Look at your co-workers in your Sourcing Department. How did they get their jobs? Do you think they are qualified for the positions they hold? How did you learn the skills needed to obtain your rank in your office?
These are all valid questions that should be addressed. They are especially pressing questions when vacancies arise in your department.
Let's start with the obvious: Promote your Buying Assistants! I have long been an advocate of that concept. It is the most obvious solution and often the most overlooked.
Who else knows your computer systems inside and out? Who else has been trained exactly in the way your Purchasing Department and your company works? Who else already knows the personalities, and more importantly how to work with those personalities, in your Sourcing Department?
For those that argue that their Buying Assistants are not cut out to be Buyers, than you have even more pressing problems. Those people should not be employed as Buying Assistants then either and the person to blame is the one bringing in employees who don't belong there in the first place! Check out Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in the new movie The Devils Wears Prada if you must. People take jobs with "Assistant" in the title for one reason. They expect to eventually obtain the same title minus the "assistant" part.
Nicely said, Matthew.
Leaders often say that their lower-level team members are not suitable for higher level roles that become available. The leaders think that this is an indictment of the team members.
But, in reality, if the lower-level team members aren't sufficiently developed to handle a higher level role, it is an indictment of the leadership. Either their hiring process was poor, they failed to create an environment conducive to personal and professional growth, or both.
Posted by: Charles Dominick, SPSM | July 9, 2006 8:10 PM | Permalink to Comment