Recently, a long-serving member of staff gave me an unexpected present on Saint Valentine’s Day; she resigned her job, citing personal circumstances. Somewhat re-assured that it was not necessarily the fault of the organisation I represent, I still felt that the company had failed to retain the services of a loyal member of staff.
This type of scenario happens all the time, everywhere, I know. We are told by Human Resource experts that it is a healthy thing to have a certain amount of staff turnover in order to reinvigorate the organisation with fresh ideas and energy. I kind of agree with this thought, as it has a positive perspective on an unfortunate event. However, it still suggest a wasted opportunity to retain employees, especially those who have accumulated many years of service, knowledge and expertise, which will leave the company with them.
Human Capital management is all about attracting, acquiring, developing and retaining the right talent for the organisation. Without denigrating the efforts required, the first three elements of attracting, acquiring and developing seem, to a large extent, mechanical. But, the fourth element of retaining people is more esoteric and nebulous. How do you consistently meet every individual’s needs and aspirations to keep them motivated enough to want to be retained by the organisation? Further, if we are to believe that certain turnover is a healthy one, how long is a good period of retention and when does it become not so good and kick-start the law of diminishing returns?
The other dilemma that faces employers is this: in these cautious times, when it is very important to keep relations with staff at a professional and above suspicion level, how does the manager maintain a balance of not interfering with his/her staff personal issues, while knowing enough to predict that there are personal issues that could have been dealt with long before they become serious enough to warrant the employee’s resignation?
It is hard enough for managers to keep their staff professionally engaged and relevant. It is entirely a different matter for them to navigate the very tricky modern world of maintaining a respectful distance.
So far, I have written over 350 words without mentioning the Millennials! So, let’s put this problem right. Experts assure us that Millennials are different from the previous generations whereby they don’t expect their first or second job to be one for life; they even prefer to be part of the ‘Gig Economy’ where they would take on finite assignments and move on to the next challenge elsewhere.
So, the HR model needs to be re-designed to drop the word ‘retention’ and quite possibly ‘development’ of staff. If we are to believe the experts, all we need to do is ‘attract and engage’. It seems that will make the job of talent management half as complex. I somehow think it will be twice as complex; it’s like running on one leg, instead of two.
Anyway, ‘attract and engage’ sounds a lot like a consultancy arrangement. So at best, the workforce will become consultants and at worst, hired guns. With my advancing years, that’s one train ride I am glad I will be missing.
