中层匮乏，平级指导填补榜样真空

    失业率在两位数的高位附近徘徊时，企业招聘人收或许可以省些力气，但拥有多年工作经验的顶尖人才几乎从来不用为找工作伤脑筋。

    最近，微软公司（Microsoft）为了从人才争夺战中抢得 300名高级管理人员，尝试了一种迥异于平常的方式。

    “我们需要一些不仅具有创新精神，而且希望以创新方式工作的人才，”微软全球战略和销售事务总监约翰•麦克洛斯基说。“单靠金钱并不能说服他们来微软工作。”

    为了吸引适应需要的人才，这家高科技巨头推出了一项颠覆传统指导理念的全新计划——300名刚刚履职的高级雇员与具有类似经验的雇员搭档，充当微软资深员工的指导者。

    企业执行委员会公司（Corporate Executive Board）执行董事布莱恩•克洛普表示，很多大公司一直在实行大量的同行指导计划，微软的战略只是其中的一种。这些计划的目的是，在一个获得高层职位往往需要从一家公司跳槽至另一家公司的经济环境下，让公司员工保持积极进取的工作干劲。

    企业执行委员会公司的研究显示，自2008年以来，大公司的中层管理几乎被掏空了。克洛普称，一般说来，管理者现在的直接下属比过去多了一半，但与这些下属交流的时间却比过去少了20%。然而，问及如果拥有闲置资金，它们打算如何使用时，这些组织都表示，它们不会花钱重建管理团队。

    管理者的稀缺造成了一些风险。员工的留任率和参与意识往往会下降，因为10个同事都盯着通一个主管的位置时，他们就没法看到一条清晰的职业发展路径。克洛普称，这时，体制知识也变得更加短暂。

    为了解决这个问题，许多公司正在开发各种项目，让不同部门或地区的同行之间相互指导，提供关于职业发展路径的新想法，帮助员工发展新技能，并促使他们与同事和公司上下保持接触。

    克洛普说，这些联系有助于改善公司与员工的关系。一些公司甚至开始启动逆向指导计划，让精通技术和社交媒体的年轻员工指导比他们更资深的同事。

    克洛普表示，25%的美国大公司都开展了同行指导项目。2007年金融危机爆发之前，仅有4%到5%具有类似规模的组织制定了类似的计划。

    麦克洛斯基说，同行指导计划让微软公司获益良多，有些是可以量化的，有些则是无形的。每位参与同行指导项目的员工都与主要客户进行了接触。他说，在某种意义上，这项计划的成功程度可以用公司去年完成的交易规模显著增加来衡量。

    微软公司一直能够特别有效地利用这些新员工的技能。这些新员工的知识可以成倍扩大——他们把知识分享给老同事，老同事随后又将其分享给各自的直接下属。

    Hiring may be easier when unemployment rates hover near double digits, but super talented candidates with years of experience will hardly ever hurt for a job.

    When Microsoft (MSFT) recently was looking to snag 300 senior managers from the competition, the company tried a different approach than the usual.

    "We want people with entrepreneurial spirits who also want to innovate in the way they do their jobs," says John McCloskey, director, worldwide strategy and sales. "Money alone is not what's going to convince them to come to Microsoft."

    To attract the kind of people it needed, the tech behemoth offered a new program that flipped the idea of mentoring on its head. The 300 new senior employees have been paired up with people at similar experience levels to serve as mentors to the Microsoft veterans.

    This strategy is just one of many peer mentoring schemes that large corporations have been using to keep employees motivated in an economic environment where the path to the top is often believed to require hopping from firm to firm, says Brian Kropp, managing director at the Corporate Executive Board.

    Since 2008, the middle-management level at large companies has been gutted, according to a study from the CEB. On average, managers now have 50% more direct reports and 20% less time to spend with these reports, Kropp says. When polled about what they would do if they had extra money to spend, these organizations said they would not invest in rebuilding their management ranks.

    This dearth of managers creates several risks. Employee retention and engagement often drop because there is no clear career path when 10 colleagues are competing for the same supervisor's role. Institutional knowledge also becomes more ephemeral, Kropp says.

    To solve this problem, he says, many companies are developing programs that have peers in different divisions or locations mentor each other to provide fresh ideas about career paths, help employees develop new skills, and keep them engaged with their colleagues and the company in general.

    These connections stand to help companies improve their relationship with their employees, Kropp says. Some companies are even doing reverse-generational mentoring, having younger, tech- and social media-savvy employees mentor their older colleagues.

    Twenty-five percent of large U.S. companies have peer-mentoring programs. Before the financial crisis of 2007, Kropp says, only 4-5% of similarly sized organizations had such programs.

    Microsoft has experienced numerous benefits, both quantifiable and intangible, McCloskey says. Everyone involved in the peer-mentoring program has contact with major customers, and the success of the program can be measured in part by the significant increase in the size of the deals the company has completed in the last year, he says.

    And the company has been able to make particularly good use of the skills of these new hires. Their knowledge can expand exponentially as they share it with their peers, who can then share it with their direct reports.