 A
Moving Experience
Whether its a
good thing or not, the relationships between employees, their
jobs and their employers have been changing and will continue
to do so. The "losers" in this social evolution include
long-time attachment to one employer, and traditional ideas of
job security and stability. The "winners" are those who feel
confident in their abilities to work, and find interesting and
challenging work, even if it means changing employers, places
to live or even careers.
Social
demographics are very different than they were when my mom and
dad were in the middle of their careers. About 17 percent of
the U.S. population moves every year. Interestingly, this is
about the same percentage of the American workforce which
works in the public sector. No, dont even think it, its not
public employees who move every year!
Technology is
enabling a mobile workforce never before seen in our society.
The Internet, e-mail, wireless connectivity, and
transportation availability make concepts like "distance
learning" and "distance working" come to life. A paper
entitled Family Economics, edited for the League
of California Cities in the mid 1980s by the HR Doctor,
described the rise of families in which both parents work, in
which part-time employment, career flexibility and a new
balance between home life and work life was being drawn. The
assessments of nearly 20 years ago in the family economics
report have certainly come true. The average person spends
about four years on a job these days Ñ about the same average
tenure as a county administrator or city manager, less for the
superintendent of schools. Arent these the people we hope
will exercise long-range, strategic visions? In any event,
look at the bright side, their tenure is about twice that of
head coaches in the National Football League (i.e., about 2.3
years, according to ESPN).
This increase, and
the willingness and abilities of employees to change jobs and
change places of residence, comes at a time when huge numbers
of experienced employees in the public sector are dropping
like flies because of deferred retirement options programs and
the general age demographics of the population. Nearly half of
the federal civilian workforce will soon be eligible for
retirement.
Unfortunately, the
ability to retire has not been matched by attention paid
inside organizations to succession planning and the
development of the next generation into leaders of public
agencies. An additional consideration is the fact that it is
increasingly difficult to attract and retain "the best of the
best" into public service. The HR Doctor invites you to
consider the article, Employees as Free
Agents, at http://www.hrdr.net/.
The superstar
candidates for public service leadership are motivated more by
challenge and opportunity to excel than by salary and
benefits although the latter are obviously very
important. The superstars will leave a county or a city for
another agency if they are feeling oppressed, depressed or
generally unimpressed by micro managing or uncaring top
elected or appointed leaders.
Such leaders would
prefer to look good rather than do good, and may prefer not to
support change and innovation because it rocks the boat or
makes old constituency, including unions or particular
business or other internal factions, feel
threatened.
This type of
leadership, or actually, lack of leadership, will cause great
employees to leave the organization. Other employees who are
less able to leave will crawl into a bunker of inertia and,
tragically, use the nearest calendar to mark off the days
until they pass probation, vest in the retirement system or
become eligible for early retirement.
They may also
become particularly adept at filling out workers compensation
claim forms, calling in sick with no notice on unscheduled
absences, and generally driving supervisors crazy to the point
where the supervisors prefer to disengage and let the
employees graze until they choose to leave the organization
(see the HR Doctor article, Rust in Peace, at http://www.hrdr.net/).
All is not bleak,
however! The social, technological and organizational dynamics
described in this article spell business opportunities for
relocation companies! The HR Doctor predicts that, within the
next decade, public agencies will increasingly utilize two
different "forks in the road" when it comes to the employment
of star performers.
The first is a
return to the pre-industrial model of apprenticeship programs.
Employers will seek out and recruit high school and college
students, not unlike the approach used by professional
athletic teams and their scouts. They will offer
apprenticeship or internship commitments in trade for
employment commitments when the program ends. The agency will
sponsor students in college and make "investments" which will
produce qualified and motivated employees a year or more down
the road.
At the same time,
the agency will walk down the other fork in the road and
search regionally or nationally for the employment superstars.
This will require innovative flexibility and benefits,
including the payment of relocation costs. No, I dont mean
reimbursement for moving expenses after the three bids. I mean
house-hunting trips for the spouse, support for admission to
nearby universities for the high-school-age children of the
incoming employee, help in securing employment for the spouse,
introductory social and networking opportunities for the new
family, and more.
The HR Doctors
advice to colleagues is to aggressively prepare succession
plans. This begins with a demographic analysis of the current
workforce. How many supervisors and managers are likely to be
leaving through retirement and normal turnover in the next few
years? How many hard-to-recruit professionals, such as
registered nurses or licensed water or wastewater treatment
plant operators is the organization likely to need or likely
to lose through attrition in the future?
Based on that
analysis, the next step is to prepare to journey down both
forks of the road at the same time. That means developing
internal apprenticeship, internship, cadet or other such
programs and forging closer ties than ever before with the
nearest high schools, community colleges and universities. It
means beginning to send scouts out to these institutions to
attract interest from strong performing students who have
strong potential as great future public employees. It also
means reconsidering traditional resistance to innovative
relocation practices and being prepared to compete
successfully in the public sector recruitment
"Olympics" a competition into which most cities
and counties in the past have never even thought about
entering teams.
All the
best,
Phil
Rosenberg
The HR Doctor
http://www.hrdr.net/
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