This story appeared on the Roche Indianapolis intranet in February 2020.
OBJECTIVE
To showcase the possibilities of a Workday profile and to drive employees to build out their own profiles.
STORY
This is a story about how Workday worked for two Roche Indy employees, but it’s also a story about how Workday can work for you.
Lizet Arellano’s journey to her new position as a Senior Market Analyst on Chris Medlock’s team all started with a Check-In with her previous leader, Nicole Shaw, Manager Financial Planning and Reporting. During a regular conversation about her career, Lizet opened up to Nicole about her interest in working on the Strategic Affairs team. They talked about how her career path might look and talked about how Lizet might need to work for a while in marketing finance before looking at roles in market research and competitive intelligence.
After their conversation, Lizet updated her Workday profile to include her career interests and to select opportunities she’d be interested in pursuing.
“At the time, I’m thinking in the future. I was looking like five years down the road,” Lizet said.
However, things were about to move a lot faster for her. It just so happened that Chris, Manager – Business Planning & Forecasting for Diabetes Care was looking for someone to take the position he’d vacated after he was promoted. As someone who’s hired around 30 people in other positions outside of Roche, Chris had good experience finding talent. As part of his search, he visited Workday to see if anyone within Roche had an interest in market research and some of the baseline skills necessary for the role.
“I was looking for the type of person who wanted to stretch themselves because I wanted to find the person with core skills and the desire to learn,” Chris said.
He liked what he saw in Lizet’s profile and added her to his short list. He asked Jamie Wright, Manager, Talent Acquisition, to contact Lizet to gauge her interest.
“At first I was skeptical,” Lizet says. But she scheduled time to talk with her interim leader, Nikki Mooney, Sr. Director Finance, about the opportunity.
“I had fear or questions about if it was too soon to move,” Lizet says. ‘Nikki said, ‘No. You can’t force timing. The opportunity is now. Roche is a fast-moving organization. We’re all supportive. Go for it.’”
After the interview process, Lizet emerged as the leading candidate and was offered the job. As someone who recently successfully transitioned into a new role, she is a good person to ask about the experience.
“Even if it seems like a big dream, it’s OK to talk about it,” Lizet said. “I never felt pushback and I think that a lot of people hold back what their real interests are because they don’t want to burn bridges, but my whole experience with Nicole and Nikki has been very supportive.”
As an individual contributor, the first step to take is the one Lizet took. Talk to your current leader about your career interests in a Check-In, then update your Workday profile.
As for people leaders, Chris had these words of wisdom: “It never hurts to be on the lookout for talent,” he said. “It might seem daunting at first, but after taking some initial steps it really can be powerful and helpful. It’s worth it to put in a little time to figure it out.”
If you’re a people leader, you also can take a similar approach to finding your next team member. Search “Find Worker.”
Unleashing the full power of Workday can provide broader visibility to internal talent and the ability to find individuals for growth opportunities. Together, this will allow Roche to accelerate talent in ways we’ve never seen before.
Amberly Peterson 