Next week, I’ll be speaking with 80 CFOs and Finance Leaders about How to Attract and Retain the Next Generation of Talent, and digging into what young professionals are looking for in their careers and from employers. Gen Z Talent is a hot topic these days. For me, it’s one that is near to my heart if only because that first few years out of college into my first job was such a formative part of my life, and my career, and employer absolutely played a role in it.
I’m still in touch with many of the people I met at work during those first few years, both personally and professionally, and the highs and lows played a critical element of my own development and growth. For example, one bad performance review is what ultimately taught me how to manage my career, which led to me starting to teach others to do the same, and studying what the best leaders did to intentionally and proactively develop their people and their organization.
But this event is about others, and I want to make sure that I do it right. While I am excited for the event, I am hypersensitive to the fact that while the media loves the generational differences narrative, oftentimes the differences within the generations are wider than the differences between generations.
To prepare for this event, I went out and spoke with 15-20 college graduates who are within 1-4 years of work experience post graduation. I wanted to get some first hand experiences and insights around what people were thinking about their employers and careers.
As mentioned, it would be hard, even with 15 people telling first-hand accounts to treat these as hard data, but I do think the themes are compelling enough for a thoughtful conversation around what it takes to shift our thinking and our mindsets towards not only attracting but developing and retaining the next generation of talent.
Here are four key themes that came up, and what I am looking forward to discussing next week:
1)Alignment Between What Companies Say and What They Do
Back when I was recruiting for my first job out of college in 2009, the topic of “work-life balance” got 2 minutes in a company presentation. By the time I started leading campus recruiting teams in 2014, we got a few bullet points of what to say when students asked us about it. Today, many job seekers (of all generations) are openly asking about these policies in first round interviews. Culture has changed and we are in an environment today that is different than a decade ago.
The biggest difference is that 10 years ago, you could get away with saying you cared about work-life balance, but today, if you say it, there better actually be a promise that is delivered upon, or else these next generation of employees will walk. This is true for any part of your employer value proposition, be it work-life balance, ESG, career growth and development, etc. If your company doesn’t actually deliver on the things that you say you will deliver on, this next generation of talent isn’t going to have it.
2)Continuous Reflection of The Employer-Employee Relationship
The individuals I spoke with were comfortable with the idea that if they felt their job or employer wasn’t working for them, that they’d be open to finding a job or employer that did. This does not mean they’re interested in job hopping for the sake of job hopping, but rather, it’s a mindset and expectation that the job needs to work for them as much as it does for the employer, and they’re willing to continuously check to make sure that it does.
In fact, according to research from Handshake, they’d be willing to stay almost 2x as long (6 years to 3 years) if they felt that a company was delivering on their investment on learning and development. The upshot of this is that many companies today treat the employee experience and employee value proposition as a static thing that gets developed and set. In reality, it needs to be more dynamic and continuous – if you’re not using data, communications, and iterative improvement of renewing that employee experience, you’re people who are unsatisfied are more likely to look elsewhere
3)Pathways and Ongoing Support For Career Growth and Development
Today, we have a much richer and holistic view of careers and career growth than traditional models that we’ve had in the past. This is also exactly why many are looking for transparency and guidance around potential career pathways, as well as the support to navigate them.
The beauty of this is that there are lots of ways to grow and take your career, and that is also what makes it challenging. Employees, especially those who are early in their career, want confidence that there are actually pathways for development for them that they can understand, as well as some clarity and ongoing support for how they can actually achieve it.
A number of the individuals I spoke to were very clear they were very aware that they weren’t going to just get promoted right away. However, what they wanted to know and feel like there are A) actual opportunities to grow and B) that through commitments and actions, they were actually getting something out of their experience that they can take with them as they continue to evolve and grow in their career.
They view career growth as something that isn’t just a short-term benefit, but something they want to help them over the longer term. One said to me, “, I know I am not going to be working at this company forever, so as long as I am here, how do I know that I can get something from here that is going to be valuable for me and my career as I move forward.”
For this, it’s a shift for leaders to understand that career development is not just a one time thing, but rather an ongoing and continuous approach to developing and growing your people, so your business and your people can grow.
4)Expansive Definitions of Career Success and Our Relationship With Work
Sometimes, the media and leaders love to point at the stats around the desire for work-life balance, great resignation or quit rates and play the “nobody wants to work anymore,” and “kids these days” card. I think what’s actually at play is a desire for employees to redefine their relationship with work, and their definition of success.
It’s a much more expansive effort to define success, one that is more holistic of both work, life and everything else in between. Sure, there are absolutely individuals who are motivated and driven and want to work hard and climb the ladder in traditional ways, but there are many others who seemed excited about the prospect of finding career success and a relationship with their job and career that extend far outside of the traditional norms.
As my friends at Bain would like to say, “What’s The So What?” – So what here is that we as employers need to shift our understanding of why policies like flexible working, work-life balance, mental-health benefits, etc matter. They matter not because this generation (or any other generation) doesn’t want to work, but rather because they acknowledge the actual cost of what it takes to work and want to make sure it’s worth their investment of their time and effort.
The so what is, things like purpose and meaning, matter, not because everyone needs meaning out of work or that work is a higher calling for all of your employees, but because for some people, you as an employer are now competing for attention and time from employees who will vote with their feet if the because they view their relationship with their employer differently.
What I think is really at play based on my observations is that they do want to work, but to do it on A) terms that are sustainable to them and B) for things that they think that matter.
If there was only one thing I could pick that matters I think it’s #1 – Align your actions with your words. Alignment and transparency about who you are and what you are offering to your employees is probably the biggest mistake companies make with trying to retain their talent and where the discomfort and challenges comes to play.
I could be wrong on all of this, so please keep me honest! Either way, I am really looking forward to the event, and digging further into ideas about what we can do to build a workplace and organizations that work for more people.
