“Companies like to promote the idea that employees are their biggest source of competitive advantage. Yet the astonishing reality is that most of them are as unprepared for the challenge of finding, motivating, and retaining capable workers as they were a decade ago.”
That opening paragraph in The McKinsey Quarterly (January 2008) highlights one of the greatest management paradoxes of our time and is a bugle call to action if I ever heard one. The entire article illustrates the extent to which management action appears to contradict their statements and beliefs.
For instance it begins by revealing the concerns highlighted by two global surveys they conducted of business leaders that show:
1. Finding talented people is likely to be the single most important managerial preoccupation for the rest of the decade. (2006)
2. No other global trend was considered nearly as significant as the intensifying competition for talent, which will have a major effect on their companies over the next five years. (2007)
Yet despite this, McKinsey statistics and work by the Saratoga institute “separately found that less than two-thirds of all HR directors report directly to the CEO” and furthermore that “HR influence is declining.”
There can only realistically be three possible explanations for this dichotomy:
• Management does not believe what it says; or
• Management does not know how to meet the challenge; and/or
• Management does not believe HR is capable of helping meet the challenge.
The first is virtually impossible as the ‘War for Talent’ has been recognised as an issue for 10 years, which means it has to be one or other, or both, of the others. The report itself appears to favour the HR shortcomings, quoting one HR director as explaining, “senior executives don’t see us as having business knowledge to provide any valuable insights … they don’t see HR as a profession.”
Ultimately, however, that is just one person’s opinion, and a more insightful and constructive observation is one that, “Habits of mind are the real barrier to talent management.” This suggests it is a combination of both elements and underscores the need for a completely new approach to people management. If this doesn’t happen that bugle call might just turn out to be ‘The Last Post’!
Fortunately this does not have to be the case. Not only does the Zealise proposition offer the perfect remedy to break down old habits and inculcate new attitudes, but there was some evidence of this beginning to happen this past week with the exciting news that my friend Alex Kjerulf, The Chief Happiness Officer, will be partnering with Hewlett Packard to provide free consultancy to UK businesses on how to improve ‘happiness’ within the office. Alex has been championing the cause of happiness at work for a number of years now and this new arrangement, with his recognition by HP as “one of the world’s leading experts on happiness in the workforce,” is evidence that attitudes are changing and that keeping people happy is being seen as a vital part of the solution. Are you ready to rise to the challenge and answer the call?