The Specialist Pipeline

Most large companies have designed skills development programs and dedicated career paths for their managers and high potentials. But fewer have done so for their specialists, notes Kent Jonasen, cofounder and CEO of the Leadership Pipeline Institute. And yet specialists represent a crucial category of employees, as much to preserve the company’s technical capital as to drive bleeding-edge innovation. But these specific talents also take longer to develop, and are harder to replace when they leave.

With that in mind, the author of The Specialist Pipeline encourages companies to create channels dedicated to specialists and experts, in order to enhance their valorization and their loyalty. In this book, he describes how to go about it, notably by formalizing clear and motivating progression ladders, with explicit expectations at every stage. He also insists on the necessity of supporting experts as they transition from one stage to the next. A way of underscoring the vital role played by HR teams, but also by middle managers, to promote these too often isolated employees.

A practical book, on an increasingly central issue in human resources development.