What do you believe is the biggest challenge your business faces? I believe it is finding and retaining your best employees. Hands down, in my humble opinion. So if you have employees that make a big difference in your business, you know their true value, don’t you? Here are some ways IBM retains best employees for your consideration.
Think about these facts for a moment. The amount of new technical information is doubling every two years. EVERY TWO YEARS. The top 10 jobs that were in demand in 2013 didn’t exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that don’t yet exist. All this to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet. The implications for your business and to retain your best employees are significant and scary, isn’t it?
For students starting a four year technical or college degree, one half of what they will learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. We are living in exponential times, aren’t we?
So we hope you note and appreciate the amount of change going on in the world and the rate of change acceleration. The implication of the rapidity of change means everything we learn has an extremely short shelf life. Big implications here for the future of retaining the best employees.
Many employees are myopic when it comes to thinking about their work. They think about their job today and maybe the next one they want. But building a career requires a longer view, including an idea of where markets and employment are heading.
So if you successfully coach them on the importance of continuous learning and show them a career path that will build long-term success, you will be motivating them to stay around if you deliver on promises.
Building a long-lasting career means at least thinking about what might be ahead in the next 10 to 20 years. So what lies ahead? Some of what futurists envision is downright scary; some of their predictions might give you hope.
But any and all of them should at least get you thinking about what you should do to retain the best employees in the near- and mid-term future.
Where will work be in the future? And where will workers be? The economic, social, and technological landscape is shifting rapidly.
Here are some of the major trends that should be considered when looking for ways to motivate your employees for the long term:
IBM retains best employees … mobile workforce
Mobility is not just about being able to work and get access to people and information from a mobile device. It’s also about being a mobile worker which means you can work from anywhere, anytime, and on any device. The idea of “connecting to work” is become more prevalent within organizations as they are starting to allow for more flexible work environments
Smart and progressive organizations around the world have already been preparing to adapt to these changes. Some have been doing so for several years already whereas many organizations are still trying to educate themselves about what these changes mean.
Regardless of where you are on this spectrum the future of work is something that you must plan for and adapt to if you want to maintain your best employees.
Here is a fact that should scare you: more than 75% of U.S. employees are almost continuously looking for work while employed, and they hold nearly a dozen different jobs on average before age 35.
Most good employees are continually looking to add to their skillset. That is good for your business and good for the employees. Find ways to continuously train employees in the skills needed for you and them. And remember that some of these skills may just be for the future.
IBM retains best employees … more premium for knowledge workers
There will be a greater premium placed on knowledge workers who ask constructive questions concerning an employer’s mission, as well as their customers, market values, desired results, and evolving marketing and business plans.
Know who your best knowledge workers are and focus on keeping them informed participants in your business. Notice the word participants is key in this context. This is good practice for all employees in fact.
We have high competition.
High competition for some skills
One irony of the future is that there will be plenty of good jobs that go begging for applicants because young people often have limited views of what job opportunities to pursue.
A recent U.K. survey of 13- to 16-year-olds by the non-profit Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development showed that their career aspirations had “nothing in common” with what job markets will want in the future.
This disconnect is already affecting. There are increasing labor supply-demand disconnect in hard-skills areas such as electricians, plumbers, engineering technology robotics, and it won’t be ending soon. In other words, there will be plenty of jobs, many of them paying well, which go wanting. Scarcity could drive pay up even further.
Pay close attention to labor skill demand and never stop looking for this talent, even before you need it.
IBM retains best employees … the increasing need for collaboration
Being able to find subject matter experts and connect with colleagues (known or unknown) across the globe is now a possibility that didn’t exist previously.
Hierarchies are being flattened as virtually any employee can connect or communicate with anyone else at the company regardless of seniority and information is being opened up instead of being locked down.
New technologies give employees more of a voice within their organizations and give them the ability to become leaders without having to be managers.
Experiment with ways your business can seize the initiative with better collaboration with all employees, independent of where they are in the organization.
Today’s jobs continue to disappear
Finding today’s jobs.
Futurist Thomas Frey says that the world of work is going to turn upside down as 2 billion jobs — half of all employees on the planet today — will be gone by 2030.
This prediction hinges on massive change happening in some major industries. In the power industry alone, moving to renewable energy and decentralized power generation will mean job demand in areas like coal and ethanol production, power line maintenance, power plants, and railroad transportation will drop significantly.
Self-driving cars, already a technical reality, could put a lot of taxi, bus, limousine, and delivery drivers out of business.
Prepare both your business and employees by adapting to the future environment before it arrives.
IBM retains best employees … pays lots of attention to millennials
The millennials are a growing sector of employees and will be critical over the next couple of decades. While millennials are widely talked about in the media, a universal definition of who belongs to this generation doesn’t exist.
Depending on the expert you’re talking to, it could mean anyone born from 1982 to 2004, or from 1980 to 1995. Most experts agree that millennials encompass those born from the early ’80s to the early 2000s.
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Millennials now represent the largest generation in the United States, comprising 50% of the workforce by 2020 and 75% by 2025, What’s more, the largest millennial one-year age cohort is now only 23. This means that the millennial generation will continue to be a sizable part of the population for several decades.
Millennials are more connected to technology than previous generations and a quarter of millennials believe that their relationship to technology is what makes their generation unique.
So pay particular attention to these employees and what makes them tick. If you can unlock their wants and needs and put together an implementation plan to address them, you will be way ahead of the curve to retain these employees of the future.
The bottom line
Most organizations today are struggling to adapt to this changing workforce as baby boomers are starting to make their way out. This is a big factor in shaping the future of employee retention as organizations are going to need to adapt.
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s teamwork and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team workshop?
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Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
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Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
