Human Resource Practices Development Team

Design Team Report June 1996 - February 1997

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Scenarios

The following scenarios are included to give example of the recommendations outlined in this Design Report. They are fictional and are designed to help you imagine how these human resource recommendations might better support the needs of employees and the Institute.

 

1.Mary has been at MIT for two years, having joined the staff right after college. As she prepares for her quarterly performance review with her supervisor, thoughts turn to long-term career plans. Is there a place for her to grow at MIT? During her lunch hour, she stops by the kiosk in Lobby 7 where the new Career Pathing System is being tested. Scanning the screen, she identifies a number of roles for which she might qualify with more experience and training. She compares her competencies and skills with the ones listed. On the way back to the office, she thinks about what training she will need to develop her career at MIT.

 

2.Imagine . . .Carlos has returned from a week's vacation after finishing his 3rd team assignment in the last five years. "Today," he tells his partner, "I'm going to go looking for a new project." As is typical at MIT, he's encouraged by his supervisor to devote 20% of his time to Institute-sponsored projects that either affect his home department and/or which need his particular talent. Stuck in the commuter traffic in the Ted Williams tunnel, he consults his PDA(personal digital assistant) to scan the Project Assignment Opportunities Bulletin Board and is pleased to find three listings that pique his interest, paying particular attention to the specific duties listed and the competencies required to fill the role. At the office, he calls up his own competency profile, grateful that MIT has adopted uniform classification across the university so that he may quickly determine if there might be a match. He looks more closely. Eureka! There's a request for team members with his competencies and skills for a new project being sponsored by the President. He e-mails his resume to her office. Within a day, he's scheduled for an exploratory interview.

 

3.Tom, a member of the senior management team, needs to hire an analyst to replace a team member who is taking a year's leave without pay to pursue personal interests. This position requires both keen technical expertise and a solid knowledge of the Institute operations. Going to the on-line tracking system where he'd posted the position two days earlier, he searches on "MIT experience," and "C-base programming." Five records come up: two external candidates and three from MIT. He notes that all resumes have been entered or updated within the last month and that two of the internal candidates have completed technical training within the last six months. He e-mails the two internal candidates to set up interviews and walks over to his Personnel Administrator and asks that he bring in the external candidates for interviews. Within a week, he's had first meetings with three strong candidates.

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4.Jack is overheard talking to his brother-in-law about what a great place MIT is to work. The retort, "What do you mean? I've never seen anybody work as hard as you! Every time I talk to you, you're in the middle of a new project!" "That's exactly the point! Sure, I sometimes get a little anxious when we have to adjust our work plan, but we've got a great team...and I just know that I'll get enough training and feedback to make a go of it. What's more, I do get a lot of positive feedback - some of it "official" and some other stuff - like t shirts, balloons, simple stuff like that. Once I even got post-it notes with 'Thanks, Jack' written on them. Little things, you know, but I'll tell you, it makes me feel like I'm appreciated. MIT has finally made a commitment to training, but they also expect us to take the initiative and be flexible. When they started talking about this stuff in '96, I was a naysayer, but I'm a believer now."

 

5.Penelope is at a crossroads. While she was assigned to a project dependent on funding, that funding has been canceled, and the project suspended indefinitely. Because of this, her job will be eliminated. Fortunately, she has been able to talk candidly with her team leader, and knows how her strengths are perceived by others. She also knows that there may not be an opportunity for her at this time. Because it is well-known in the marketplace that MIT provides excellent training and development for its employees, she is not afraid of looking a new job. She also takes comfort in knowing that her resume will remain on file at MIT for three years and will be maintained in the applicant tracking system during that period.

 

6.Quincy's wife has just given birth to their first child. Wanting to make sure that his child is covered by his health insurance, he accesses his benefits profile and enters the name, social security number and primary care physician of his new child. With a new dependent, he is concerned with the adequacy of his income replacement coverage. He enters his financial information, and that of his spouse, into a life insurance profile to make sure that he is carrying enough life insurance. He decides to increase his life insurance to 4 times his current salary. He answers some medical questions that provide information that will be transferred to the life insurance carrier to provide documentation on his insurability.
He is considering reducing his time to 50% for the next 6 months in order to assist his wife in caring for their child, but he is concerned that such a drop in time could adversely impact his pension upon retirement. He enters three what-if scenarios and prints out the results to discuss with his wife. He is surprised to discover that his net after tax pay may cover his expenses if he temporarily stops his pension contribution, but resumes them when he returns. In thirty years when he retires he discovers a minimal impact on his retirement income.

 

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