Retraining Workers as Jobs Evolve

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The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article today by Austen Hufford titled, "Companies Ramp Up Worker-Retraining Efforts."  Hufford explains that many firms are struggling to find good people given the very tight labor market.  Moreover, many jobs have evolved due to technology innovation.  Thus, companies have invested in new initiatives to retrain workers for their emerging needs.  As an example, Louisiana-based Lamar Advertising is retraining workers accustomed to painting billboards to now repair digital billboards.  These digital displays only account for a tiny fraction of the company's billboards, yet they generate more than 20% of the firm's billboard revenue.  

How should firms think about launching worker-retraining initiaves?  First, I think that companies have to recognize that these investments, while perhaps quite substantial, often pale in comparison to the alternative.  Firms have to weigh the cost of retraining against the extraordinary expenses that they often must incur to recruit and onboard new talent.   In high employee turnover situations, the recruiting and onboarding costs can be astronomical.   Retraining often proves to be a worthwhile investment when judged in this way.   Second, retraining efforts often yield other substantial benefits.   For instance, organizations may find that employee engagement increases when people feel valued and have the opportunity to better themselves through retraining.  Third, investing in internal retraining efforts enables companies to customize their worker training, development, and education to suit their organization's specific needs.   Finding talent from the outside often means that firms rely on training that is quite general and does not meet their particular needs.   Finally, retraining efforts enable dedicated employees to share their newly developed skills with others.  As people master new skills, they can become the trainers for the next group of workers who enter training programs.   Sharing expertise in this manner often has two important benefits.  It reinforces the skills that one has learned, while offering a tremendous sense of satisfaction and pride for workers.   

Is It a Curse to Be Labeled a Star?

Jennifer and Gianpiero Petriglieri have written a terrific Harvard Business Review article titled, "The Talent Curse."   In this essay, they argue that being labeled as a "high potential" or "future leader" can be detrimental to many talented employees.   The label changes their behavior and mindset, and as a result, their stress level increases, performance suffers, and attitude toward the organization sours.  They explain:

In an age when companies wage wars for talent, it is hard to acknowledge that for some people, being recognized as talented turns out to be a curse. But it does. Aspiring leaders work hard to live up to others’ expectations, and so the qualities that made them special to begin with—those that helped them excel and feel engaged—tend to get buried. They behave more like everyone else, which saps their energy and ambition. They may start simply going through the motions at work—or, like Thomas, look for an escape hatch. This curse strikes the talented even in companies that invest heavily in their development—places where executives are sincerely dedicated to helping people thrive.

What are the signs that being labeled as a star may actually be a curse for you?  They cite three symptoms of trouble. First, are you determined to prove that you are worthy of your label as a star, rather than focused on simply using your talents effectively to achieve personal and organizational goals?  Do you stress short term performance at the expense of continuing to learn and grow?  Second, have you become very focused on your image?  Do you want to be your authentic self, but find yourself trying to be someone else?  Third, are you going through the motions now, with aspirations of eventually doing meaningful work down the road?  Have you convinced yourself that it's okay that you aren't passionate about your work at this point, because you will have a chance to find passion and purpose in the future?  

In sum, you have to ask the question: Has the star, high potential, or future leader label fundamentally changed my behavior?  If so, you have to take a hard look at your mindset, attitude, and behavior.  

Empathy for Workers, not just Users

Much attention has focused in recent years on the need for product developers to demonstrate empathy for the users, so as to understand how products can be improved to suit their needs.  Empathy is at the heart of human-centered design.   However, more attention should also be focused on the notion that leaders need to show empathy for their front-line employees just as much as they should for their customers.   Here's Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, CEO of Drawbridge, explaining to Adam Bryant of the New York Times how important empathy is to her leadership style:

The one thing that has remained consistent is that I’ve always respected people who lead from the front. A sense of empathy is extremely crucial to being a good leader. And it comes much more naturally if you’ve walked in their path.  The best way to inspire respect in people is when you can do what they’ve done or when you’re in the trenches with them. You can’t do that every minute of every day, but that is certainly something that I have respected in strong leaders.

Keeping Millennials Engaged at Work

Consultant Tracy Benson has written a terrific post this week for Harvard Business Review.  She focuses on how to engage Millennials at work.  Benson argues that work-life balance is important to them, and flexible work policies can attract them to your firm.  However, keeping them engaged, and retaining them, takes much more than just flexibility about hours and location of work. Engaging them requires providing them a compelling sense of purpose, building an entrepreneurial environment, loosening the traditional career ladder, and providing technology that promotes collaboration.  These suggestions make good sense.  Beyond that, I also think we need to challenge them.  They need to be stretched intellectually.  At the same time, we need to provide them excellent learning and development opportunities.  In that way, they will have the tools to succeed at these stretch assignments.  What if they face adversity or fail?  Many may fear failure a great deal.  They have been hovered over for years, and their self-esteem has been boosted relentlessly. Thus, we have to be ready to address their anxieties as they take risks, face adversity, and perhaps stumble badly at times. We have to challenge them to pick themselves up, fix their mistakes, and climb back on the bike. 

Do Firms Really Value Curiosity?

George Mason University Professor Todd  Kashdan has conducted a study about curiosity in the workplace.  He found that companies talk a good talk about curiosity and new ideas, but they don't walk the walk.   Kashdan reports, "Surveying workers in 16 industries, we found that while 65% said that curiosity was essential to discover new ideas, virtually the same percentage felt unable to ask questions on the job. The contradictions continued: while 84% reported that their employers encouraged curiosity, 60% said they had also encountered barriers to it at work."  

What types of barriers do workers cite?  According to Kashdan, "Common stumbling blocks cited (across industries) were a top-down approach to decision-making, limited time for creative thinking, a preference for safe ideas over new ones, and fear of standing out from the pack. How can these and other organizations do better?"  

We have seen the many reports about low employee engagement across a variety of industries and firms.  Why is engagement so low in the American workforce?  One reason may be that employees have become disenchanted by too many instances of leaders talking a good game, but not acting in ways that are consistent with those verbal messages.  Not backing up your words with actions can be a very easy way to lose the trust of your employees.  The research here on curiosity offers one example of a situation in which firms and their leaders appear to be dropping the ball. 

What Every HR Exec Should be Doing

 

 Liz Ryan has a terrific post at Business Week about the 10 things every HR executive should be doing.   According to Ryan, these 10 actions all help the HR chief achieve his or her ultimate goal: "It’s every HR chief’s highest calling to make sure his or her employer has the most excited, switched-on, and capable people on the market."

Ryan's whole list is excellent, but I especially liked her final two points:

9. Asking your team members every day for their input on your business, their own careers, and life in general—not via a sterile, once-a-year “employee engagement survey.”

10. Replacing fear with trust at every opportunity, in policies, training sessions, management practices, and via every conversation in the place.

These two points cannot be reinforced enough.  Asking for input on a regular basis will accomplish so much more than any annual survey could ever achieve.  Fostering trust will do the same.  If people have been asked for input, and if they trust senior leadership, they will commit wholeheartedly to the organization and go above and beyond the basic duties of their position.  

Employee engagement: The importance of public recognition

Many firms expend a great deal of resources on merit review systems these days. Providing employees 360 degree feedback for evaluative and developmental purposes has become standard in large companies. Coaches and mentors provide feedback too. Managers meet one-on-one to provide "constructive feedback" as well. Incentive compensation exists, in some form or another, in most firms. Nevertheless, many company executives fret these days about the low levels of employee engagement in their organizations.

Many reasons exist for the lack of engagement, but let's start with a simple cause. Despite all the "feedback" provided to employees these days, they often feel that they receive little public recognition for their good work. Yes, employees enjoy a bonus or a raise. However, they also value those occasions when a manager or executive praises their efforts and accomplishments publicly. Yet, that public recognition comes very rarely in some firms. Tomorrow's holiday reminds us that a simple "thank you" and "job well done" expressed in front of one's peers can be very motivating.