The top 3 things our youngest generation workforce is after – Hint: it isn’t merch or perks

My fellow BabyBoomer and GenX business leaders are often at a loss for words and solutions in finding new talent and then keeping it in the long run. It is more challenging than ever.  It isn’t merch and perks that keeps them coming back to the workplace day after day. It isn’t even necessarily about compensation either. In my research and personal experience all generations just differ in their emphasis of what they are looking forward to getting at work. Key difference lies in how especially GenZ and Millennials react when they do not get what they seek. They will not come, or at a minimum, they will not stay. Merely trading time for money is not their thing. Here is a list of top three job criteria they are looking for in a career: 

• Purpose and perspective: No generation before has been this concerned about making sure that their value is somehow a good match with that of the company’s. In a recent LinkedIn survey 87% of GenZ professionals would be ok leaving a company if the alignment was not there. They would leave even without having lined up another job yet. 
  Does your company have a greater purpose for itself? How are employees engaged in impacting community, other fellow employees, and their customers for the better? Key here is offering a greater deal of transparency and open dialog of how and what the company does and how employees may be able to impact the outcome. 
• Career pathways: This is a point that most GenX and BabyBoomer leader-managers just does not understand. They rose through the ranks by ways of working long hard hours even if it meant that they had to carve out their own way how to get there. 
  Not so with the younger generations. On average they will give the more tenured folks a puzzled look: “If you have figured this out a long time ago, how come you did not document that so I can use it for training and onboarding?”. GenZ and Millennials prefer that there is a planned structure for learning the job they were hired to do. And they expect that someone figured out a process and structure how to make (fast) progress in moving up the career ladder. Are they sometimes a bit too optimistic how fast they can acquire the needed experience and skill sets? Absolutely. They are not wrong though about a business having a plan how to upscale their operation. The workforce should have priority one. 
• Flexible work time and place: I find this totally confounding, but there are still a lot of leader-managers who gauge performance with what I call bum-in-chair-time. 
  Those are the ones who are getting bent out of shape when folks roll in at 8.06am instead of 8am – sharp. You also see no issue with expecting the very same folks to stay longer if a job did not get done completely. Move on! More important is that the job is getting done and no messes are left behind for co-workers and customers. Period. 
  The only exceptions are shift workers. I totally get it when a line gets bogged down because someone did not show up on time. 
  The same is true for where your folks work. If you don’t have to be in the office to do your job, why would you waste time, fuel, tolls, etc to do so? We can figure out a balance between working from home and being at the office for meetings and other company culture building events. 

  I wish I could see some of the reactions this post will trigger, when some of the frazzled GenX and BabyBoomer business leaders read it. I highly recommend you dedicate a little time to ponder when you will commit time to work on developing the needed changes in your organization. Give it a few years and you may be the last one putting out the lights as your employees have either finally fully retired, or they have left you for more impactful careers elsewhere. It’s your choice. My recommendation would be to stop fighting fires and work on your business – not just work in it. 

You don’t have to take my word for it. Here is an article that provide a little more flavor to this topic: 

Overwhelming majority of Gen Z workers would quit their jobs over company values, LinkedIn data says

Ralf 

5 steps how to attain and retain new talent

5 steps how to attain and retain new talent

Finding new talent and then keeping it in the long run is more challenging than ever – especially in small to medium sized manufacturing companies. The paradigm shift toward your workplace needing to provide a perspective and purpose is not only favored by GenZ and Millennials. The other generations also look for that as the pandemic had them think about their work-life balance much differently. This puts emphasis on you and your organization level up your hiring process and procedures. The more a job candidate experiences that you have a well-organized hiring and onboarding plan, the greater the chance you will attract better talent and those folks tend to stick around. 

Most of the hiring is done by top management and HR related responsibilities are either contracted or part-time positions carried out by admin or finance personnel. The top complaint went something like this: “We have tried filling this position for months. When we finally found and hired a candidate they either did not show or did not stay for long.” If this sounds like you, then there are five straight forward tips of how to increase your chances to land great talent. 

• Focus on existing job openings What candidates and your employees are really after is a great work culture. If you do not know where to start, begin focusing where you can make the biggest impact. That is typically open positions. Hiring and onboarding have a huge impact on how new and existing employees can experience what your culture is. The level of care and structure you put into this will demonstrate how serious you are about setting a good example. Remember, the best results come from self-motivated talent that has many responsibilities as they have authority. Position them to their strengths and you will not have to “manage” people. This results in more time that you can direct toward more pressing issues.  
• Update (create org chart) Yes, this one is an important steppingstone. I cannot stress enough the importance of this document. How else would YOU know who is reporting to whom? New employees crave the knowledge as to who is who and who does what to whom. They should have a very clear picture from day one what the hierarchy looks like so that they can mentally prepare for their first meetings with your other employees. And guess what? Your other employees are just as curious about it. Finally, having this document is needed to develop the job description.   
• Develop job analysis and job description What do position summary, essential functions, and responsibilities of the proposed job look like? Is this a new or an existing role? Analyze what the daily job routine looks like. What are the inputs and outputs and interaction with other staff? Be specific yet brief in your job description. What is the knowledge, skills, abilities, experience, education, and competencies that a job candidate must possess? Is this an entry level, middle of the road, or expert level position? 
• Develop interview panel and questionnaire Based on the job description you should have a ready-made telephone and panel interview questionnaire. Get competencies and compensation out of the way with the telephone interview. Once a candidate moves to the panel interview (never hire alone) have 10-13 questions printed out for your panelists. You will cover competencies, cultural fit, and get to know your potential future co-worker. The younger the generation, the more the candidate will interview you – and you may not even notice it. This will be another future post as the impact of candidates wanting to come and stay with you depends how you as the employer will fare during this milestone. 
• Develop the onboarding plan and 30/ 60/ 90 day check-ins A good hiring manager will figure out in the first two weeks if the new hire will “make it” in their new role. Every leader-manager should have an onboarding plan designed to make a productive team member in the first 30 days of their employment. In order to achieve that you will need to come up with 30/ 60/ 90 day benchmarks as to what the new employee had committed to achieve and deliver. Best practice is assigning an office buddy and having them fill out a questionnaire that will cover sales, operations, production, and even the strategic vision and mission of the organization. 

These principles are simple, it is just a matter of getting started to create this level of structure at your organization. Curious about setting some of these steps up? Stay tuned and just watch out for more content to come.  

Ralf 

6 strategies how to not feel lonely at the top of the leadership ladder

Whether you lead a department or a whole organization, sometimes it just feels lonely at the top. Here are some tips how to survive and thrive as leader-manager.

Photo credit: Pablo by Buffer

When you do a great job at work there is a good chance that you will progress up the career ladder. Before you know it, you manage people, a department, and perhaps the whole company. All of a sudden it is like you have moved from one aisle in parliament to the other. People who used to be your colleagues are now your direct reports and their eyes are on you as well as from the people whom you report to. Game on: It is you versus them. You did not want for this to happen at all though.

Being the boss is sometimes not at all what you thought it was going to be. You figuratively move up the ladder and the higher you step the less of a handrail you can hold on to for support and guidance. It can be outright lonely and while you are moving up, there is less and less support to grab a hold of. The stress rises and you are going to miss feedback where you stand with people. Watch out, because it can get worse. What you do hear may be carefully chosen, pre-filtered, and sometimes outright blatantly incorrect information. Candor is difficult to come by.

Before you know it, your stomach is in a knot because you may not know whom and what to trust anymore. Why do you think celebrities and really rich and successful CEO’s are in the news about their sometimes questionable public behaviors and organizational decisions? Very often they have no one brave enough telling them the truth.

Sound familiar? Painful, isn’t it? One powerful example how a successful manager avoided this dead end situation, was that he had been lucky enough to have an ex monk on staff. In the book titled “The CEO and the Monk” the monk became the spiritual adviser to the CEO more or less due to serendipity. Any of the CEO’s decisions – good, bad, or indifferent – had an impact on the organization and the monk provided extremely candid feedback that no one else felt safe conveying. The CEO was thus able making more long term sustainable decisions. It helped increase employee morale and engagement. He was in luck because he had had help. That is not what the average leader will experience. You need not look for a monk though in order to organize a well working support structure for yourself. With a few tips you can do just as well on your own:

• Listen well. Actually, what comes before that is to simply park your ego and ponder how you can make the life of your people better. When you do this the better listening part comes all but automatically. What does park your ego mean? Do not take yourself so seriously. It is not whether or not you succeed; it is about that your job is such that your team and team members succeed. Criticism is ok as long as it is about what you do and not who you are.
• Seek candid feedback. Sounds easier said than done. Then again, you have the greatest impact on this. Candor can only happen when your team works in a trustworthy and safe environment. That is your choice. Nothing is worse than reaming people out, chastising them in front of others, taking their information and immediately turning it on them or others, etc. They all destroy trust. You just managed to never again get a good picture of what is going on again. Remember: It is all about trust. Trust is what your organization sells and needs in order to survive and thrive. With a team that trust each other, friction goes down. Less friction leads to increasing processing speed and therefore your cost goes down.
• Manage by walking. Walk through the office and shop floor from wall to wall. Get to know your folks. You think you may not have time, well, then make time. Not only is it good for your health to get up and move around at least every 90 minutes, but you have the prime opportunity to bond with people on a personal level. Sometimes you will notice people struggling with their jobs, calls, the busted printer, etc. Help out and while you are at it you may want to ask if there is one thing is that should be addressed asap. Be ready to do something with the knowledge and provide feedback and you help improve the organization and your team member’s work life.
• When you mutter the words “open door policy”, mean them. If your door is only left open because you like a fresh breeze or you like the view, I see some really intense self-reflecting and re-adjusting in your near future. Or your chair may be attracting a different occupant soon. Seriously, so much has been written about how important it is providing genuine and sincere one-on-one time for your employees. Put the phone on do not disturb, look at the team member and not your oh-so-important paperwork or Outlook schedule. Be in the moment with the one who interrupted her day to speak with you. This is show time for some candor and fertile ground for growth of you, the employee and the organization.
• Speak with your peer supervisors and leadership. Often, the people reporting to you would rather confide in other people. No need to get upset about this (remember? Park your ego!). Embrace the trust that your fellow manager enjoys. You two can really do wonders for the employees and the organization if you are using the information wisely and to the benefit of everyone. You can help the other supervisor by returning the favor. Keep in mind that the common denominator for all of the above measures is trust.
• Make no time for favorites. Here you do not want to only listen and speak to people that you are the most familiar with, or that you like dealing with the most. Favoritism will no doubt lead to an unsustainable form of leadership. People who need to listen to you all the time, will only do so reluctantly and at the end tell you what they think you want to hear. On the other side of the spectrum, folks that you normally do not speak with you, will be even less likely speaking with you if you do not make the effort first.

Hopefully you got a little comfort out of this blog post. Candor flourishes when you as the leader allow for it to happen without any, and I mean any, repercussions. Provide a safe, ethical and positive environment and you will be amazed how many problems seem to fix themselves. It is like nailing guard rail extensions to your success ladder. There is no way but up for your team, you, and the organization.

Ralf

15 ways to be more successful as a leader-manager

Ralf Weiser

So you advanced your career because you did your job well. Avoid getting promoted into oblivion using these tips

So you worked your bum off and now you got promoted to leader-manager. It is really not all that difficult for you to get put into this position. Now comes the tough part: You are expected to “manage” people and how they spend their productive time. What changes is that you will need to spend some time on developing your leadership skills. The people you are supposed to serve (lead) – your former colleagues – may start losing trust in you and your company. Most companies unfortunately do not spend any time or effort helping you learn these important skillsets. Here are 14 quick tips that can make a huge difference for how well you lead your team.

• Park your personal agenda and ego: Did you ever like a boss that is only concerned about his / her own issues, but never yours? Turn that down a notch or two. Have you ever seen the movie “Saving Private Ryan”? In it there is a great line about leadership: “Never gripe down, always gripe up.” Your folks are not interested about your woes; their’s are big enough the way they are.
• Be fair: Kick up the old golden rule to platinum level. Treat others how they would like to be treated. Never treat people differently. You will regret it in the end. The moment you lose their trust you will no longer be privy to vital people and company information. There has to be clarity about what applies to everyone.
• Help promote your team members: Nothing shows more respect than to be a great career steward. Help your team advancing in their careers.
• Give them a great reason to spend their time at work: Purpose, perspective, and impact is what people are looking for. Especially GenZ and Millennials will emphasize on this point.
• What happens at the work place, stays at the work place: Other than the heavy hitters of employee safety, harassment, discrimination, moral, and ethical problems, no other team member information is supposed to leave your lips. Confidentiality is the keystone to how much you will be trusted as a leader.
• Make sure having a great one on one contact with your team members: Nothing beats being able to help and assist your team members on a one on one basis. You get to know about their struggles and aspirations and you can help make a difference happen.
• Listen, listen, and listen: Your organization can tell you anything you want to know about the state of mind of your folks and also the strategic and tactical progress you are making (or the lack thereof). Boy, did that take me a while to learn how to do this better. Asking engaging questions is the tougher but better thing to do and you get to listen to your organization’s creativity come alive.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate: No leader has ever been accused of over-communicating. Make sure to know company vision, mission, values, and goals by heart. Make sure that there is a steady trickle of this information shared with your team members.
• Embrace transparency and collaboration: This builds trust. Trust begets creativity. Realize that you cannot and should work alone. You need all the help you can get working toward common goals. The worst that can happen in business is to have success. Success can outgrow and outspend you in a heartbeat. You need a team that is nimble and fully engaged in order to make it through the ups and downs of the economy.
• Create a safe working environment: Praise in public and critique in private. If you want candid information shared with you then learn how to not chastise any team member for having made a mistake. Go by this rule: A mistake is a mistake; otherwise it is intention and I need to speak with you. I also will need to have a serious performance type conversation with you if you have a pattern of the same mistakes. Every other mistake is just that – a mistake. Being in business comes with risks. Risk taking is essential in learning what works and what doesn’t. Mistakes happen when you take a risk. Remember that good people are tough on themselves. All you have to ask is: “What have you learned?”
• Be humble and grateful: Nothing beats a little self-depreciating humor when you make mistakes. Admit them and make them public. No one – not even you – should be able getting away with not learning from your mistakes. At the same time you want your team to stay informed enough such that they will not have to make the same mistakes either. Be grateful for the openness your team affords you. Not allowed are intentional or pattern of mistakes.
• Do something with what they tell you: When your team is trying to tell you that there is a systemic problem with a process, policy, people, etc. do something with this info. That is why you became the leader-manager in the first place. Do not let anyone else handle this important detail for you. This needs to come from and through you. Taking charge of difficult situations is (unfortunately) something you will to get to deal with. Do it well and people will trust you.
• Be mindful of other people’s time commitments: Knowing when to end a conversation is tough. Sometimes it feels great speaking with like minded folks about issues you are mutually facing. Cut it short if it no longer serves the purpose. Do not fall victim to scope creep either. One issue leads to the next and then there is another one, etc. etc. Trust me, there are more challenges than you can shake a stick at. Keep it to solving one short and effective issue at a time.
• Prepare meetings well ahead of time: Most meetings are really not necessary, or the are simply not effective. Too often leader-managers look at them as a “working meeting”, meaning that the problem, problem statement, and possible solution finding happen with the attendees hearing about this issue for the first time.
• Start and end meetings on time: Do this religiously. Yes, there are times when it may be necessary to run over. Attempt your very best to get a reputation for beginning and ending on time. Your folks want to get their tasks done.

Do not be afraid to fail with any of the above topics. Only very few business schools are providing leadership and soft skill training – yet. I am hoping that one day leader-manager training will become a mandatory topic at graduate and undergraduate level. Plan, Do, Reflect, and Correct your future behavior and you will have made the biggest change already. Good luck!

Ralf