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Work Arrangements, Millennials and Recruitment
| All this week I’ve been covering the importance of flexible work arrangements. In the last post, I showed the connection between flexible work arrangements and retaining Millennials (Generation Y, those born between 1977 and 1995). These workers – eventually 80 million of them which is more than Baby Boomers - are now flowing into the workplace. They will eventually fill in for the very experienced workers retiring in the next decades.
How can you get the best of these for your project? One characteristic of these workers is that they are in some ways a tabula rasa. They ask a lot of questions which gives you the opportunity to teach them about your corporate culture. Your recruitment tactics should promote your commitment to provide highly-valued flexible work arrangements. Candidates will naturally infer that competing organizations may not value flexibility enough. As a blank slate, they will naturally gravitate to your organization and to your projects.
Yet another reason why your organization should commit to flexible work arrangements. |
Posted on: May 30, 2008 09:50 AM
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Critical Connection: Singles, Millennials and Retention
| Top talent wants flexible work arrangements or they will find them elsewhere. Should you put energy and professional credibility into supporting flexible work arrangements? (It’s dicey to provide these arrangements in your project if they go against organizational policies.)
Here’s another reason why. Flexible work arrangements help you - and your organization - retain Millennials (a.k.a. Generation Y). These youngest workers are used to interacting and being productive without being face to face. They will not enter your workplace assuming they always have to be at a desk during a specific time period. This can be an advantage if your industry expectations are moving in the same direction.
Beware! If you champion flexible work arrangements, please, please do not discriminate against singles. It drives them crazy when they have to stay and work while parents deal with their children’s issues. Everyone should get an equivalent time away. For example, singles should feel comfortable with professional appointments during "business hours" may even want to leave early on Friday to catch a plane to visit far-flung friends. This is a fair loosening of the schedule. |
Posted on: May 28, 2008 10:30 PM
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Work Arrangements in Your Project
| So we know that the number one reason that top talent leaves voluntarily is now inflexible work arrangements. But what, you ask, can I do when these work rules are set by company policy, such as PTO policy, etc?
A lot, actually. (Even more if you are sneaky.) First, make sure everyone in your project knows that they should not be afraid to take off for medical appointments, family issues, travel and so on - as long as they make up the time later. Put in the necessary hours, not necessarily the same schedule every day. This is a huge improvement for the vast majority of workers over rigid schedules. It reduces stress while promoting performance-improving work-life balance.
Now you ask, isn’t this going to be a lot of recordkeeping to make sure people make up the time? Don’t let this become a burden. Either let team leads keep an informal record of hours away and flextime used, engage your project coordinator, ignore recordkeeping outright, or do something else that is not burdensome. Consider your project policies “add-ons” to corporate policies until the corporate policies are updated to fit modern society.
You know, this gets me thinking of the whole situation with singles and Generation Y, which adds more reasons for you to be flexible. I’ll elaborate tomorrow. |
Posted on: May 27, 2008 11:02 PM
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This Type of Work Arrangement Loses Your Top Talent
| Retention is always an important issue, but is especially important when considering top talent, those individuals who produce the most at the best quality and are essential to project and organizational success. So we need to keep up with what they value in work arrangements. And it turns out the number one reason that employees leave their employers voluntarily is changing.
If you have been wise enough to be a regular reader of this blog, you will know that for the past many years the number one reason employees leave their employers voluntarily is the employees’ relationship with their managers. Now another reason is becoming reported more important. Because of the growing numbers of working mothers and workers in Gen X and Gen Y in the pool, top talent reports more often that they are leaving because of inflexible work arrangements.
You as project manager have some say over work arrangements no matter what your organizational policies are, so there are adjustments you can make. More tomorrow in my next post. |
Posted on: May 26, 2008 11:23 PM
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Finally an Easy Tactic for Performance Improvement 2
| The easy universal tactic to improve performance is to establish high standards. OK, so how to you “establish” them correctly? There is a trick. According to the researchers, you have to be genuine and consistent in your communication.
The consistent part will be easy enough. Choose the expected quality, deadlines and interaction values and so on, then communicate them and keep communicating them consistently. You must model them as well.
Now, the genuine part may be a problem. You will have to continually show your belief that your workers can achieve higher performance. In the study, managers who had high expectations managed in a different way: they walked and talked as if they believed their employees could meet high standards, providing positive feedback regularly. And the employees responded with a 3 to 1 performance improvement! This was very different than managers who did not exhibit these beliefs.
You might be thinking, “Great, I just have to act well and I’ll get better performance!” But you don’t have to fake it. This study shows that if you set high standards for your workers, they will respond, so believe it and show it! |
Posted on: May 13, 2008 10:20 PM
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