Winning the Talent Wars
By Dr Graeme Codrington
TomorrowToday.biz
We live in a world where companies are working exceptionally hard to attract, retain,
engage and motivate their talented employees. A new generation of young people
has started entering the workplace in the last decade, bringing with them new
values, different expectations and a fresh outlook on work and the workplace. The
shift in the values of these young people is necessitating a shift in workplace culture.
Those companies wishing to attract the attention of these young stars – as
employees or customers - must take these shifts seriously.
How Times Change
Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of General Electric, and TIME magazine’s "Manager
of the 20th Century", was asked on his retirement a few years ago what the most
significant change in the workplace was during his career. As recorded in an article
in Newsweek (4 April 2005), he answered as follows:
“In the 1960’s and 70’s all my direct reports were men. Many of those
reports were fathers, and fathers were different then. They did not by and
large, attend ballet recitals on Thursday afternoons or turn down job
transfers because they didn’t want to disrupt their kid’s sports ‘careers’. Most
of their wives did not have jobs with their own competing demands. All that
changed of course.”
For Welch, the workplace of his early management days was one where employees
were expected to work overtime without question, to be in the office over weekends
on a regular basis, and where these things happened with no reference to the
personal and family life of the employee. Today's workplace is very different.
The old workplace contract included terms such as “paying your dues” and “the
system will provide”. The old contract swapped loyalty for security. In essence, the
employee would come into an organisation and sell its products and services to its
clients at its price through its channels, using its systems and processes. In
exchange for the employee becoming that unmarketable (think about it - the more
you learn about one company's systems and processes, the more unmarketable you
become elsewhere), the employee was offered one thing in return: security. It was
a simple contract, and it worked!
But how many companies can offer security these days? Not one!
Yet, that does not concern today's young workers. They are not asking for security,
because they know that it is an illusion, even if it is offered. So, if your company
cannot offer security, why is it still asking for loyalty? That's what today's young
people want to know. If you can't give a long-term commitment, why are you asking
for one?
Today's young people are looking for more than just a secure pay cheque at the end
of every month. They are desperate to find deeper meaning, self-development and
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fulfillment. They want to remain employable - having skills beyond just the current
job description, and a confidence that they could get the job anywhere at any time.
The more confident they are of that fact, the more likely they are to stay exactly in
the place that is giving them that confidence. This is a paradox - but understanding
it is the beginning of success with today's young talent.
Wells and Fences
A story might help to explain this. In South Africa, Karoo sheep farmers spend
considerable time and resources maintaining the fences at the edges of their farms.
Their sheep, in turn, often move to these fences and graze at the edges of the farm sometimes even putting their heads through the fence to taste the sweet, green
grass on the other side.
In Australia, however, most outback sheep stations don't have fences. Their focus is
on building wells at the centre of their farms. They believe that the best way to keep
sheep on their stations is to dig deep, clear, cool wells of water at the centre, and to
draw the sheep in and keep them close.
The same applies in our businesses. Too often, we spend our time building fences
(e.g. contracts) to protect the “boundaries”, and don't take the time to make the
centre attractive. We focus on stopping people leaving, rather than giving them a
reason to stay.
SIDEBAR quotation:
“Every afternoon at about 5 o’clock, all of the assets of this company leave
the building and go home. It’s my job to ensure that they want to come back
the following morning.” Jim Goodknight, CEO of SAS Institute, consistently
rated one of the world’s best companies to work for (from an interview aired
on Carte Blanche in July 2006).
Three Spheres of Life
Every human being operates in at least three spheres in their lives. The first is their
personal life, which relates to their self, their body and soul. The second sphere is
the social, which includes family, friends and community interaction and
involvement. The third sphere might be called professional, corporate or work, and
involves the income-generating activities of a person's life. These three interlinking
spheres of life all need to be addressed by the individual.
Historically, companies have focused almost exclusively on the “work” part of this
trio, leaving the individual a few hours a day, or one or two days a week, to look
after the other two areas of personal and social interaction on their own. This must
change. Companies are now expected to have some input and contribution towards
an individual's personal goals and development, as well as their social and family
commitments, over and above their interest in the person as a worker and employee.
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What You Can Do
In order to build some wells to attract talented people, companies must consider at
least the following:
• Work-life integration – we need to go beyond simple “balance” of work and
personal commitments and help people to integrate. We already enable them
to take work home, with laptops, cellphones and Blackberries, but now we
need to reciprocate, and allow them flexibility to let their personal lives
intrude into the office. Today’s young people ask questions like: “If I answer
emails on a Saturday night, can I take my kids to a movie on Tuesday
afternoon? If not, why not?”
• Outputs-based remuneration – companies that have tried flexibility and failed
to make it stick invariably did not adjust their remuneration and reward
systems to take account of the work-life shift. To be truly effective, you need
to pay people for what they produce, not how many hours they spend doing
it.
• Better use of technology – to achieve the above two goals requires everyone
to use mobile and interactive technologies, and especially requires leaders to
learn new skills of managing virtual teams.
• Significance – they need challenging work that stretches and develops them,
and a sense that they are contributing to changing the world in some way.
• Mentoring – they need access to the senior leaders in their company, to learn
the things you can’t read in books or get from studying. They want to have
access to the years of wisdom often locked up in the unwritten instincts of
those who have been on the job for a few decades.
• Savvy Leadership – to achieve all of these, companies need new types of
leaders that are not constrained by command and control approaches, but
are willing to learn, unlearn and relearn on an ongoing basis.
The war for talent is not a temporary blip in corporate history. It is a new reality
that is here to stay, and the sooner companies make adjustments to their cultures,
the more competitive they will be able to become. Talent is the most important
component of a sustainable competitive advantage in the 21st century.
Dr Graeme Codrington is an international expert on talent and the future of work.
He works with TomorrowToday.biz, a strategy consultancy focused on helping
companies get the most out of their leaders and talented staff and customers. He
can be contacted at graeme@tomorrowtoday.biz.
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