Position DNA
In every organization, there are positions that are critical for the overall well being of the company. The individuals in these positions drive the effectiveness, productivity and profitability of the organization. However, many times they may not occupy a prominent spot in an organizational chart.
The challenge is that these positions are historically difficult to recruit and retain for any length of time. In many cases, it is difficult to even identify what makes a candidate successful in such positions. We call these “Positions of Pain”.
These critical roles quietly exist in nearly all corporations, but the underlying issues that make these roles problematic are often ignored or not fully understood. While these positions bear the unique personality of each organization, “Positions of Pain” share several common traits:
| Influence | Impact on company profitability is far greater than the roles/titles would suggest |
| Strategic | The accomplishments of those filing the role have a measurable effect upon the strategic well-being of their companies |
| Stealth | The roles are relatively obscure, usually hidden away as mid-level managers or professionals |
| Demand | The personnel filling the roles are in great demand in their industry |
| Scarcity | As a result of high demand, qualified candidates for these positions are very difficult to recruit |
| Nomadic | Once recruited, the chosen personnel exhibit unusually high turnover rates |
| Costly | The replacement costs due to the nomadic nature of these roles are very high |
| Advancement | These employees tend to rise to their levels of incompetence according to the “Peter Principle” |
| Degradation | The above traits inevitably lead to a degradation in the quality of the position |
Solution
WingSpread helps organizations take the guesswork out of recruiting, retaining and developing these “Positions of Pain”. Position DNA™ helps companies quickly identify, assess and evolve “Positions of Pain” to positions that become incubators for unleashed productivity and creativity.
The core of Position DNA is the skill, a specialized body of knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge to performance. Through the use of skills, corporate goals can be quickly linked to positions to develop a quantitative baseline by which to assess and measure all current employees and prospective candidates. By leveraging the ease of use of our web-based “SaaS” technology, organizations can quickly sequence and map skills data of individuals within the WingSpread candidate repository.
The end result of the Position DNA process is a series of reports and analytics that allow organizations to select and acquire the best candidates for any position. Long-term, companies gain a bench of future candidates, as well as a blueprint for career development, performance management and workforce planning needs relevant to those positions.
Conclusion
Every organization is challenged with finding the best talent for these ‘Positions of Pain’. By leveraging Position DNA, organizations can address this challenge to achieve tangible results, better performance, and positive, bottom-line corporate impact on their human capital.