Service Magazine Fall 2017

@Service Magazine Summer 2017 | 17 In the next five years, we will have nearly 1,000 retirement- eligible employees in USCAN Service. This number is guiding our actions and planning today. As a record number of our field service colleagues reach retirement age, we’ll miss their camaraderie, expertise and knowledge. And while this retirement wave is not unique to GE — this is an industry-wide phenomenon — we’re taking steps now to prepare for this important transfer of knowledge. “We’re committed to building the best Service organization and providing great careers for our team. It’s critical to our customers’ success and, even more so, as we look ahead to retirements,” says Rachel Steele , USCAN Service Senior HR business partner. Working as one team While we sell an integrated program to our customers, the reality is we’ve historically operated our business in silos – Biomed, Imaging and LCS – for a variety of legacy reasons. Customer expectations and demands for responsiveness, productivity and integration are accelerating. To meet these demands, and plan for our future workforce, we need to leverage GE’s scale and continue to focus operating as one team. We’re doing this in a number of ways. Several successful Service Forward pilots were launched in 2016, bringing Imaging and Clinical Services closer together. In 2017, we’re accelerating this initiative, focused on integrated teamwork and customer responsiveness. A key enabler to this strategy is building a more defined Career Map, also known as the Frontline Technical Career Map, focused on retaining specialization while building more flexible options for career growth across our organization. “The Services Career Map will help enable us to hire, train and deploy talent in a new way to meet our customers’ needs,” says Rachel. “At GE, we believe that each one of us owns our own career and the point of this is to ensure we have employee interest, input and ownership to the process.” We’re also transforming our current intern program into an apprentice program. We have 90 interns today, and we’re aiming to add 100 new apprentices to the program in 2018. The apprentice program provides the technical and professional skills needed to take on a full-time role when the apprenticeship ends. At the start of their program, the apprentice will attend onboarding at our Healthcare Institute. “This program set me up for success,” said Chase Arceneaux, Biomedical Technician, Southeast Zone. “I’m currently getting my MBA, and my long-term plan is to work in management at GE. This programmade it all possible.” As we plan for our future workforce, we’re also focusing on our Military Externship Program. Twelve waves of externs have come through this program during the past five years, with many of those externs being hired into USCAN Service. “Our team will always be our priority,” Rachel says. “Forecasting trends that impact the team – including the retirement wave – and preparing for those changes well in advance is a must have for us.” Preparing Today for a Retiring Workforce