I’m lucky enough to be spending the week out in Dubai on a fascinating employer branding project. It’s a staggering place, all the more so when we consider the Dubai of even the recent past – a fishing village built up around the pearl trade. Today? An architect’s playground. Opulent and ostentatious in equal measure, one thing it definitely isn’t? Complacent. The region knows the oil that has inspired Dubai’s growth will not last forever – and with a raft of sustainable technologies beginning to offer now credible alternatives – nor will it be required forever. Already, Dubai is reaching out and evolving its appeal, establishing itself as a centre of tourism and retail, reaching out to and attracting in diverse industry sectors. Despite the sapping, near overwhelming heat, there is unmistakeable direction and momentum to Dubai. (In some contrast to the confusion and absolute lack of clarity facing the UK’s political landscape).
Last time out, my blog borrowed shamelessly from Simon Sinek’s Start with Why. Giving great people a compelling reason to work with your organisation seems both unarguable, as well as a tidy means of articulating exactly what an Employee Value Proposition is all about.
But shouldn’t we extend this analogy? Whatever the Why is, it does not remain constant. Without movement and progression, the Why can become the Was. Similarly, an EVP is rarely stationary. It evolves, it pre-empts or certainly reacts. It is agile in the face of changing competition, changing labour markets, changing organisational journeys. Or it certainly should be.
And just as there is momentum behind the Why for employers, the reasons individuals are attracted to one particular employer will not stay the same.
Which, for me, is the reason the Where is as important as the Why.
Where can an employer take my career? How can it develop, grow and nurture me? Do I sense progress and direction both personally and within my employer?
I’m reminded of two pieces of recent research supporting this. One finding from the most recent AGR report from two months ago stands out. Graduate employers are now losing 16% of their intake within two years of their joining, up from 9% just one year previously. And another 20% leave just one year after completing their graduate training programme. 36% of graduate trainees, at the most three years into their career, feel their employer possesses insufficient reason to prolong their tenure.
Whilst geography, finance and logistical challenges contribute to such turnover, more influential are career change and career progression.
Graduate joiners are asking themselves the Where question about their current employer and aren’t receiving the answer they want.
This is entirely consistent with a sizeable study I ran in conjunction with Targetjobs in May this year. Of nearly 1,000 second jobbers under the age of 27 questioned, 69% wanted to change jobs within the year and, perhaps more alarmingly, 49% were looking to jump ship within the next six months.
When asked for the one reason driving such actions, the most populous answer was a desire to see more progression within their careers.
If your organisation is not providing enough Where or a Where which perhaps lacks conviction or sufficient interest, then the outcome shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
There is little obvious evidence of pearl fishing in our own north west. Nevertheless, I did find myself there last week, working on the crafting of an EVP for one of the UK’s newer universities, Manchester Metropolitan, partnering the hugely impressive Ben Gledhill, their Employer Branding Manager.
There can be few more fascinating and nuanced talent acquisition messages today than higher education within the UK, particularly for those universities sitting outside the Russell Group. If organisations need to paint a picture about Where to recruitment audiences, it feels anything but straightforward. The election, what will it bring for funding and tuition fees? What will Brexit mean to the attraction of non-UK students (and the significant revenues that accompany them? How will non-UK lecturers, researchers and professors process the recruitment offer of domestic institutions?
The work is at an early stage but happily the focus of the emerging EVP messaging platform is predicated on the future. The institution has firm foundations, is investing significantly and has real ambition. The university is not, then, short of a Where to offer both new joiners and those employees who feel inspired by the institution’s journey. Significantly too, it is a Where which new employees will be actively contributing to.
Interestingly, this is supported by two recent pieces of research – from Glassdoor and Wharton School of Management, no less. The latter produced a paper – Shifts and Ladders – which suggests that although there is an initial benefit to be had in moving employers from a financial perspective, this tends to peter out in the longer term, while ‘It is those internal moves that lead to advances in pay, rank and responsibility and provide long term gains in satisfaction’.
For Glassdoor, whilst their focus is on workplace culture, the other two main means employers have of retaining employees is about providing competitive remuneration and ensuring people are able to progress up the career ladder.
Perhaps this is no great surprise and particularly for those new to the workplace. All they have known is progression – up the school hierarchy, from GCSEs through to A-levels and then onwards and upwards to university. Both school and higher education provide an obvious goal and objective – good grades at school lead to the chance to achieve a decent degree and then, usually, on to employment. There is a clear trajectory.
Little wonder then that people become disenchanted if that trajectory flattens out and they see little opportunity to progress and develop.
Dubai and Manchester Met have changed beyond all recognition since June 1975, but not everything has. The date is significant as it marks the last occasion when unemployment was so low across the UK. But even that number won’t stand still. According to Adzuna, the number of advertised vacancies in April reached its highest number for 18 months, rising 2% month on month. And just this week, REC reported that demand for staff was at its highest level in 21 months as the number of people seeking jobs has fallen to a near-two-year low.
The Where and the Why of your people value proposition may well be inextricably linked. However, if your Why ceases to have much of a Where for your people, their own trajectory may well be outside your organisation rather than within it.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 