Jesse Jacoby
Talent flight refers to the sense of a sudden exodus of highly skilled people from the current organization. It’s not a term that employees would use of themselves. Employees would simply say that they were taking advantage of opportunities that, until now, weren’t available to them. Leaders and managers, on the other hand, would describe it as an inexplicable departure en masse which they cannot stop.
What is happening, and how can you stop it or at least slow it down?
The answer will surprise you.
How did we get here?
To solve a problem, you first have to understand what caused it.
It would be an oversimplification to attribute it to national or state government decisions that forced people to work from home. In fact, it would be an abdication of executive responsibility to suggest that that was even part of the reason, and that’s because it never would’ve happened if certain others things hadn’t been true already.
Shortage of skilled labor
For instance, the shortage of skilled labor in the West has been gradually gaining strength in the past couple of decades. This has been a result of the unprecedented rate of retirements among Baby-Boomers. It’s not that a significant number of them retired early, but instead it’s because of the size of that generation. There are more Boomers than their children. It’s only when you get to their grandchildren that the number is bigger, and it’s not by much. This is significant because there were already an insufficient number of people at the right age to replace those who had left employment – less than a one-for-one exchange between those who left the employed workforce, and those who should have taken their place – around four and half million people, or about 1% of the workforce.
One percent doesn’t sound like much until you consider the impact that that has had on replacing CEOs and senior executives. The median age of CEOs is about 55 and has been steadily rising for more than a decade. As more of them retire, there will be fewer qualified candidates to replace them. And remember, notwithstanding boards of directors, etc., these are the people who are responsible for the continued success of their organizations; your organization.
Who will take over when they leave, and who will take on the myriad of departments that are needed to keep the organization afloat?
Unpleasant work environment
We already know people don’t leave their jobs. Instead they leave their bosses.
Bosses, from the lowest level all the way to the top, determine organizational culture. It’s their attitudes and behaviors that define what is acceptable and what isn’t. If the boss pilfers “a little,” then so will those he supervises, for example. And where bosses bully or harasses others, so will their subordinates.
It’s a mistake, as many are now finding out, to assume that there’s some inexplicable reason why people are moving elsewhere when they didn’t do so in the past. It’s not that they didn’t want to. Instead, it’s that the conditions then weren’t right for them to do so.
In the past, organizations didn’t let people work from home as much as they could have and even today, there are still too many managers who don’t get it. Most people want to succeed in their work, but they also want to be left alone to do it. The working-from-home mandate was a kind of “answer to prayer” for them because it finally allowed them to do what they already wanted to do. And of course, once everyone knew they could, the “cat was out of the bag.” No one could legitimately say anymore that it would never work because it did.
Once people understood that working-from-home was not only viable, but beneficial both to them and their families, they then began to look for other organizations where they could work and where they could have that much autonomy. This is why there has been a mass exodus, the so-called Great Resignation: It’s because people saw a way for them to leave the unpleasant work environment that heretofore they felt trapped in.
Perfect storm
For employers, it’s been a perfect storm. A combination of a shortage of qualified people, together with the burning desire by employees to leave their unpleasant work environment, as well as the means to do it.
Why are employers surprised?
It’s because they had been lulled into a false sense of security that no “day of reckoning” would come. They thought that they could be bad bosses and not be held accountable for it.
That day has arrived, and incompetent, irrational, and even bullying leaders and managers are reaping what they have sown.
What can you do about it?
The British have a saying about closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. That seems to hold true here as well. There has already been a mass exodus. The composition, as well as the structure, of the workforce has changed and will continue to do so, but if you apply what you know tempered with some wisdom, then you can mitigate the damage and actually attract the talent that you’ve lost.
Replace lost talent
Replacing lost talent is the easy part. You do that by removing your hiring restrictions, whether expressed or implied.
For instance, you must dispense with the idea that candidates aren’t worth considering if they’re over the age of 50, or any other age for that matter. Remember, it’s more than likely that the arbitrary age that you have decided makes people unsuitable is no more than that of your CEO. Where’s the sense in that? This is an unwise policy. Many seniors have not only the experience that you want, but also the maturity that younger people lack. And not only that, but seniors are known to be more reliable than many among the younger generations. Contrary to popular opinion, they take fewer sick days.
Another thing you must do is to stop worrying about resumés that are “incomplete.” When the psychological contract was broken by employers in the 1980s, that event invited breaks – some of them quite substantial – in the work history of candidates. People no longer felt compelled to remain employed. Many of them took anything from a few months to a year or more to do something else because they recognized that they were responsible for their own careers, and employers weren’t going to give them a job for life anymore. Employers today would do well to remember this rather than to expect people to account for every missing month or year of employment.
In any case, who cares?
If someone applies to work for you has the skills that you need, what does it matter what they did before that? Traditional career paths no longer exist, so why do you expect resumés that look as if they do?
If you’re serious about replacing lost talent, then you must use all available means to get it. You can’t assume that the old “rules” apply. The organizations that are hiring the people you want aren’t playing by them.
Cull incompetent managers and supervisors
Replacing lost talent is the easy part. That you know. The hard part is creating an environment that makes the people you have want to stay and attracts others who are like the ones who left.
This will take time, though there are things you can do starting today to turn things around.
For one thing, you can get rid of the managers and supervisors who are responsible for the mass exodus of people under them. You wouldn’t tolerate incompetent performance of any other kind; why do you put up with those who are known to bully, coerce, threaten, and even abuse those in their charge?
Doing so sends a powerful message to everyone in the organization that you’re more interested in targets and profits than you are in people. Anyone who can leave will do so under those circumstances.
Your most talented workers are are watching to see how you treat those less talented. If you can’t treat the less talented with dignity, then they know that they can’t trust you to look after them either, and that’s because your values are based on what’s expedient; not on what’s ethical.
You can’t have it both ways, and everyone knows this.
It used to be people were promoted to supervisory positions simply because of their time in the job. If this applies in your organization, then you need to change it. There are still people who have a lot of experience as great technicians, but who have no business supervising anyone. If you’re going to stem the flow of talent flight, then you must stop giving people reasons to leave.
Promote employee well-being
It’s not enough to abandon traditional hiring criteria and to get rid of managerial incompetence. You also must promote employee well-being.
Well-being is a huge area. At universities, it has become a separate discipline. There are many books and research papers on this topic. It’s not something that you can ignore any more.
Why has this become so important over the past decade or so? Because employers have failed to reduce stress and boredom at work.
In a recent Inc article, it was reported that two-thirds of employees in the United States contemplated quitting their jobs because employers hadn’t followed through on their promises to make mental health a priority. The percentage of workers overseas is even higher. It’s apparent that in many places on both sides of the Atlantic, morale is low, and the workplace is toxic.
Stress is deleterious to mental health, and employees are fed up with it. They’ve wanted to do something about it for years, and now they have the chance to do so.
If you’re serious about combating talent flight, then you must take positive steps to correct the causes of it. You won’t get the results that you want by tinkering around the edges.
