Thursday, March 10, 2005
In-ertia We Trust
At a glance, the last entry is silly. Beyond the first impression though, there are interesting implications. Loyalty is a rare commodity. Quietly leaving a company and telling your employer where to get off are the same thing - just different levels of courtesy.
With the Internet came predictions of people moving about as though human capital were a liquid commodity. Didn’t happen. Despite the proliferation of job board/auction houses, liquidity didn’t happen in human capital markets for very human reasons. It takes more than a technical advancement for this to happen. It takes a socio-cultural adjustment. A modicum of human insight tells us that people don’t like change. Changing a job is a big change. People seek regularity - in habit and paychecks. This is why disengaged employees stay. Initiating a job search is the last resort because we simply don’t like change. A known evil is better than uncertainty. And when that evil is your job, you find all kinds of rationalizations to keep doing the same dance. You need the paycheck, you like your coworkers, you’re doing good, the commute isn’t bad, the benefits are okay, etc.. It’s a lot easier to build a household with a steady job. Looking for a job is hard - it is uncertain. It takes you out of your comfort zone and brings all kinds of questions about what should be done with your life. Those are hard questions and most want to avoid them. Most people won’t look for a job until their back is against the wall - despite knowing the best time to jobhunt is when you are employed. A steady job is what we aspire to.
Despite this desire to stay in one place, employee attrition will be a concern again - not based on technological advancements, but on cultural shifts. Remember when having too many jobs on your resume was stigmatized? It isn’t anymore - shift. Leaving companies, voluntarily or not, politely or not, is an ongoing cultural shift with employees increasingly independent of companies. Baby boomers have been shocked into shifting. Generations X and Y are inoculated against corporate loyalty. So, people stay in jobs because they fear change. Put another way, inertia keeps people in place. Inertia: your organization’s primary retention tool. The present cultural shift will change this.
What are the implications? Loyalty is out of fashion. Attrition will be a bigger problem going forward as it gets easier to tell your employer where to get off. Inertia is the big retention tool. Retention techniques used in the ‘90s pale in comparison. The opportunity for HR to add value is a tremendous. However, the challenge is just as big. Located in the heart of an organization, HR is positioned to make an impact. But being there doesn’t make them effective. To put it bluntly, HR, is involved because they’re there, not because they’re good.
Historical mediocrity notwithstanding, opportunities keep coming. Continued underperformance makes outsourcing an attractive alternative. The choice is to get good or get out(sourced).
With the Internet came predictions of people moving about as though human capital were a liquid commodity. Didn’t happen. Despite the proliferation of job board/auction houses, liquidity didn’t happen in human capital markets for very human reasons. It takes more than a technical advancement for this to happen. It takes a socio-cultural adjustment. A modicum of human insight tells us that people don’t like change. Changing a job is a big change. People seek regularity - in habit and paychecks. This is why disengaged employees stay. Initiating a job search is the last resort because we simply don’t like change. A known evil is better than uncertainty. And when that evil is your job, you find all kinds of rationalizations to keep doing the same dance. You need the paycheck, you like your coworkers, you’re doing good, the commute isn’t bad, the benefits are okay, etc.. It’s a lot easier to build a household with a steady job. Looking for a job is hard - it is uncertain. It takes you out of your comfort zone and brings all kinds of questions about what should be done with your life. Those are hard questions and most want to avoid them. Most people won’t look for a job until their back is against the wall - despite knowing the best time to jobhunt is when you are employed. A steady job is what we aspire to.
Despite this desire to stay in one place, employee attrition will be a concern again - not based on technological advancements, but on cultural shifts. Remember when having too many jobs on your resume was stigmatized? It isn’t anymore - shift. Leaving companies, voluntarily or not, politely or not, is an ongoing cultural shift with employees increasingly independent of companies. Baby boomers have been shocked into shifting. Generations X and Y are inoculated against corporate loyalty. So, people stay in jobs because they fear change. Put another way, inertia keeps people in place. Inertia: your organization’s primary retention tool. The present cultural shift will change this.
What are the implications? Loyalty is out of fashion. Attrition will be a bigger problem going forward as it gets easier to tell your employer where to get off. Inertia is the big retention tool. Retention techniques used in the ‘90s pale in comparison. The opportunity for HR to add value is a tremendous. However, the challenge is just as big. Located in the heart of an organization, HR is positioned to make an impact. But being there doesn’t make them effective. To put it bluntly, HR, is involved because they’re there, not because they’re good.
Historical mediocrity notwithstanding, opportunities keep coming. Continued underperformance makes outsourcing an attractive alternative. The choice is to get good or get out(sourced).
