About Job Shadowing

by Loredana Vlădăreanu, expert in Human Resources and Professional & Life Coach, Master Trainer

The human resources crisis is gaining momentum in recent years in our country, and the successful management of the most important resource in a company becomes mandatory if you want your company to survive in the market. So success is measured by the people you attract/keep in the company. In this issue, I decided to talk about Job Shadowing as a way to prepare an employee for a job change or to prepare a new employee for his or her job.

What is Job Shadowing?

Job Shadowing is a method that aims to create functional and effective relationships between teams and departments, by putting each employee in a position to understand the activity and communicate from the perspective of other positions in the organization.

At the same time, it is a method by which we can prepare an employee for a change of job or to become more acquainted with the new job.

Job Shadowing as a method of preparation/training in Romanian companies

Currently, it is not a widely used method in Romania because, although it has the advantage of familiarizing the employee with the activity of other colleagues or even of preparing him for a job change, this method also involves “taking out” that employee, and this is a challenging aspect for certain activities or where the team is undersized (another employee will have to take over the activity of the person involved in Job Shadowing).

What exactly does the application of Job Shadowing entail

A Job Shadowing program involves one or more employees of an organization spending time (usually a week) with other colleagues in different departments in order to see the specifics of the daily work of these colleagues and to facilitate a collaborative relationship both professionally and personally.

Basically, the host employee will become the subject of study for another colleague named shadow employee, who can follow him.

The host employee does his job as usual, while explaining to the shadow one what he does, how he does, the context and any other details. He also answers the shadow’s questions.

The shadow employee closely follows everything the host does and asks questions to better understand the specifics of the job.

Exactly the same thing happens when we talk about a person who has the role of shadow without being an employee of the company. For example, there are companies that have Job Shadowing programs with students who want to understand the specifics of certain positions.

The main benefits of Job Shadowing

As an expert in the field of staff recruitment and selection, I found that what the specialized studies in this field specify is perfectly true. Specifically, in the recruitment and selection processes, the method considered to be the most efficient and objective is the working test.

Drawing a parallel to the idea of Job Shadowing, the similarities are obvious. Understanding by practical observation what a particular job entails is, in essence, a kind of “training-on-the-job” that will prepare the employee much better and more fully for the job.

Hence the concrete benefits for both the employee and the company:

• the employee knows what the job entails,
• understands the complexity of the job,
• gets acquainted with the way the activity is carried out, what are the flows and with whom does the job relate,
• becomes productive and more efficient faster.

What types of activities can Job Shadowing be used for?

Basically, Job Shadowing can be applied in any type of activity, except those in which the confidentiality of certain data is very strict, although confidentiality agreements can be signed to cover this aspect as well.

Loredana Vlădăreanu

Job Shadowing in the Virtual Environment

Virtual Job Shadowing is a newer method, but one that is beginning to be adopted mainly due to the conditions that the pandemic has created.

So yes, Job Shadowing can be done in the virtual space, although it is more difficult to implement in certain areas where it sometimes requires a certain technology and knowledge in the IT field of the one who is in the role of shadow.

Can Job Shadowing be applied to any level of management?

Yes, Job Shadowing can be applied to any level of management when it comes to shadow people who have an appropriate level of experience. In general, there are few companies that accept students/entry level in Job Shadowing in top management positions. And it is natural to be so.

Job Shadowing vs Mentoring

Job Shadowing and Mentoring are different and can’t be confused. The mentor is the one who teaches you. He shows you what is essential and what are the best practices in performing the tasks. In Job Shadowing, the host has a different role than the mentor. The one who has the role of shadow actually follows the activity of the one who is in the role of host, and the host does not learn in the shadow, but only performs his tasks and answers the questions of the shadow.

Conclusion

Job Shadowing is not a widely used method at the moment in human resource management in our country, but the economic and demographic outlook will show us that in the near future this method of preparing the employee for his job will become more and more widely used because it is fast, provides a lot of practical information and can help the future employee integrate more quickly into his new job.