Joyce Gioia-Herman - Future Workforce Trends

The Navy and Employee Retention

Yesterday, I was struggling with California traffic on my way back from meeting with Bob Beck, the Dean of the Naval Postgraduate School.

Bob, a fifteen tear veteran of IBM and some other household names, is a delightful fellow who really “gets it.” He understand the challenges of retaining human capital and shares my concern for making sure the Navy is able to hold onto its good (and great) people in the midst of this escalating workforce crisis.

He challenged me to tell him how I could contribute to his curriculum.

I asked if they were teaching “Employee Retention.” Of course the answer was “No.”

Most MBA programs don’t even touch on this topic, the greatest challenge facing business today. To their credit, a handful now offer courses in “Human Resources.”

So obviously, we will have further conversations.

Looking forward. . .

Joyce Gioia-Herman

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The Effects of Fear

Fueled by the publicity frenzy the press is enjoying, the current volatility in world financial markets is affecting many people at all levels of our societies.

From the employees' point of view, this uncertainty engenders insecurity. What will happen to my company? Will it be in business? Will I have a job? The reaction is that they continue "corporate cocooning", staying in the safety and sanctuary of their corporate jobs, despite their deep dissatisfaction.

A number of studies have confirmed that at least 35 percent of our workforce is unhappy. Thanks to a social network analyst Scott DeGraffenreid, we have a label for it. We call it "Warm Chair Attrition". The shame is these employees still collect paychecks, take up space, and infect their fellow associates. It would seem to be good news for employers: their workers will not leave. However, bottom line, disaffected employees are not particularly productive.

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Internal Consumers Make "Ethical Choices"

According to the recently released Cone Cause Evolution Survey 2007, more than two-thirds of Americans say they consider a company's business practices when choosing or staying with an employer. The study, the culmination of 14 years of Cause BrandingSM and corporate responsibility research, found a substantial increase in the number of workers who want their employers to be good corporate citizens and support a social cause or issue over their previous study. The latter findings confirm our research of a few years ago for our book "How to Become an Employer of Choice" in which we found that "making a difference" was an important element for an organization being an Employer of Choice®. (www.employerofchoice.com)

According to Julia Hobbs Kivistik, an executive vice president at Cone, cause-related marketing efforts remain an effective way for a company to express its charity and core values. This study indicates an evolution in internal and external consumer thinking about the ways organizations can support society.

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Domestic and Global Brain Drains Revisited

On numerous occasions in 1999, 2004, and 2006, we have written about "brain drains", from individual cities as well as the entire country (the United States). Here is an update.

First domestically, smaller cities like Council Bluffs, Iowa and Lynchburg, Virginia continue to be challenged to hold their young people after graduation. The city leaders say, "We are a great place to raise a family, so sometimes we get back our graduates, when they are ready to settle down, but we want and need to have these young people after college as well. Even if we can get them to stay for a short time, they invariably leave for more 'exciting' environments."

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Employee Retention is a Global Issue

On September 10 and 11, I delivered a two-day workshop for the ETELS Training Networks in Kuala Lumpur. KL, as the cognoscenti call it, is a beautiful city. Compared to Singapore, it is dirtier and the infrastructure needs a lot of work. However, the city has large green areas and the largest bird park in the world. It also has an orchid garden, a hibiscus, the national flower of Malaysia.

Whenever I travel to someplace new, I allow at least an extra week to acclimate to the time zone, see the area, and most importantly, learn the culture.

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Latest Employee Retention Research Confirms Herman Group Forecast

On September 4th, Monster.com released the results of their most recent survey:

70% said that employee retention is a major business concern and 40% reported that recruiting has become more difficult in the last 12 months.

In another recent study, this one from Talent Keepers, almost half (45%) of the companies surveyed said that they expect employee turnover to increase; only 3% expect it to decrease. (We wonder what they're smoking?)

These findings line up perfectly with our 2007 Workforce/Workplace Forecast. You can read the whole thing at http://www.hermangroup.com/forecasts_2007.html.

These findings also point to employee retention being a growing problem for many employers. We can easily understand why increasing numbers of people want to sign up for The Employee Retention Specialist™ Certificate Program. There I teach everything HR professionals and other business executives want and need to know and what to do to attract and retain top talent.

Looking Forward. . .

Joyce Gioia-Herman

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U.S. Competitveness

Yesterday, I delivered the closing keynote for the Annual Learning Festival for the country of Singapore. The title of my presentation was "Capitalizing on the Aging Workforce to Win the War for Talent". Sponsored by the Workforce Development Agency of their Ministry of Manpower, part of my job was to talk about a program called the Advantage! Scheme. This initiative gives employers up to SG$400,000 to hire and or retrain older workers which they define as 40+.

Advantage! supports a variety of services employers can provide for these older workers, including career guidance and health education, as well as improving the work environment to be better for seniors.

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Senior Workers and Keeping Up

When I spoke in Singapore last week, a member of my audience asked an interesting question: In Singapore, the younger, more highly educated workers are pushing out the more experienced, older workers, who do not have the same levels of education.

I was told afterwards by my clients that they thought this man wanted me to say that "the work culture in Singapore is 'bad' or 'wrong'". That is something I would never do. My view is that no foreigner has the right to denigrate the culture of a country being visited, particularly if that foreigner is a business person visiting the new country for work.

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Sabbaticals---The Right Way

On numerous occasions in the past, we have written about sabbaticals. Originally offered to college educators, sabbaticals now provide employees of non-academic institutions with an opportunity to disconnect from their jobs for a period of between three months and one year. The purpose is to allow the individual to relax and rejuvenate so that they may avoid burnout and return to their jobs with renewed energy.

Reviewing this year's list of Fortune Magazine's 100 Best Places to Work®, there are 22 (surprisingly, down from 25 last year) companies that offer fully paid sabbaticals. The list of companies includes Adobe, American Express, Genentech, Bain & Co., REI, and others. There are many more companies not on Fortune's list offering sabbaticals as well. In fact, the benefits-consulting giant Watson Wyatt estimates about 20 percent of large companies offer this benefit.

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Productivity is Up---A Good Thing? Maybe?

Besides the election results, this morning the news media is featuring a story about productivity in US employment rising 1.9 percent. They're not concerned about that figure (it was expected to be 1.8) as much as they are concerned with an attendant rise of 2.6 in unit labor costs. We are much more concerned with rising productivity numbers, when many employees are already stressed out and overworked.

From an economist's point of view, any rise in productivity is good. From the POV of the HR consultant, it is cause for concern about employee retention. Employers that push their people too hard will never be considered an Employer of Choice®. www.employerofchoice.com

Looking Forward. . .

Joyce Gioia-Herman

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Cities Should Support Internships

From time to time, we are approached by second tier cities, complaining that they can not keep their young people. The answer is so simple, we didn't even get it on first exposure. One of the main reasons given by young people leaving their home towns is "employment". Their perception is that they could not find "the right employment" for them in the town. Often, they are wrong, but no amount of persuasion was ever successful in getting them to stay.

What will work is to engage them as interns, give them lots of training, show them working in a good culture is like. Trust me, they will be salivating to work with you after graduation. And the coolest part for employers is that they get the benefit of people who already know their cultures and how to get things done within the organization―--an issue that we maintain is a major driver of employee turnover.

Internships are win-win-win opportunities:

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Herman Trend Alert: Making HR Metrics Serve the Bottom Line

In our 2008 Workforce/Workplace Forecast, we discussed the growing importance of metrics (measurement) in Human Resources to drive more money to the bottom line. http://www.hermangroup.com/alert/archive_12-12-2007.html

Recently, we met Janet Walsh, President of Birchtree-HR, Llc, the person who coined the term "Human Capital Financial Management" (HCFM). "In HCFM, we evaluate investments in people for their returns and link them to business strategy," said Walsh. "Research studies conclusively prove organizations that link human capital programs with business strategy enjoy six to 38 percent higher return on total capital than those that don't," she added. The best systems are the ones where there is a "clear line of sight" between the people programs and the business strategy.

A global Human Resource consultant, focusing on HR strategy, compensation and performance management, Walsh is often asked, "How do I link the business strategy of the company to my programs?" Agreeing with our previous Herman Trend Alert, "the future of training will be gaming and simulation" http://www.hermangroup.com/alert/archive_2-11-2004.html , Walsh and her colleagues created an HR simulation, called "At the Table".

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Herman Trend Alert: U.S. Employee Confidence Index Declines

The Spherion Employee Confidence Index, a monthly measure of workers’ confidence in their personal employment situation, fell for the seventh consecutive time last month. With this decline, it reached the lowest level since the survey's inception in 2004.

We see two reasons for this downturn: first, the United States has experienced negative job creation for the last two months, last month losing 63,000 jobs, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics; second, the media continues to beat the drum of doom and gloom, because "Bad news sells." We have written about the media's effect before. http://www.hermangroup.com/alert/archive_8-15-2007.html

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Social Responsibility is Good Strategy

Many indicators point to the fact corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a wise business strategy. In our book, How to Become an Employer of Choice, we discussed that people want to work for companies that are good corporate citizens.

Moreover, one of the elements of being an Employer of Choice® is "Making a Difference". We know that when employers give their people opportunities to make a difference that the workers feel more "bonded" to the organization. In these times of a tight (and getting tighter) labor market, it is particularly important to press whichever buttons are effective in keeping people and keeping them engaged and productive.

From the scrolling list of CSR goals in the lobby of Marks and Spencer's headquarters to a handful of enlightened employers in Singapore reaching out to older workers to corporate entities like Coca-Cola working with Greenpeace to eliminate carbon emissions from its vending machines and coolers, employers around the world are expressing their support for social causes and the environment.

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Herman Trend Alert: Unemployment---the Numbers Behind the Numbers

The latest jump in the United States unemployment statistics has finally prompted us to speak out about what is really happening in the US labor marketplace and what effects these changes will have on our trading partners around the globe.

Last Friday, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the unemployment rate is the highest since October 2004; this 10 percent boost was the biggest percentage point gain in 33 years. The Payroll Survey of employers is the basis for this increase. To its credit, the BLS does include in its notes: "in the establishment (payroll) survey, estimates for the most recent 2 months are based on substantially incomplete returns".

This increase in unemployment continues to mask the real situation. Looking at the BLS' Household Survey, in the month of May, the national unemployment percentages among adult men and women were 4.9 and 4.8. At the same time, the rate for teenagers, ages 16 to 19 jumped from 15.4 in April to 18.7 in May, an increase of 21.4 percent. While part of this increase is due to high school and community college graduations, these new job seekers do not account for this huge increase. Rather, we believe that something else is happening.

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Herman Trend Alert: Access to Healthcare Information Saves Lives

SHPS, a leading, independent provider of integrated health solutions that improve personal health and reduce spending, recently released a white paper that establishes the value of nurse line services (after-hours telephonic access to credible answers for health-related questions). The bottom line, according to the study, is that this enhanced access "increases patient safety, reduces cost".

Authored by clinical director Todd Prewitt, M.D., the document discusses the challenges that arise during after-hours medical emergencies and reviews issues confronting both patients and employers. Moreover, it validates the role of these telephonic services in providing effective and reliable solutions.

The absence of this after-hours clinical expertise and advice can be devastating for both patients and their employers, causing unnecessary emergency room visits, costly medical interventions, or even serious physical harm. The additional effect on employers is intense, stimulating many organizations to establish nurse line services.

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The Pitiful State of Employee Engagement

Recently, global consultants BlessingWhite released a landmark study on the State of Employee Engagement with survey results gathered from North America, the United Kingdom (and Ireland), and the Asia Pacific Region. Engaged employees are excited and use their talents and discretionary effort to make a difference for their employers.

In North America, fewer than one in three (only 29 percent) of employees are fully engaged and 19 percent are actually disengaged. The company also found a strong correlation between employee engagement and retention. An impressive 85 percent of engaged employees expect to stay with their organizations throughout 2008. Moreover, the study found that engaged employees stay for what they can contribute (they like their work), while disengaged employees stay for what they can get (job security, favorable job conditions, and growth opportunities).

The picture in the UK and Ireland is slightly worse; there less than one in four (23 percent) employees is fully engaged and nearly as many are actually disengaged. Also, fewer of the engaged employees than the North America statistics (only 76 percent) expect to stay in 2008. In this region, the most common factor influencing job satisfaction is "more opportunities to do what I do best".

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Musings from Kuala Lumpur

The pouring rain pelted the taxi with globs of water. Through the rain-splattered windows, the only visible scenery was the vegetation bordering the road and the almost white sky. My taxi driver, Mr. Chang, does not speak English, but most taxi drivers here in Kuala Lumpur share this "shortcoming". By the way, it is only a shortcoming for their English-speaking fares.

My first trip to KL, it lead to my having been taken to the wrong hotel at 1am. . . several kilometers away from my correct lodging with no local currency in hand. (Some lessons are more difficult to learn than others.)

The radio is blaring Top-40 tunes―from the US―back in the 60s. I am sitting silently in the backseat, consciously commanding my eyelids to stay open. Finally, as I succumb and close my eyes, even the plastic ballpoint pen feels heavy in my hand. Over 20 hours in the air is taking its toll.

My dollars are worth about one-half what they were worth a short year ago. I will have to buy my gifts wisely.

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Herman Trend Alert: Corporate Blindness

According to the latest Economic Anxiety at the Workplace poll results just released by Elliot Masie, 85 percent of respondents have at least some economic anxiety in their workplace and 29 percent experience “severe or high anxiety” in their workplaces. Only 15 percent reported "low or no anxiety in the workplace".

The respondents were answering the question, "What is the level of economic anxiety in your workplace?" Interestingly, over 1,444 learning professionals worldwide responded to his poll in 72 hours. This poll is Masie's attempt to take the pulse of how workers and workplaces are reacting to the current economic crisis in the United States (and beyond).

Masie's poll asked one additional question: "What, if any, action(s) has your organization's leadership taken to respond to the economic anxiety in the workplace?" The responses to this question reflect that corporations are "out of touch" with the feelings of their employees.

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