Attracting and retaining top talent remains front and center of many initiatives this year.

A shortage of hundreds of thousands of workers is further exacerbated by the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that looks to create two million jobs per year over a 10-year period.¹ The question arises: Where will these workers come from?

Much of the answer lies in the ability of a company to create its own workforce. As any HR professional will attest, it is far simpler to recruit for an entry-level or lower-tier management position than for positions further up in a company’s organizational structure. However, this is only part of the challenge. The balance remains in the ability to engage, train, and promote talent from within one’s own walls.

Step 1: Define Success

The ability to promote from within begins with the definition of success for each position. It is difficult, if not impossible, to elevate performance if skill sets and other required metrics are not clearly defined. Tangible, quantifiable, and well-communicated expectations should be set so that there are achievable, measurable goals to track.

In addition, those within the organization who strive to reach the next level in their careers can look forward and educate themselves on the actual expectations of the position, not just what they believe to be true. For example, take the common skill sets and areas of expertise required to be a successful project manager (PM):

• Budgeting
• Schedule of values
• Billing/collections
• Preconstruction planning
• Requests for information (RFIs)
• Submittals
• Procurement
• Prefabrication/kitting
• Estimating
• Sales
• Production tracking
• Subcontract management
• Change order management
• Projections/forecasting
• Document management
• Client relationships
• Leadership/communication
• Company culture

Each skill should have a comprehensive description to eliminate confusion or misconception. However, the process of developing skills does not end at simply listing the needed skills. Rather, the center of performance management lies in the ability to evaluate where an employee exceeds and where they are challenged.

Step 2: Ensure Proper Training Resources for Identified Skills

If a skill is desirable enough to identify, then it is necessary to ensure that the proper training and documentation exists. Said differently, workflow documentation that includes embedded videos, instructions, templates, examples, etc., can be utilized in addition to a formal mentoring or formal training process. Exhibit 1 presents a high-level process definition flowchart using change order management as an example.

When additional documentation, examples, videos, or related items are required, they can be embedded into the flowchart for ease of use. Each partner in the process — in this example, the project administrator, PM, and director of operations — understands which work steps they own. More specifically, they understand what items come to them, from whom, what they do with them, and where they go from there. This raises the effectiveness of training and is a strong supplement to one-on-one teaching and coaching. This resource endures so that it becomes the place to go to refresh or relearn a skill that is not used frequently or to efficiently onboard a new person to this skill.