27 Jul 2009
The coming issues in finding and retaining talent
I spend a lot of time in conversations with business executives and professionals. I’m starting to sense a change coming and I think it’s going to have a big impact on organizations when the economy finally turns around, and finding and keeping talent will be a critical issue again.
I know it’s a generalization, but during the past 25+ years I’ve been working, it seems to me that professionals got out of school and initially went “big company” or “small company”. Over time, a certain number of people opted out of their initial choice and migrated the towards the other - more often from big companies to smaller ones. It felt like a cascading waterfall of talent into smaller pools – and that was the natural order of things.
It doesn’t feel like that anymore.
This economic malaise we are in has created so much consternation in the workplace that I’m not sure anyone is happy – and I know they don’t feel safe. A lot of big company people are telling me that the “loyalty thing” is dead once and for all. They are tired of the mass layoffs and an impersonal approach to the issues. They are angry about executive compensation at their firms, and the evaporation of their pensions and 401k plans filled with company stock. On the other side of the coin, many small company people have had it with the uncertainty of life in an often underfunded company that literally survives on a month to month basis. Many small companies have cut salaries and eliminated benefits and yet they are still on life support and struggling to survive. Much like the way my parents’ attitudes were shaped after going through the depression, these experiences will alter behavior for this generation for decades to come.
So what does it all mean? Nothing today – it’s still too scary in the job market right now. But once there is some stability back in the workforce – and there will be eventually - I think there will be a substantial shuffling of bodies across organizations, industries, and geography. The old rules of thumb - the safety net and the virtue of resources in big companies, or the benefits of being “a big fish in a small pond” in a smaller organization - will be out the window. I think people will focus on what makes them happy… am I doing what I want, with people that I like, in a place I want to live?
If no one can really offer “security” anymore, it has no value - and it eliminates a lot of the reasons people make choices between big companies and small companies in the first place. I think it will change the way companies attract and retain talent. That’s probably a good thing.
Good start to a big topic, Dave. I believe that everything about careers is undergoing permanent change. We are now personally responsible for our own retirement, with the death of pension plans, disappearing employer matches and likely higher taxes over time devaluing the idea of a 401k, and inevitable ratcheting up of the Social Security age. An article in our paper today said that people need to start paying for their own work-related training since employers aren’t paying for it. How many employers pay for advanced degrees anymore? We’ll see where health care goes, but I suspect it eventually won’t be provided by employers regardless of whether the government runs it or not.
Titles will mean less. At an executive breakfast recently one fellow asked about the impact of maybe accepting a job with a lower job title than he previously had. I submit that in a few years titles won’t even be on resumes. What you did will be far more important than what you were. Titles will become tools to structure organizations only, and be of little use in selling your services to your next employer.
According to the YouTube video “Did You Know”, and I checked this one with the BoLS, today’s Learner will have 10-14 jobs by age 38. 1 in 4 workers has been with their current employer less than a year. Churn will accellerate as soon as there are choices.
“What I want, with people that I like, in a place I want to live” will be drivers behind career choices indeed.
Jim Rea
July 27th, 2009 at 9:25 ampermalink
[...] that have cut staff to the bone and now need to get ready for the rebound. As I talked about in a prior post, those remaining employees are weary and getting them to work harder as the business picks up [...]
Small business and "the rebound" | Pebble Creek Partners
August 21st, 2009 at 10:01 ampermalink