Resource Management Innovations
Being an Employer of Choice: Would You Work For You?
On a number of consulting engagements over the years I have been brought in as an objective, neutral third party to affect some measure of ‘change’. There will be some serious conversation at the front end of the client relationship regarding the natural tension that exists in an employer’s mind between ‘the way it is’ and ‘the way it should be’. Not at all uncommon. Usually, not unreasonable. In our Case Studies you can read how dramatic and theatrical some of those interventions have been.
This week in the news, two separate articles in our daily ‘national newspaper’ caught my eye and tickled my funny bone. Not related in any way … the articles lamented:
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1) Manager complaining to the HR department: Make the staff grow up and stop behaving like spoiled children.
2) Staff complaining to the HR department: My boss is a jerk. Make him / her stop.
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The scenario is not that uncommon, and what is often a knee slapper at consultant cocktail parties … is the frequency with which this scenario is played out concurrent on the same job site. The corporate culture in question is of course no joke. Consider for a moment the impending War for Talent. The Conference Board of Canada indicates that we are facing a skills deficit in Canada of skilled workers … that could reach as high as 2 million. The war will be fought on all fronts as the baby boomers retire with no replenishing wave of skills and experience behind them. This represents roughly 10% of what the U.S. will experience, which is about the same as the European skills and experience deficit … at a time when we are securing our borders and making immigration increasingly difficult. How important is human resources management? If HR isn’t represented at your board room table today … they will be tomorrow.
“When land was the scarce resource nations battled over it. The same is happening now for talented people”.
Enter the age of: The Employer of Choice
In response to a skills bull market, there is now a serious race being run by some serious executives to position themselves correctly as an employer ‘of choice’. That is not entirely unwelcome by employees today … but suffice to say corporate culture it is a-shifting. Gone are the days when we could tolerate the manager whose only qualification was The Peter Principle (promoted to his / her level of incompetence). I am not that old … and I remember when ‘management’ was a vocation, and you were trained for it. Now, it is something else that a senior staffer is expected to do. Today we often find supervisory staff completely untrained and unskilled in the disciplines of Maslow, McGregor, Hertzberg and Drucker. There remains a window of opportunity for leadership to respond, and prepare to intentionally retain the staff they currently have … while fighting for their fair share of the market. I am reminded of the words of Tom Peters, “There is no people shortage … if you are a great place to work”. I appreciate you don’t have an unlimited budget, so here are four key characteristics that we’ll spend time data mining in subsequent Blogs:
1) Company Culture: It’s just good business. Research consistently shows employee loyalty increases concurrent with a company’s ethical standards. This is consistent with ‘Values’ … and well within leadership’s fiduciary responsibility.
2) Visionary Leadership: Leaders by definition are future oriented. They set the pace, chart the way … ensuring every member of the team has a complimentary skill set and knows where they are going and how they will get there. (It even sounds exciting doesn’t it?)
3) Stewards of Staff: Employers of choice knew their staff were their most important asset, before it became trendy to say so. In our experience, the words haven’t been consistently expressed as deeds. Policies that demonstrate a commitment to work life balance is now critical while having managers who are skilled at (wait for it) … management.
4) Growth and Opportunity. Consistently, staff tell me they want (in order of importance) to grow, to be challenged, to be inspired and to be a valued member of a team. Being rewarded (directly and indirectly) comes it at #5. Maslow (and his theory of hierarchical needs) would be proud.
Question: Back to where we began our conversation. Would you work for you?
Management and Leadership Development is the curriculum RMI has provided to organizations for the last 20 years, and is the portfolio we bring to our 3rd, 4th and 5th year university classes here in Calgary. Yes it’s available to you. Ask us how. There is still time.
Cheers;
Rick @ RMI
Posted By: Rick Kneeshaw 2010/04/09
Categories: From the Desk of the HR Manager