41 - Implementing a Career Ladder for a Healthier Midsection

Background:  Our distribution of staff tenures has a long tail of staff between one and three years of experience, with a constant number of staff with 3+ years of tenure. Less experienced staff tend to seek opportunities outside the organization because there is nowhere to move up and continue developing.

Program

Description:  To accommodate additional opportunities for growth and promotion, we reassessed our organizational structure. Our previous structure had two levels of protocol analysts, with the only pathway for promotion to HRPP leader (e.g., assistant director). We have introduced two additional protocol analyst levels, including a senior-level analyst and a lead analyst. These new positions require subject matter expertise and an objective demonstration of that expertise. This also creates separate growth pathways for those who want to move into leadership and accommodates those who have no leadership aspirations. The success of this program will be demonstrated by our ability to retain staff beyond 3 years. During the early transition, we were very quickly able to identify staff in the 2-to 3-year range of experience to move into new positions, with a higher likelihood of being able to retain them much longer than under the prior structure.

Program

Assessment:  While our overall turnover has been relatively low over the past 3 years (roughly 6% to 9%), the inability to retain staff beyond 3 years, creates an inability to develop staff for succession planning and creates a deficit of frontline experience. We were very quickly able to identify 5 staff members (approximately 15% of the staff) who were either candidates to move into these new positions or were given opportunities for upward mobility by positions that were vacated due to the addition of the new positions. As we continue to fill out the upper-level positions in this career ladder, we will need to assess the impact on the retention of our mid-level staff.

Limitations: The biggest limitation of success is time. The program was implemented very recently. Early data suggest many mid-level staff with the desire and demonstrated ability to grow into these new positions. Anecdotal feedback has been a groundswell of enthusiasm, desire to build a career in human research protection, and admissions that staff had been looking outside the organization for growth opportunities. Additional time will be necessary to determine the impact on overall staff retention.

Discussion:  It generally takes 2-to-3 years for new IRB staff to become truly comfortable and confident in their positions, with the ability to work independently. It is difficult to build a solid foundation of IRB staff to do the daily work and to develop a foundation of experience for succession planning when the mid-level experience of your organization is constantly gutted. This has become particularly challenging with recent conditions in the labor market, the economy in general, and the proliferation of remote work opportunities. Anything organizations can do to retain and develop talent internally only serves to strengthen the organization.