Taking Stock of 2022 - What’s New In Work?
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #129 ❤️
Coming to the end of 2022, we were expecting to see a transition from the “Great Resignation”. This transition has been named by last week’s McKinsey quarterly report as the “Great Negotiation”. What does this mean?
Talent attraction is changing, what makes people want to stay at their current jobs is changing, as is what makes them want to leave, but how can businesses adapt to this, if they can at all?
So, what are the trends, and how should we be gearing up to face them in 2023?
Let’s get into it.
Were you forwarded this? Not a subscriber? 👉 Sign up here
#1 - The Great Renegotiation – McKinsey Report
In their most recent quarterly report, McKinsey dubbed the Great Resignation the “quitting trend that just won’t quit”. Noting that employees were re-thinking career paths entirely, changing from traditional to non-traditional roles or even starting businesses and retiring early – calling the phase to come next the “Great Negotiation”.
What they dub “traditionalist” workers are falling fast, leaving a structural gap in the employee pool post-Covid. Even when employers successfully woo these traditionalist workers from rivals, they’re actually just reshuffling talent and contributing to wage escalation while still failing to solve the underlying structural imbalance. That can only be done, apparently, by winning back non-traditional workers.
They stated that in order for employers to be able to face this new trend in the attraction game, they need to understand the five crucial employee personas. So, who are they?
1. The Traditionalist Worker
The star of the classic labour pool – but in too short supply to fill all the gaps.
2. “The Do-It -Yourself-er”
Anything for autonomy, they need freedom and a sense of purpose, and will only work for your company if you can prove you can give them something better than what they’ve built for themselves.
3. Caregivers
They’re at home but they want more. Again, flexibility is key here, these workers have responsibilities at home but are also looking for a sense of purpose – they just don’t have the luxury to look for it without also taking their other duties into consideration.
4. The Idealists
These are mostly students and part-timers.
To get their attention, flexibility is again a must, but mostly a company needs to be willing to invest in this group’s development and create a strong organizational culture that emphasizes meaning and purpose.
5. The Relaxers
Work no longer comes first for these guys. Many of them have completed their traditional careers and may not need the money to live comfortably.
McKinsey, like us, put a huge focus on creating an Employee Value Proposition, and note the importance of personalisation for each of these groups in the creation of your value proposition for attraction.
We’ve been putting this sort of thing into practise for a while, and we love McKinsey’s approach here. Check out our past EVPs for an insight into what we do.
#2 - First Where We Work, Now WHEN We Work…
The location of where we work isn’t the only thing evolving in the new work world, but the timeline of our working day is also undergoing a transformation.
Flexibility is now going so far as the acceptation of a non-linear work-day. For example, rather than starting at 9 on the dot and ending at 5pm, with a classic hour break, people are clocking on after the school drop-off at around 10, going out in the afternoon for a run, doing chores and school pick-up late afternoon and clocking back in to work after dinner.
Non-linear workers still generally have the majority of their hours cross over with colleagues and bosses but can shape close-focus work as they wish. This means choosing times when they are most productive, often having a positive outcome on the quality of work.
Looking at McKinsey’s employee personas, this could be a huge factor in attraction for “The Caregivers” who need that non-linear flexibility in the day to be able to work productively while meeting all their responsibilities outside of work.
#3 - You’ve Heard of Quiet Quitting, Now Quiet Firing…
So, this isn’t new, the “path of least resistance” approach to getting rid of an employee has been used by bad managers for decades, but with the buzz over quiet quitting people have found a name for it.
Quiet firing is when a manager, unsatisfied with an employee’s behaviour, basically tries to make their job unattractive enough that they’ll quit. Or just shelve them so they don’t have to deal with them.
Surely we don’t have to tell you that this is pretty toxic, and apparently the lasting result for the employee on their confidence and performance at work and in future positions is worse than if they’d just been fired outright.
An example from an employee who experienced this in the remote working world described long days of doing pretty much nothing with little contact with managers and employees. Sure that gets boring after a while… Noting a huge knock to her confidence and self-worth in the workplace.
Managing performance and working with the employee to improve their output and turn them into a useful resource for the company would be an alternative way to deal with the problem. However, as bosses are often ill-equipped to do this, whether through a lack of time or training, they can find themselves without the resources to be able to do this.
We always say, talent retention is a great problem solver for talent attraction, and manager upskilling, reviewing employee performance according to values, and, starting at the beginning by hiring to values, are all great solutions to this toxic last resort.
#4 - Engagement Top HR Priority for 2023
According to a survey by Lattice of 800 HR leaders from the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands HR teams are re-prioritizing away from talent acquisition and focusing instead on engagement and retention.
This is because despite the looming recession and some slowing down in hiring, which is putting the brakes on acquisition, employees are still resigning in droves, particularly in the US.
Engagement was HR leaders’ top priority for 2023 coming in at 41%, followed by manager training (35%) and learning and development (34%), according to Lattice’s 2023 State of People Strategy report.
Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging came in fourth (30%), followed by performance management (27%) and compensation (25%).
Talking about the findings, Lattice’s vice-president of advisory services Dave Carhart notes that this “indicates the increased importance of a people-centric HR approach in uncertain times.”
There is a lot that HR leaders can learn from high-performing teams. Their report found that high-performing teams are listening to their employees, collecting and analyzing that data, and then investing what they care about most.
For example coaching and upskilling, and reducing bias in hiring and promotions. Pay equity and transparency was also key to success in high-performing teams. The report found that investing in compensation transparency strongly impacts engagement and retention in employees.
#5 - The Chief Remote Officer
With 1 in 4 HR leaders expecting over 90% of their workplace to be remote into 2023, a new HR related job role has arisen – the Chief Remote Officer.
An example of this position is Chase Warrington, head of the remote work strategy for a productivity-software firm.
He says his job is cross-functional - alongside designing company retreats across Europe, his tasks on the daily include coordinating with the finance department on their compensation strategy for their global team and liaising with HR on a new internal communications tool.
He describes his role as being like “a consultancy on remote working” and says he looks at “all elements of the team specifically through the lens of remote-first: what we need to upgrade or change to perfect our infrastructure.”
While this firm has been fully remote for 15 years, they decided in October 2021 that they needed a senior-level position to lead its distributed model due to the change of the landscape following the pandemic. While they had the processes already in place, so were clearly ahead of the times, they wanted a cohesive strategy in forging deeper connections.
Not a bad idea! Rather than sticking your head in the sand or even trying an ad-hoc policy, perhaps approaching remote work as a HR strategy like any other is the right way to go for the future of the workplace.
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
With “AI” and automated job applications entering the recruitment world, some people have been turning to “white text” on the CVs to try and get them through the cracks.
This includes filling your CV with attractive buzzwords, and then turning the font white. That way the algorithm picks it up. You know, like SEO from the 90’s. Sneaky.
However, employers are onto you – and it’s a big reason to throw your CV in the bin.
To find out more on how we can help you build your HR strategy and ensure that your employees are engaged and working to their full potential with a tailor EVP, check out our case studies.