Keeping employees connected and up to date

Before coming to Hult I was working in an IT company in Turkey. There were approximately 200 people working in the headquarters including me. The company was providing IT services to customers, developing projects, training customers and outsourcing people to customers with specific needs. To be specific my company had two main branches, the IT services and training services. Besides our jobs our performance reports was also based on how well we trained ourselves. For instance during a quarter we should have publish certain number of webcasts and articles in company. Attend training sessions, and train people if you are qualified. Our company arranged training sessions on different areas of IT that everyone can attend. To be honest it never proceeded smoothly. Now I can see that with SNA it could have been done better.

There were several problems when trying to keep people up to date.

There were a lot of different departments. For instance we were software testing department, there were business analysts, developers such as web developers, graphic designers etc. There were a lot of people with different expertise that everybody can learn something from everyone. The problem was that people were not connected enough. Even if we connected not everyone has time to train other people on their regular day, so human resources were arranging a training sessions. They were trying to assess the supply and demand of a certain subject within the organization but they were not very good at it. About connection issue even though not everyone personally connected, there was healthy e-mail traffic within organization. It was easy to reach someone or everyone via e-mail. So it was easy to collect information within organization therefore information gathering was not a problem.

The problem is that it was not easy to train people. Even if you provide the training session if trainer and the trainee are not connected within the organization the trainee cannot truly improve himself on that subject. It is important for the company to have people with decent knowledge because of they were potential outsources.

SNA could be used to connect people, increase efficiency of trainings, and create a development program for employees.

So my solution is as follows.

1-    HR should determine the experience level of people such as experience in their field and their training experience. Sometimes not all people with knowledge are good trainers at the same time there are people that have trainer skills but without any expertise. Hence it is very important to train the trainer first. Trainers not only used within the company, generally they give training to customers too. It was important for company to have qualified trainers.

2-    HR should also determine that people demand which trainings and are there people to supply them. Sometimes there may be people to supply certain training but there may not be enough demand. But people may demand something close or related to it so it is possible to create the required demand.

3-    The last step is the connectivity among employees. Because of the e-mail traffic it is easy to determine the connectivity among people via a survey, like we did in the beginning of the class. For instance if trainer and trainee is connected it is easier for them to collaborate. This is significant for the development plan.

There are several applications of this solution.

First one is the improving efficiency of training sessions. During training sessions both trainers and trainees spend a lot of time that’s why efficiency is very important for sustainability. With the SNA it is easier to assess supply and demand of trainers and trainees, their preferences, expertise and experience. With the centrality measures we can improve the efficiency further. For instance people with higher centrality and betweenness have more potential to be demanded as trainers and be better trainers. People with high betweenness can create connections between people and suggest another people considering their needs.

Second one is the development plan for employees.

Development plan has two aspects, training people and connecting them to the rest of the company. This is a long-term plan. In the beginning people are going to chose which trainings they can choose or there may be a mandatory program that they should attend. This is a very nice way to create connectivity among entry-level people. Because they will have trainers they will also have connections with more experienced people in the beginning. As the time goes on these people will have opportunities to be trainer too. This solution can be expanded to isolated employees. Because we now have the network map of everybody, we can suggest isolated people a training session that they are interested in. This will both create a network and teach them new things. Furthermore we can have isolated and experienced people. If we can make an isolated member trainer o certain subject, he will automatically create connections with people.

One important question that needs to be answered is why train employees that much that eventually will leave the company. When we first enter the company our agreements are 2-year agreements. When a junior person employed legally they are not allowed to leave the job within 2 years. That’s way it is very important to get as much from employees and give as much to them.

In conclusion this solution is not one time solution. The information gathering and planning should be continuous process. For instance these surveys could be taken quarterly to see the updated network of people with the experience they have gained and plan that to do next. This will keep people connected, up to date.

Rasih Emre Arisoy- MIB