If you’re an employer or an organizational decision maker, this article will interest you. It’s about how a talented employee’s development of on-the-job proficiency can be stifled by frequent redeployments – unless conscious efforts are made to prevent that problem from occurring.

This is a true story about an experience I had early in my career as a young manager in Guinness Nigeria Plc, Benin Brewery.

Completing My Induction Program

I was redeployed from the Lagos brewery in November 1995, (after an 18 month induction programme for me and 11 other Graduate Management Trainees ended) to the Production department in Guinness Benin and resumed work as a fresh faced green horned Shift Brewer.

During the 18 month induction period, those of us in the technical function were made to spend time learning the operations in the production, bottling, laboratory and other key departments in the function.

That experience – at least in theory – was expected to equip us to quickly settle into key roles in any department within the technical function.

Putting What I Learnt To Use

The above probably explains why few weeks after arriving at my new base, I found myself being given high profile assignments and sent on frequent cross-departmental assignments within Benin brewery.

And it was all very exciting for me, since it made the routine and repetitive tasks more bearable.

My most significant period of personal growth was therefore the time during which I had to quickly adapt to – and positively affect – different processes, work cultures and people without causing any disruption to normal running of such places.

In November 1995, I started off by spending 2 weeks in the brewery manager’s office carrying out technical projects.
Afterwards, I began the back and forth movements between packaging and production departments until March 1997 when I returned fully to my department to work as a Stout brewer.

At first I found shift duty to be excessively physically and mentally challenging, what with the numerous process problems presenting themselves – sometimes simultaneously – to the duty brewer.

Between 1995 and 1997, I continually struggled to develop myself to handle each process area I was deployed to.

At one time I worked as a brewer in the lager brewery converted for Malta production.

Then just as I was beginning to get used to managing that process, I was called in to temporarily fill the vacancy for a packaging shift manager following promotion of the incumbent. I was chosen, they explained, because they needed someone who could be brought in at short notice and and be able to fit in quickly.

My 1997 Performance Appraisal Does Not Go Too Well

Although the above mentioned movements allowed me to gain varied experiences, their frequency significantly reduced the depth of knowledge and experience I was able to develop.

This happened because I was never actually settled down long enough in one area to dig deep and become fully rounded.

This deficiency was pointed out to me during my 1997 appraisal session, by my boss, Greg. He told me he’d observed that I was not effective in managing situations, and the workforce under me, on my shift.

I did some honest soul searching and realized that I had unconsciously made a wrong assumption: that the additional work I did (most times along with my shift duties) in developing automated spreadsheet applications, and some ad-hoc project reports for my different departmental heads, would excuse my ineptitude at handling process-related problems on my shift.

So I went on to align my priorities with set, job related objectives so as to use my time and resources effectively.
Among other things, I began consciously working to overcome weaknesses in my performance identified during my appraisal.

Final Words

A measure of how well I succeeded in doing the above was apparent from the higher responsibilities and career advancement opportunities that later came my way.

Luckily for me, Greg’s ability to uncover the missing elements in my on-the-job competence, and his timely communication of same, alerted me to the need to take corrective action before the problem got too bad.

Decision makers in any organisation will find it useful to keep the above in mind.

It would help greatly, if they get their employees to watch out for such problems, and tackle them as quickly as possible.