What if I told you that the company you are at today is the
company you would retire from? Would you laugh? Look at me sideways? Raise an
eyebrow? Probably. Why? Well, because many people throughout the course of their
careers, are looking less for a long-term employer and more for the next best
thing. If this was a dating column, we’d call this the “shiny object syndrome.”
While slightly different, the same fundamental rules apply. You are offered a
relationship, it’s good for a while, both parties are happy, but after a while things start to get mundane,
routine, stale, and the opportunity next door starts to look a little better.
New and unexplored territory is now the currency du jour.
While many employers fight tirelessly to keep employees
committed for the long-haul, others have understood that the desire to change
careers is not going to be quenched by throwing extra benefits at employees,
and for some companies, the best resolutions is to actually not fight this
phenomenon, but to embrace it.
I am going to conclude my series on the LinkedIn Talent
Connect seminar this post because it will be inclusive of my final take away,
which is condensed into elements specifically contained in The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age.
Before I dig into this philosophy, I honesty have to commend
Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh for their work on this book. It is not
only insightful, but I think a brave, potentially controversial, and necessary
phenomenon that has been underexplored until now. While I believe companies
have taken bit-part concepts to make steps toward this effort, I had yet to see
this information presented in a way that is easily applicable to a variety of
organizations.
When I finished my Master’s of Science in Human Resources in
December 2012, my final research was on Gen Y employees. As a Gen X-er and
Digital Immigrant, I knew that in order to make change in my lifetime, I would
have to spend a great deal of time understanding ideas that were not native to
me, but made perfect sense to up and coming talent. I would not only have to
engage with talent of my own generation, but I would have to be adaptable to
the trends of talent who at some point will be 20, 30, or 40 years junior to
me. In my extensive research, finding real solutions posed to be a bit of a
challenge. Everything reported appeared to be based on emerging trends, but no
one was talking so much about how to solve the problem. The question of how to
retain employees spending fewer years at a company was often left unanswered,
and the problem remained because it seemed like no one was offering solutions,
they were only offering band-aids.
The Alliance is
not a band-aid; however, I genuinely believe that this is a solution for the
talent conundrum. Instead of fighting the battle against longevity, it proposes
accepting it to maximize the time an employee is with your company by giving
them meaningful projects for a designated period of time. At LinkedIn these
periods are defined as “tours of duty” and can last for varying lengths of time
depending on the role and the individual.
While it may be a novel concept to consider a “tour of duty”
as a method superior to the benefits of a long-term employee, let’s unpack what
this really means in terms of benefits.
1. Relationship
A tour of duty is not just employment; it
is a relationship, and more importantly, a partnership that a company can
establish with someone for a lifetime. When employment in a traditional company
ends, there is often resentment from one or both parties. Perhaps Jane A is disgruntled
that she didn’t get the promotion offered, so she leaves your company unhappy.
In a “tour of duty” Jane would have agreed to a specific timeframe for her
current role, accomplished those goals, and once those goals were met, she
could then decide to enlist for another tour, or with the support of her
company, find a tour with another organization. Upon leaving the company Jane
is not disgruntled, but rather she is a success story of your reputation as
both an employer, and an ambassador (read: marketer) of your service or
product.
2.
Engagement
A tour of duty is ultimately an experience
where employees will be highly engaged for a period of time because at the outset
of the alliance, they sit down with their manager to discuss not only the
company’s goals, plans and vision, but what the employee’s goals, plans and
vision are as well. The company’s goals are achieved while the employee simultaneously
develops professionally; a win-win situation for both parties.
3.
Production
As a company, employing nothing but engaged
employees, excited to come to work and create the best possible product will
send your production through the roof. If you work in a traditional
environment, stop and look around right now. How many people are around you who
are really excited about what they are doing? How many people are dead weight,
doing their jobs to get to Friday? Imagine if you could replace each of those
individuals with a vibrant employee, daily committed to achieving their absolute
best in that role? What if every one of your employees took ownership of their
role, and had the freedom to improve processes? Do you things might start to
look differently? I think they would.
While what I’m sharing might cause some skepticism if your
company is not particularly adaptable to new and cutting edge ideas, let me
encourage you to continue to explore ways you can start networking with others
in your industry that have made the change. When I started working in my present
organization, I reached out to an individual who was a bit more experience using
the same ATS we used. He worked for another company and had no financial gain
in helping my team, but he was open, shared with us, and as a result, we
created a great professional relationship. What I have found is that within the
Talent Acquisition community, people want to help others. We’ve all been in a
company with fewer resources, and we’ve all just been starting out, praying
someone would just throw us a bone.
If anything I’ve written thus far is connecting with you,
then please visit www.thealliancenetwork.com,
get the book, or at least visit youtube.com
where you can see a load of videos from the LinkedIn Talent Connect 2014 San
Francisco.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this information, as always please
feel free to reach out and keep exploring!
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