Content area
Full Text
For a different spin on staff development, roll new employees through a variety of positions and functions until they land in the winning slot.
Sherrie Zapp is a long way from where she started 18 months ago. The University of Florida graduate, who holds a double major in finance and management, has just landed in Singapore, where she'll work on special financial projects for a division of Pratt and Whitney. She hopes the experience will help her land a full-time overseas posting.
Zapp's journey to this foreign land began when she attended a university job fair, where she visited the booth for United Technologies Corp. (UTC) of Hartford, Conn. Although she was being wooed by firms such as Ernst and Young and the Harris Corp., UTC's -rotational job program caught her eye.
"The rotational aspect of the training was very attractive," she says. "I also liked the fact that I'd get a chance to touch the many products I'd be helping to support." (In addition to Pratt and Whitney, UTC owns Otis Elevator Co. and other manufacturing and engineering firms.)
She adds that the varied experience the program provides has been a boon for her. "Coming straight from college, I wasn't exactly sure what to do, not having had a `real job' before," Zapp says.
And she admits to being surprised by her own adaptability. "It really becomes clear when you cross-train someone to replace you and you realize how much you've learned in a short period of time," she says. "I'm thankful I learned the skill of being able to move on and seek new opportunities without fear."
Win-Win
Today, entry-level rotational training is being applied more widely throughout organizations, both formally and informally. Streamlined companies have to do more with less, so it makes sense to develop employees who can jump in anywhere they're needed.
"Any remnants of 'silos' that exist these days have to be knocked down for organizations to function more effectively," says Nicholas C. Burkholder, who heads Human Resource Engineering Inc., a Manhattan-based consulting firm affiliated with the Bernard Hodes Group. "Rotational programs forge relationships that automatically do that."
He adds that "rotational training is a wonderful way for newly hired college graduates and others to be developed within...