STUCK WITH TALENT THAT JUST WON’T GROW UP?

[Barrie Bramley]

- Then Ditch Boomer Thinking in Favour of X-er Integration -

Byline: Barrie Bramley Chief Imagination Officer of TomorrowToday

Diversity, innovation, six sigma, decentralisation, Jack Welch’s 70/20/10, Kai-Zen, Feng Shui. All of these (and others) are strategic focus areas that most companies, either currently or historically, have invested large amounts of resource and energy into with the intention of creating a distinctive value proposition. This in order to stand out in the crowded market-place they find themselves within; internally to ensure the best people, and externally to ensure a healthy bottom line. But the significant focus of the day has shifted and now, thanks to ‘The War for Talent’ - a well-written research document - ‘Talent’ has taken centre stage on the organisational agenda of precedence.

It makes perfect sense. In a globalising world, with a shortage of numbers in the developed world, and a shortage of skills in the developing world, it is right to ensure the attraction and retention of the best possible people inside of an organisation. The war for skills in short supply, or war for talent? It’s easy to see why the latter stuck.

Along with this and its associated challenges is the emergence of a new ‘kind’ of worker. From a values perspective they have been described as Generation X, with Generation Y following on their heels and appearing, very soon, in an office cubicle near you. A fundamental building block in engaging with the skills shortage crisis, is understanding these emerging generations. Specifically their value system and worldview.

Put another way, the pursuit to find people in areas where there is a skills shortage is the same problem everyone is facing regardless of industry. The challenge lies in building the best possible model to ‘attract, recruit and get the best from them’ using a far more savvy approach than the competition. That said, it seems, most organisations are all doing the same thing. Very few stand out from the crowd.

What then, is the younger set of today looking for? Insightful observations that can act as signposts include:

Work - Life Integration

Work-Life Integration and not Work-Life Balance, simply because the latter is a term understood more easily by Baby Boomers (age 40-60) and not today’s younger set. Boomers entered a working world with no mobile or wireless anything. Work stayed at work and home stayed at home. So the idea of seeing work and home as two separate entities is a far easier concept for Boomers.
For Xers (age 20-40) it’s very different. Work and home have merged with each other. My boss phones me at eight o’clock at night and my daughter phones me at three o’clock in the afternoon. When am I at home and when am I at work? Ricardo Semler in his book, ‘The Seven Day Weekend’, asks, “If I send e-mails on a Sunday evening, why can’t I watch a movie on a Monday afternoon?” Why not indeed?
Today’s younger set wants a working environment that understands this challenge and gives them the space to solve it for themselves.

Outputs Driven Environment

In order to effectively integrate work and life, you need flexibility of time and space. Increasingly this is becoming a very hot issue within many companies today. “Tell me what you want from me (the output) and not how to do it (the input).”
There has been huge progress in this area by way of flexi-time. I remember just a few years ago when flexi-time was 15 minutes on either side of starting/ending time. Today there are extremely large organisations in South Africa who have several very impressive flexi-time options for their people to choose from.
Of course not all work processes lend themselves easily to an outputs driven environment. The risk is that the baby is thrown out with the bath water. An outputs driven environment must be seen in the context of and as an enabler for work-life integration.

Loyalty

Quite simply loyalty is not a familiar concept for today’s younger set. The nineties saw companies drive towards increasing efficiency. The consequence of this was downsizing on an unprecedented scale. Xers grew up in the nineties. They watched their parents who had given their lives to a company lose their jobs overnight. They arrive at your business and don’t expect you to commit to them for the long-term. In return, their message to you is that you shouldn’t expect anything different from them.

Their longevity mantra is ‘no shorter than three, no longer than five’. Organisations are finding it difficult to get their heads, processes and systems around this fact. Most organisations are built around a far longer retention cycle. There are very few organisations, if any, that have been able to avoid this trend.
Today’s younger set are not leaving you because they don’t like you. They’re leaving for opportunity to increase the number of pages on their CV in the ‘work experience section’. This is extremely important for them. From their perspective, it creates an opportunity to create value and ensure advancement.
Abandon the idea of long-term retention. Ask them in the first week how long they plan to stay? Whatever their answer, say this, “Excellent, we’re going to give you the best next few years of your working career. In return we want the best next few years of your working career!” It doesn’t get any better than this if you can get it right.

This skills shortage that we’re faced with isn’t going to go away in the short-term. We can’t fight it. However we can manage our response and influence the environment around us. It’s going to take some work. It’s going to mean changing some of how we see the world and embracing a new way of going about our business. Today’s young people do represent amazing talent. If your strategy thus far has been to wait for them to grow up and become like you, you have a long wait ahead of you.

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