Is Your Workforce Spent?

I have been known to be tough on HR practitioners on this blog.  But there are many out there who are forward thinking and understand the crossroads the work world is at.  After all it affects their work/life more in many ways than the rest of us.  And many of them face the same challenges as the rest of us.  Today’s guest post comes from a recruiter.  His take on what may happen to his work/life after the recession and how it currently impacts him I found very interesting…I hope you do as well:

A lot has been running through my mind over the last few weeks regarding what our workforce will do once the economy turns around.  So much that it has been literally keeping me up at night.

Articles I have read say that over 40% of those currently working will leave the workforce in the next year and 20% of those 40% will leave in the next six months.  That is a frightening number of people depending on how large your workforce is.  As a Recruiting Manager it is even scarier because the 20% referenced above will most likely be you’re A-Level Talent.  When I usually ask the question, “What are you doing to prepare for the rebound as it relates to talent?”  I get a deer in the headlight response.  Case in point, I was on a great Twitter-based Talent forum called Talent Net Live (#TNL) last Wednesday and was asked to lead a section of the two hour tweet-a-thon.  I asked the same question several times to get the conversation away from our current topic, but no one responded.  Now either my topic was not of interest or as my good tweet friend said, “They don’t know where to start or what to do.”

One of the first things talent leaders need to consider is your current workforce and your company’s current philosophy around employee need.  Flexible work arrangements, job sharing and balance will become more of an expectation from your workforce.  Think about the current issues your employees face – they are working twice as hard because peers and managers were laid off, they have not received a merit increase or bonus in the last year and may not see one for the next two until revenue forecasts become actual dollars. I don’t know about you, but I am tired.   There is not much work-life balance going on right now, but the Executives at forward thinking companies should be looking at this issue prior to the upturn.  Why?  Because your current employees will be former employees headed to a company who understands we need flexibility in the workplace.  We need time to ourselves and flexible time will be a key attraction to your new employees as positions open.

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric told the SHRM National conference, “There’s no such thing as work-life balance.”  (Here is the full article published in the Wall Street Journal.)  I wonder if we were to ask CEOs under the age of 50 at different sized organizations what they would say?

Is there a way to refute Mr. Welch’s claim? Absolutely!  Companies should sell Flexibility in the workplace as available with everyone from the C-Suite to the customer service rep having access to flexibility.  Companies should be engaging their employees around Work/Life through surveys and manager to employee conversations (that is a face to face conversation by the way).

The focus of why I work is to provide for my family so that we can eat together, learn and grow together and most importantly spend time together whether we are on a staycation or a vacation.  Therefore, in my world, family comes first and foremost.  The great news is that my company respects that, and I appreciate that very much.

Michael Goldberg is a Talent Acquisition Leader who is passionate about bringing the best talent to an organization based on fully understanding the company’s business and aligning hiring with their goals.  His focus is on recruiting strategy, metrics management and building long standing partnerships with his hiring managers.  Michael currently leads the Recruiting function for a global convention and event management company.  Michael has been published in the July/August 2009 ERE Corporate Recruiting Journal, spoken at the 2009 Spring Kennedy Conference and will be speaking on Thursday at the Kenexa World Conference on “Preparing for the Recruiting Rebound.”  He can be found on Twitter @superrecruiter.

The statements and views made by Michael are his views only and not the views of his current employer.