Lucy Kueng’s keynote (‘Digital transformation: Models for managing organisational change’) at the recent PPA Festival had lots of good advice for would-be recruiters.
The chances are that the people you will be recruiting will be Millennials or Gen Z – people under 42.
First the good news. For them, it’s not all about money.
It’s about values and feeling valued. They don’t simply want to be told what to do; they want it explaining to them, and they want what you ask them to do to be in sync with their world view. They are looking for something more meaningful out of their lives.
Personal values are very important to them and they need their work to be in harmony with those.
Because they’re into self-actualisation, they are in permanent skill acquisition mode. And, recruiters take extra note, they don’t plan to stay around very long, so it’s important to your organisation that they hit the ground running.
Given people’s propensity to move on quickly, says Lucy, businesses need to “build a force field around the talent they can’t afford to lose”.
Top talent demand two things: agency (ie give them important things to do) and recognition.
“Feeling valued and appreciated is more important than leaders think.”
Furthermore, your top talent needs to be kept challenged – don’t let them get too comfortable!
In short, they need to be well-managed. They demand high levels of feedback which can, of course, be hard work for overstretched senior managers.
But, if you’re not making enough time in your schedule for providing leadership and feedback, then you won’t hold onto your best staff for very long. And, err… that will make your senior managers even more overstretched.
You can catch James Evelegh’s regular column in the InPubWeekly newsletter, which you can register to receive here.
