“Choices”
by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist
All employees have choices available to them. Poor employees have the choice of either showing up for work or not showing up and being fired. But good employees—especially the exceptional ones—have other, good choices available to them. What are you doing to make your workplace the workplace of choice for the best available workers in your field and in your area?
We’re not just talking about competitive compensation at this point—although that certainly is a consideration. I guess competitive compensation is “table stakes”. You’re not very likely to attract the best and the brightest without being in the ball park with respect to salary, insurance, paid leave, retirement, etc.
Once you know you’re “in the mix” with regard to compensation, it’s time to start evaluating the work environment and some “non-monetary” forms of compensation, things we refer to as “job satisfaction”.
In a tight job market, in which there are fewer qualified applicants than there are jobs for them, the astute applicant knows they’ve got choices, and they want to go to where their future opportunity looks brightest.
On one end of the spectrum, you may have the 40-something or 50-something, experienced team leader who is looking for long-term security and stability moving towards retirement. And on the other end, you may have a millennial fresh out of school, looking for upward mobility. One is looking for stability, while the other is looking for intentional, positive, instability.
The small work-place may not be able to accommodate both, but there are other factors to consider. For example, there may be no opening for a young candidate looking to quickly become a line manager or supervisor. But wouldn’t you like to have quality people on your team? It’s been said, “I’d rather have the right person for a short while than the wrong person forever.” And I would add, I’d rather have the right person for a short while than not at all. If the person truly is the “right” person, they will make our organization better for their presence. We often cite workplace turnover as costly, but how much more costly to have either an empty chair or, worse, an empty suit filling the chair. Poor, lazy, uncreative, clock-punchers and clock-watchers will steal your team blind in invisible ways that you’ll never see, but that are real none the less.
If we can get the “right” person, for a little while, how much better will we be when that person outgrows the position and moves on? We’ll be a better organization that individual position will be more organized and productive, and we’ll be better suited to know how to find the next individual to fill it.
But you will not attract that “right” individual, if you don’t constantly seek to get better in your compensation, workplace practices, workplace environment, and opportunities for employees to succeed. To attract the truly exceptional people, you have to work as hard at being the workplace of choice for prospective and current employees as you work to be the business provider of choice for your current and prospective customers.
