Innovative Workforce Management for Today
Update Employee Retention Plans for the New Global Workplace
Sep 11, 2009
The long predicted dramatic shifts in demographics that would shake employee retention ideas to their roots has arrived and most corporations aren’t prepared to handle it, say the authors of "The Talent Innovation Imperative," published in the Autumn issue of Strategy + Business.
Combined with the global economic crisis, these changes have combined to create a “perfect storm of workforce pressures on companies around the world,” say co-authors DeAnne Aguirre and Laird Post of Booz & Company, and Sylvia Ann Hewlett, founding president of the Center for Work–Life Policy.
Employee Management Practices Must Change
According to the authors, while corporate leaders acknowledge that retaining talented employees is important to their company’s objectives and that the leading innovative companies use creative and attractive work environments that increase employee satisfaction and encourage high level performance, they are held back by old-fashioned assumptions about employee management practices.
Insisting people work the traditional workweek of Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and not working with employees to ensure that capabilities align with the strategic objectives of the business, employers fail to acknowledge and recognize the contribution people can make, the article says.
The Baby Boom generation is staying on the job longer because they are healthier than ever before, but also because the economic crisis has threatened retirement plans for many. Meanwhile, Generation X is coming of age to move into leadership roles and Generation Y, in even greater numbers than the baby boom generation, is moving into the workplace and is demanding a more flexible work environment.
Today’s global workforce includes more Chinese and Indian workers than ever before. In many countries more women graduate from colleges and universities than men, and women now make up more than half of the global educated workforce. White men now make up less than 20% of the educated workforce from which corporate employees and potential leaders are drawn.
“As a result,” say the authors, “leading companies are already finding that they cannot simply passively bring women and people of color into the workplace; they must prepare them for greater positions of responsibility.”
To attract and retain the best people, companies need new employee retention plans that account for this diverse and mobile workforce.
Workforce Management for Today’s Demographics
Under old-style employee talent models, employees “are expected to move in linear fashion up the ladder of a vertical function or business line,” say the authors. A fresh and more realistic approach to employee retention “assumes a workforce that is global, diverse, and gender-balanced, with discontinuous career progressions.”
Under this new model, functional and leadership skills are valued, new employment structures and virtual workplaces are encouraged, and non-monetary rewards alongside financial rewards are offered to attract the best employees.
By integrating the needs of individuals with the needs of the business, and aligned those needs with a clear corporate strategy, companies will promote “innovation, growth, and breakthrough performance,” improve their employee retention rate, and gain competitive advantage.
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