How many employees in your company do you think are enthusiastic about their work as opposed to those who feel a chronic sense of dread on Sunday evenings?
In the largest employee engagement survey of its kind, the Gallup organization discovered that only 13% of the world’s employees are in the first category. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when you consider the ominous trends in the global labour market. Millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce. They are affectionately known by employers as the “job-hopping generation,” and for good reason. Millennials are three times more likely to have changed jobs in the last year than non-millennials.
Then there are the baby boomers. They are now exiting the workforce in droves. So what are organizations doing to stem the loss? Apparently, not much. Only 14% of employers surveyed state that they have effective talent development programs for other employees to replace the tsunami of baby boomer retirees.
The combination of these issues is creating a perfect storm in the global labour market – and most organizations aren’t checking the weather report.
Is it possible that there is an underlying cause to the current upheaval in the labour market? Or, in other words, could all these indicators be telling the same story?
The strategic flaw
I’ve attended many corporate strategy meetings where a company’s priorities are typically enumerated like this:
1) Profit
2) Customers
3) Products and processes
4) Employees
When companies order their priorities this way, no amount of corporate PR platitudes can mask it. Employees can feel that they are pretty far down the list of their company’s priorities.
Is it any wonder that only 13% of the world’s workers are actually enthusiastic about their work? Can you really blame millennials for dumping their employers in search of a company that cares about more than just profit? Does it really surprise you that managers are so focused on priorities 1 through 3 that they don’t have time to develop their people?
The enlightened strategy
Companies that have a strong talent development process consistently demonstrate that their people are truly their top priority. One such organization is Earls Kitchen + Bar. Earls has only four strategic priorities:
1) Selection
2) Develop leaders
3) Employee engagement
4) Financial results
Earls believes that when they put their people first, profits will follow. And they’ve proved it. Craig Blize, vice-president of operations, told me that there is a direct correlation between the restaurants with the highest employee engagement and the restaurants with the highest sales and profits. That being said, I don’t think they’re necessarily saying that employees are their most important priority. It’s pretty hard to argue that employees are more important to a business than a steady revenue stream. What I think Earls has figured out is that their people are their first link in a chain of equally important priorities that culminates in profit.
But Earls is not alone. WestJet is not a whit behind Earls’ people-first focus. WestJet’s tag line, “Owners care,” is more than a slogan; it’s a reflection of the company’s priorities. Mark Porter, WestJet’s executive vice-president of people and culture, told me, “We believe that if we look after WestJetters, they will look after the guests, and the guests will look after our company.”
Sir Richard Branson makes the point that people and planet should be on par with profits, but guess how he orders the sequence? Branson’s mantra is “people, planet and profit.” That’s not a coincidence. People always come first. Only then will they take up the company’s cause as their own.
A talent revolution is coming
Sooner or later, the most talented and sought-after employees will join their millennial co-workers to find an employer that consistently puts people and purpose before profits. Sooner or later, employers are going to realize that the key to winning the war for talent is not to somehow lure talented employees away from other employers, but to care about their own employees enough to develop them.
Business leaders and managers have an increasingly urgent choice to make: lead the talent revolution or be left behind.
Michael Timms is a management consultant and speaker who specializes in organization and leadership performance. He is the founder of Avail Leadership and author of the book Succession Planning That Works.
