Employee pipeline
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In his book Delivering Happiness, the late, Great Tony Hsieh describes what to me, was one of the more interesting ideas of the book: Employee Pipelines.
As Tony explained:
“Without continually growing and learning both personally and professionally, it’s unlikely that any individual employee will still be with the company ten years from now. Our goal at Zappos is for our employees to think of their work not as a job or career, but as a calling.”
To solve this problem,
This philosophy inspired them to create an employee pipeline. The pipeline is a 7-year period during which an employee can theoretically go from the lowest ranking to top executive.
How did they accomplish this? Quite simply, by continuously providing training and advancement to all of their employees, to help them reach their personal goals. This makes it incredibly easy to have skilled employees with the required abilities for any position: You don’t have to look for them, you trained them yourself!
Additionally, employee pipelines help with worker retention. According to Hertzberg’s two factor theory of motivation, the main motivating factors of a job are:
- Achievement
- Recognition
- The Work itself
- Responsibility
- Advancement
- Growth
By instituting a methodology in which employees are continuously growing and advancing, all of these factors are met and improved.
Pipelines are long-term investments in the health of a company. What’s keeping you from hiring inexperienced people and betting on their long-term potential?