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My intent of this thread is to make some regular posts about one of my top performers moving on to another position in the company and how I handle it. I encourage feedback.

One of my top performers was loaned to Corporate IT (from my Engineering IT group) back in May to cover some larger initiatives that needed to keep moving in spite of some major staff losses in March, April, and May. I brought in a couple temps to cover the tactical and programming duties that my guy was handling.

I always encourage my staff to keep their eyes open for opportunties. The morale wasn't the greatest in Corporate and some of them expressed initial interest in making the "jump", but backed off. One however, thought about it for a while. When they started interviewing external candidates, he thought harder. Last week he applied and interviewed yesterday.

Today the news came down that he accepted the offer. Now I need to figure out what the next move is. My initial instinct is to backfill him with the terrific temp that is doing the programming. That's not so simple because Sr. Management and I are having a discussion regarding the implementation of an application development group in our IT group. The shape of that will influence the needs and next actions.

More to follow.

Mark's picture
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Chuck-

GREAT POST sir!

I don't understand what you mean when you say, "the news came down that he accepted the offer."

Did he not tell you directly? Were you not apprised of the situation by HIM in detail, every step of the way? Does the firm keep this stuff secret?

And... what do we do now about him (versus filling his role)? Might he come back someday? What's your relationship maintenance plan?

Mark

ctomasi's picture

Mark,

Sorry about the vague terms. This was posted at the end of the day Friday with my wife waiting in the van for me. I apologize for cutting some corners on the details.

The HR Director notified me that he had accepted the offer first. That's standard practice. Chad told me later that day that he had accepted.

Yes, there is a likelihood that he may come back. He is physically across the street, but we plan on getting together a couple times a week for afternoon coffee break (a tradition started while he was still working for me.) We may even resurrect the Friday "shared pizza" day so we can have lunch and talk a little more. I've known Chad for 17 years, long before he came to work for our company. We'll keep in touch regularly.

This week's objective is to make a plan surrounding our application development group in Eng. IT so I can determine what resources I will need to make that plan happen. The President of Engineering, Sr. VP (my new boss), Corp. App Dev Manager, and I will meet on Thursday to hash that all out. Right now I'm going through permutations in my head to try and get all the facts I can so I'm ready for that meeting.

I'm also doing an informal gap analysis for skills and tool support. What did Chad maintain? Who will maintain it in the future? What training do they need to do that? Again, this ties in with the outcome of Thursday's meeting.

More to come...

ctomasi's picture

One week later... We were supposed to have a strategic meeting about the vision and direction of our proposed Application Development group in IT. The President postponed it for two weeks. That started my week out in a snarky mood.

I finally talked to my (new) boss, the Sr. VP and he gave me a better feel yesterday afternoon.

Q: Is there anything forcing us to giving a cutover date for our guy?

A: No

Q: What is the latest possible date you would feel comfortable cutting him over from Engineering IT to Corporate IT?

A: October 1

Q: What are we doing to fill his roll until that time?

A: Using the same contractors we've been using for the past 3 months.

Q: Are we at risk of losing them?

A: No

Q: When is the meeting to discuss applications development and the resources we'll need?

A: Two weeks

OK, the plan is to do nothing (except communicate to all involved parties.) Corporate IT is on board with a Oct 1 cutover, HR is aware, and the contractors will just keep humming along until we know more on September 6th. Stress relieved (on that anyway.)

ctomasi's picture

It's time for an update on the staff change tale. Some significant things have happened in the past couple of weeks.

I had the meeting with the President, Sr. VP, and Director of applications development in manufacturing about leveraging some of their resources in Malaysia with our projects. Everyone seemed amicable to continue the discussion. My action item was to augment an existing people/skills and application/skills matrix so Brian (the Director) could determine what skills were needed to support the development efforts in Malaysia. I got that to him earlier this week and will follow up today at a meeting to determine next actions. Estimated time of Malaysia resources contributing to our projects is April '07. Training and education on both sides is required. I smell another trip to Penang soon.

As for the Sr. team member going to Corporate, the official change over is October 2nd. That's a done deal. It leaves us with a vacancy, currently filled by a hell of a contractor. We interviewed this contractor this past week and have some mixed feelings. I can't go in to detail here, but suffice it to say, we need to ensure there is a match of his aspirations to our opportunities. He's interviewed for a Systems Admin II position (which includes some break/fix work and some mid-level tech responsibilities). I will provide more information when appropriate. I've got some homework to do and some choices to make. My new boss (Sr. VP) is being a big help.

As for the interview, it went well. HR was involved, they found out some information I had already found out through O3s with the contractor (like his desired salary range and ambitions). My direct, former direct, and I asked several behavioral questions to better assess the skills. It was rather refreshing to skip a lot of the "tell me about yourself" talks since I already know about him from the past 3 months as a contractor.

Another update soon...