According to a recent survey performed by Svensk Näringsliv (in Swedish) 75 percent of the respondents (2195 companies in total) were expecting to face problems with competence retainment due to the layoffs caused by the current financial situation. Partly, this is due to the employment regulations in Sweden which force companies to layoff workers based on length of employment.
So how can competence be retained, or reinforced in a period of severe staff layoffs.
In IBX book Purchasing Transformation, Björn Stenecker drew up a model for mapping necessary skill sets with the skills of the current staff to visualize where there are gaps and who could fill which role in a transforming purchasing organization. Björn’s model included twenty or so skills spread across a set of four major competence areas; education, general competence, specific competence and personal skills.
While finding the perfect replacement for a lost employee might be futile; I’d like to propose another perspective to this model. While model visualizes gaps and development potential, one can also use it to expose the most significant skill and then try to replace this single vital skill instead of the full skill set. In other words, it allows you to become the Billy Beane of purchasing.
For those of you who don’t have a clue of who Billy Beane is; Billy Beane almost single handedly reshaped baseball as we know it – and is chronicled in the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael M. Lewis, published in 2003. Moneyball is a book that focuses on how Billy Beane took a modernized, analytical approach to assembling a competitive baseball team despite a disadvantaged revenue situation and its well worth your while; even if you don’t even have the slightest interest in baseball.
