BLOG DATE: January 23, 2012
What is all the Upcoming Labour Shortage Fuss About???
In essence the labour shortage is the result of an abnormally large number of baby boomers in the workforce who will be retiring within the same timeframe, from now until the 2020’s. The effect of this massive amount of people leaving the workforce is that there will only be one person available to replace every two that leave.
My view is that companies really aren’t paying much attention to this – there are other more pressing things to worry about now. The issue we are going to face is twofold;
1. How can companies keep properly staffed in times of labour shortages, and
2. How do companies manage this new generation of employee we see, the Gen Y or millennial employees?
As HR consultants we hear managers saying: what has worked in the past doesn’t work for this new generation; the work ethic just isn’t there; how do you get them to care about the company and they don’t like feedback”. Of course there are some stereo type comments in there, BUT, if companies don’t take the time to figure this out, they will someday be scratching their collective heads wondering just what happened to them and their companies.
What is 100% true is that generational differences do exist, however, the newer generation employees are certainly of the same species and have many of the same needs that are not being met by many employers past and present. The thing that is the same anywhere and in any company in any country is that work has to have meaning to the employee. With the availability of incredible amounts of information on the internet, younger generations want to know the ‘why’ behind things, much more than previous generations. If this need is not met, they are much more likely to leave their employer than previous generations. Red flag!
This new generation wants the opportunity to grow and develop on the job, they want to know their manager cares about them as a person, not just an employee, they want to be treated with respect, they want to be able to express their opinions and they want to feel like they are making a difference at work. The one thing which is the same is that they want feedback, AND traditionally managers are not well skilled in providing feedback, be it constructive, or positive. The reason they don’t like feedback is directly related to the ability of the manager to properly give performance feedback.
Given these factors, it is a bit easier now for companies to hear and find out what it is that new generation employees don’t like about their employer. You no longer will have to dig and rely on employee surveys to know what is wrong…they will tell you.
Things that companies have put up with in the past will present huge problems going forward. For example, a company with the bullying or micro managing manager who may be competent in their own job, will be the major reason why employees decide to leave their employer. This new generation will be much less tolerant of poor management practices or employers who choose to ignore this. Employers that are not able to figure out how to properly communicate with this newer generation will have considerably more difficulty attracting, retaining and engaging the employees.
So, what should you be doing about this now? For a start, you need to understand and embrace the fact that status quo type management from the past will not work in the future. Specifically, new generation employees have a thirst for information like never before. As an example, they will want to know where a company is going and why? They will want to know why a company puts up with managers who are not properly trained to manage people; they will want to be asked their views on things - even things they have no responsibility for. In short, they need to be managed differently and better than what was previously expected from managers.
Employers going forward will need to:
1. have managers who truly know how to give job performance feedback
2. take an active interest in the development of employees
3. seek feedback from this new generation in terms of how they are being managed
4. be able to explain how their company makes a difference
5. articulate how the work of the employee affects where the company is headed strategically
6. seek feedback on things that can be improved – and act on it
In the Performance Management module of TwoGreySuits’ HR Power Centre there are 11 Skill Building Challenges in the People Management Skills subsection which outline in detail exactly ‘what to do’ and ‘how to do it’ in terms of all acts of properly managing people. This is the result of extensive research in this area and is assembled in the easiest to understand format available anywhere. The smart employers are acting on this now vs. later.
The 11 Skill Building Challenges are reviewed in detail under the following topics:
PEOPLE MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES
1. Involving Employees in Setting Objectives
2. Setting Clear Objectives for Employees
3. Managing Employees to Achieve Their Objectives
4. Ensuring Employee Understanding and Clarity in Delegating Tasks
5. Coaching Employees to Solve Their Own Problems
6. Modeling High Personal Standards to Employees
7. Building Cordial Relationships with Employees
8. Encouraging and Rewarding Risk and Innovation
9. Reviewing Individual Performance on a Regular Basis.
10. Relating Rewards Directly to Performance
11. Building Effective Teams in the Workplace
Blog date:December 03, 2011
By: Ron Guest, Senior Partner, TwoGreySuits
We Don’t Have HR in Our Company…
Every time I hear this I chuckle to myself. Yet, the people saying this really believe what they are saying. I think what they mean to say is that they don’t have a dedicated HR function in their company, otherwise they are really saying they don’t have any people in their company, which cannot be the case if they are talking about the company they work for.
Recently I became aware of a situation where a certain CEO (believe it or not) would openly tell employees he did not believe in HR, yet he had an HR Manager on staff. However, that HR “Manager” was only there to process terminations and do recruiting, nothing else. HR Management, not just HR administration at some level is going on in every company that employs people. In fact businesses are dealing with HR issues every day, regardless if there is an HR department or not, and someone is dealing with it. In many smaller organizations, HR is handled by the owner/manager or financial person or sometimes the administrative assistant. These individuals often do a pretty good job with transactional type HR activities, like signing people up on payroll or benefits, processing terminations, etc.
So, what is all this other stuff HR people do that is keeping them busy? It is the strategic part of HR, like having a retention strategy or a well-developed hiring process or performance management system, progressive HR policies, etc., designed to unleash employee potential and innovation. When the downturn in the economy started to unfold a few years ago, many companies were intent on cutting expenses (people) as a means of survival, and then shortly thereafter had to figure out how to do much more with less, and with a scared and often disgruntled staff. Companies that had focused more on HR Management as opposed to only HR administration would seem to have fared better. Why? This is a generalization of course, but companies that treat HR Management as a Management function, and linked to the business strategy would have a better understanding of what would result from people cuts, assuming they were organized around employee job performance management than those who would simply cut people and not be as concerned about what is left behind, because they didn’t have a structured work flow or performance management system in place. In other words, companies that had been properly managing HR would be in better shape to handle all the after effects of downsizing.
Back to the ‘no HR at my Company’ thought. There is no such thing as a company without HR. HR is not the output of an HR department or person; rather it is the fabric or foundation of the organization. Just because there is not an HR person or department, doesn’t mean it is absent. While many organizations don’t have HR departments or an HR person, they simply cannot have “no HR”. In these same organizations, if non-HR professional staff are taking on responsibilities of HR Management functions, they need outside support, not just for themselves but for the sake of the whole organization.
I have been fortunate enough in my career to see the profound difference in company cultures and success regarding companies who ‘get it’ about proper HR Management and those who simply don’t.
Our product the HR Power Centre is specifically designed to fill that void.
Blog date:November 15, 2011
MY TRUE PASSION
By: Ron Guest,Senior Partner, TwoGreySuits www.twogreysuits.com
My true passion is in seeing that the truly best fit people are selected and hired in the workplace and then managed in such a way as to allow them to achieve their potential. As a Senior Partner of TwoGreySuits, these two things are what I will spend the majority of my working time on for the rest of my life. Why is this so important to me?
Let me explain –over 25 years of working as an HR professional at the Manager, Director and VP levels and having been a management consultant for the past several years I have learned one very important aspect about business, and that is that direct 1:1 verbal communication and dialogue as a means of people management and talent selection is vitally important and needed and will never be replaced by technology, science or any other form of intervention. I must admit, I am still appalled but not really surprised anymore in terms of what I have seen in client organizations regarding theability of managers to even know how to do something as fundamental as providing job performance feedback. I have seen managers so afraid to do this; they even risk losing their own jobs, to avoid doing this. And ironically it is the workers that suffer. But – my strong message is that it doesn’t have to be this way at all, and perhaps more importantly it is not overly difficult to correct. I know how to correct both of these situations. My mission is to help companies improve in these two important areas. I have taught my own developed courses on Best Management Practices and I have interviewed over 5000 people making several key hires for organizations in all disciplines. We have a workplace “Horror Stories”section in our “Talking Suits” newsletter, which is widely read - because people can relate to this. Everyone has their own workplace horror story – and believe me, I have heard my share. The TwoGreySuits’ HR Power Centre isdesigned to rid the workplace of horror stories – but seriously, there will always be plenty of workplace horror stories to come.
People that know me well would say I am a “tell it like it is” kind of person, not afraid to speak up or mix it up and also that I am not hard to read and also not a complicated person. They would say I am also a bit of a free spirit and one who truly enjoys life. I am told I am fun to be around. Believe me when I say I have learned through the school of hard knocks about when and when not to speak up in an organization. I have paid the price for speaking up. Going forward,part of my plans include giving employees the voice to speak up by fixing poor management situations.
I have a problem I have been working on. Let me share this with you.
I tend to sometimes gettoo emotionally involved in situations where I see a manager getting away with not managing their direct reports in any way, shape or form. (am I too passionate?) I seek out ways toprovide them with feedback. I want so badly to fix these problems, (because I know how) that I would probably do it for free if a hypothetical situation arose where I was told there was no money left. I suppose this is a true measure of being passionate about something. Sometimes, and recently, a CEO client of mine decided not to provide necessary job performance feedback to a senior manager in the organization because it was “too uncomfortable” for him to do, and he knew he could get away with not doing it. The CEO saw this as confrontational and chose to avoid it. In fact I was asked to detail all of my observations which I did confidentially, then around the same time my consultancy contract was ending as my contract was near completion. So - this lame senior manager continues on now everyday as ineffective as ever, missing deadlines, frustrating everyone who he deals with, and not at all managing any of his many direct reports. Needless to say, the business is not very financially stable and problems abound. I tend to get too emotionally invested in doing whatever is required to get these situations resolved, and believe me,I have resolved many many performance short falls. I have had managers crying they are so thankful of my help in getting them to see things a different way,often in relation to saving them their jobs. I have provided direct in person unsolicited job performance feedback to a President of a multi billion dollar US organization, who chose not to adjust and as a result was terminated not long after. I guess he didn’t believe me that termination might have been a possible outcome. Needless to say, this executive was in a state of termination shock like I have never seen before, with me having been in the room when the news was delivered. Only at this time did he say thanks for the warning Ron! (too late buddy)
I am standing up for workers across the globe by saying they deserve to be properly managed and that their voice is important. To be clear, I am not a unionist, and I am also not anti-union, rather I see my role in addressing these problems vs. offering protection (unionization) from them.
In my career, I have had the opportunity to coach numerous people at all levels. My success factors are always:
When just one of these four pillars is violated, a performance problem usually arises.
Another favourite theme of mine, adopted by several clients, is: Know the Goal, Know Your Role, Deliver on Commitments.
In future blogs I will articulate how I plan on bringing my passions to bear fruit by very significantly changing the way organizations have traditionally looked at people management and people selection. I have much more to say on people selection, stay tuned! Any comments welcome @ rguest@twogreysuits.com
