge is having an impact on the entire workforce, including Millennials, Gen-Xers, and Baby Boomers. NIH enlists its near-retirement workforce and even some retirees to build up the competencies of its newer employees (Rockey, 2014). Under an innovative aging-workforce program, older NIH employees with competencies in training and development are "repurposed" as mentors to younger NIH engineers and researchers.
How did this program come about? Through HR, of course. While assessing the number of NIH employees who were near retirement age, HR quickly discovered that the organization had a problem. The discovery emerged from the examination of workforce trends—typically accomplished by HR professionals proficient in the competency of critical evaluation. HR examined and developed a deep understanding of a problem, then designed and implemented a solution that leveraged the workforce with customized approaches. Shepherded by HR, the effort helps NIH maintain its own sustainability (by promoting individual career mentorship), and also helps ensure the sustained well-being of citizens around the globe (by securing the future of biomedical research).
So how does this matter to you? The next time you study some workforce data or examine a potential threat, think deeply about the consequences—short-term and long-term—of how you evaluate it. Your competency in critical evaluation could eventually help prevent disease from spreading or a local economy from collapsing! Remember: when you bring your competencies to bear on everyday problems, your work just might change the world.
Rockey, S. (2014, June 6). Mentoring matters for the biomedical workforce [Rock Talk blog post]. Retrieved from https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2014/06/06/mentorship-matters-for-the-biomedical-workforce)
Alexander Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP is the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) Chief Knowledge Officer leading operations for SHRM's Certified Professional and Senior Certified Professional certifications, research functions, and the SHRM Knowledge Advisor service. He is responsible for all research activities, including the development of the SHRM Competency Model and SHRM credentials.
During his career, he has worked with numerous subject matter experts worldwide with the aim of identifying performance standards, developing competency models, designing organizational assessments, and conducting job analyses. He was also responsible for working on contract task orders involving the development of measurement tools for content areas such as job knowledge (like teacher knowledge of instructional processes) and organizational climates (like organizational climate forecasting in military health care).
Dr. Alonso received his doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Florida International University in 2003. His works have been recognized for their contribution to real-world issues. They include being recognized by the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (Division 14 of the APA; SIOP) with the 2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for the development of the federal standard for medical team training, TeamSTEPPS; being awarded a 2009 Presidential Citation for Innovative Practice by the American Psychological Association for supporting the development of competency model for team triage in emergency medicine; and receiving the 2013 SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions for Practice Award.
Throughout his career, he has published works in peer-reviewed journals such as Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, People and Strategy, Personality and Individual Differences, Quality and Safety in Health Care, and Human Resources Management Review. He has also authored several chapters on community-based change initiatives in workforce readiness, as well as co-authoring Defining HR Success: A Guide to the SHRM Competency Model in Practice.
Dr. Alonso also served as a columnist analyzing major trends in the workforce for The Industrial Psychologist and HR Magazine. In addition, he has served on several professional society boards including the SIOP and the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington.
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