The Inside Gig. Edie Goldberg

as specialists. For instance, when employees joined the tax sub-function of finance, the next career moves they considered were the subsequent steps up the tax corporate ladder. Such an employee went from being a tax analyst, to a manager of tax, to a senior manager, then director, and finally a vice president of tax. Employees didn’t naturally think about rotating through the various sub-functions within finance (e.g., financial planning and analysis, tax, treasury, investor relations). Most of Gap Inc.’s finance employees were becoming deep specialists within their own sub-functions. As a result, when one of the Gap Inc. brands (Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, etc.) needed a CFO, it had to hire talent externally; none of its employees had the broad expertise required to fill the position. This caused a significant morale and retention issue, since employees felt they would never be considered for such important leadership positions.

      Edie was asked to help Gap Inc. find a solution, which led to the creation of Shaping Your Future Gap Inc., a career management program that defined the lateral career moves necessary to become a finance generalist and indicated a career web (rather than ladder or path) that showed the various routes one could take to achieve individual career goals—such as CFO (generalist) rather than head of tax (specialist). Managers were trained to have career conversations using the new tools, and corporate leadership set the expectation that talent mobility was essential to build the broad leaders the company needed to fill senior leadership positions.

      After an employee has been in their role for two years (the first for learning, the second for mastery), their manager has a career conversation that strongly encourages changes in internal assignments based on the employee’s career goals. If employees would like to become a CFO one day, they’re moved to different sub-functions within finance or outside the finance function to gain broader business experience. If they’re interested in becoming a deep specialist, then a rotation to another role that builds deeper expertise within the sub-function is recommended. As a consequence, Gap Inc. has been able to build the leadership bench strength needed to promote from within, which has helped to engage and retain finance talent.⁵

       THE BENEFITS OF THE BOUNDARYLESS ORGANIZATION

      In chapter 2 on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we touched on continuous learning as an aspect of the new employment contract. If there is one thing that is well understood about millennials, it is that this generation, more than any before it, thrives on change and on learning on demand. Maybe that’s because they were born during a time when everything changes quickly and the half-life of skills is plunging. For business success, you must create a continuous learning culture. In fact, on most employee opinion surveys, the lowest-scoring item is satisfaction with career development. This is most likely the result of people working so hard that they can’t “take the time” for learning. The Inside Gig can be a vehicle for on-the-job learning in small bites. Whether employees apply their skills with a new group of people (where they’re learning from others and broadening their perspectives), use their skills in a new context (deepening their understanding of their skill sets), or work on a project slightly larger than they’ve experienced before and take on new responsibilities, the Inside Gig gives employees opportunities for continuous learning. Both “giving” talent and “getting” talent in return deliver learning and growth for all employees involved.

      In today’s hyper-competitive talent market, it’s essential to give employees opportunities to spread their wings and try something new or employ underutilized skills so that they feel more purpose and meaning at work. Competition for talent is one of the top challenges facing companies today, ahead of compensation.⁶ So a crucial element of any talent strategy is to find ways to offer employees the experiences they value; otherwise, they are liable to leave to find them elsewhere.