Competency and Compensation

A large part of sustainable growth for contractors is being able to effectively leverage people with a narrower set of skills to still deliver the same level of value-add to the customer.

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This support structure is called “Enabling Bureaucracy” and is a combination of management time, control systems, QA/QC, workflows, training, etc.

Leadership Tools: Graph representing Value-Add and Compensation with Quantity of people in the workforce, ability to manage ambiguity, and skill level and execution.

As contractors grow they need to refine their organizational structures, workflows, job descriptions  and their talent processes to support this growth.

These support structures must be built over time and integrated with the contractor’s growth strategy.  Once effectively in place these support structures will produce a more scalable organization that can actually deliver the same value-add to the customer at a lower total cost providing a competitive advantage. 

These systems are slow, painful and costly to put into place.  The recruiting focus of a contractor must be in alignment with the levels of support structures they have in place.  Netflix defines this quite well in their culture slide deck and book.  

Are your support structure capabilities and recruiting in alignment?  

If not there will be excessive stress on the team combined with lower profitability.  This just means you are at one of the inflection points on the business growth cycle.




Impacted Productivity - Fighting Back
Fighting back effectively against labor productivity impacts will significantly improve project outcomes including customer satisfaction if handled properly. There are four interrelated aspects to effectively fighting back.
Development Stages for Each Task Required by a Job Role
You can accelerate someone's development with a consistent method of evaluating their progress from learning through consistent execution. Your growth will be further accelerated by those who develop further into multipliers of others.
Field Productivity - Talent Differentiation
Contractors can improve their field productivity significantly just through deliberate talent management processes. While the process of continuous forced differentiation seems harsh it is actually the kindest thing you can do for everyone on the team.