Solving a talent crisis (a multi-part article)
by Miki SaxonI think that my ongoing work with a client, “Josh,” will be of interest to you, since many small/young companies face the same problem (he’s OK with my writing about it, so long as he and the company remain anonymous). The problem is talent retention, but not for the typical reasons of salary, culture, opportunity, etc.
Josh’s talent drain can be summed up in two words—life happens.
- Early last year his marketing manager, “Kelly,” left to have a baby, then decided to be a stay-at-home mom; her replacement, “Tom,” was there for eight months and relocated to be closer to aging parents; his replacement, “Jeanie,” is a reservist and she just told Josh that she’ll probably be called up for active duty in the next few months; Josh assured her she’ll be welcome when she gets back.
- During the last 18 months one engineer, “Ashok,” resigned when his fiancée was accepted to medical school in another state; another, “Katy,” left because she was accepted into a master’s program; and he’s losing a third, “Warren,” who’s moving to “get away from his parents.”
- His CFO, “Doug,” is thinking about consulting in order to spend more time with his kids.
For a 24-person company that’s growing dynamically this kind of turnover can be disastrous.
Additionally, there are five new openings in development, two in marketing and four more in various parts of the company that they’re having trouble filling.
Josh and his other execs are working 18-hour days, while the staff is working 10-12, plugging the gaps as best they can, but he knows that this schedule isn’t sustainable.
We talked about the company’s culture, management attitude and specific managers’ MAP.
I suggested that using distance workers, especially revisiting the people who had left, could solve much of the talent problem and save the company money. Josh liked the idea, as did most of the other execs and managers, but a couple of them balked at the idea of workers being, more or less, permanently off-site. I told Josh not to push it with them, that VSI (Tip 10) and peer pressure would change their minds.
Josh decided to do the initial contacts and to stay involved in the negotiations for two reasons. First, he wanted everyone, internally and externally, to know that this was a program that he fully supported; secondly, since the program was company-wide it would require the development of broad overview policies that were still flexible enough to be tweaked for special circumstances—a job for the CEO.
I told Josh that it would be better to skip subtlety and be very honest and direct. He started by contacting the two marketing people to see what they were doing. Josh started with marketing because the VP, “Brad,” was enthusiastic about the new program. He often worked remotely because of his travel schedule, additionally, he had met people he felt would be great candidates, but weren’t local.
Josh told each candidate that he was interested in finding a viable way to rehire them and that he was also looking for referrals for additional positions. Both were interested, but the new mom said that there was no way she could commit to set hours, especially since she had twins.
Continued tomorrow…
