As industries across all spectrums take stock of the top challenges they’ll face in 2016 and in the foreseeable future, it’s becoming undeniably clear that talent retention has reached a critical point across many fields in the U.S.
Armed with a “Talent Show(Down)” theme, the 2016 BIFMA 360° Leadership Conference – “an annual intellectual feast for leaders in the contract furniture industry” – last week provided a couple of hundred of those leaders with some food for thought on the talent retention topic.
For this year’s conference, attendees headed to downtown Austin, TX, for a stay at the new JW Marriott hotel. While the weather in Austin faired on the chilly side by Texas standards, the trip was a much-needed escape from sub-zero temperatures and impending blizzards for many people hailing from the Midwest and Northeastern regions.
Talent retention for much of the U.S. refers to the unignorable topic of young employees – the famous (infamous?) Millennials. And if one thing can be said about the programming at this year’s BIFMA 360° conference, it’s that it certainly didn’t skimp on Millennial-driven content. All of the seven keynotes at least discussed the Millennial generation and its jarring impact on human resource functions, including recruiting, interviewing, hiring and promoting, as well as management functions.
While Millennials might desire and expect quite distinct work environments and relationships from previous generations, and employers will need to cater to their growing numbers in the future, the fact is that there is still a lot of room at the table for others. Employers who embrace the strengths and weaknesses of Millennials will most certainly have an edge; employers who create space for the choice and happiness of all employee types will fare even better.
While many assessments of Millennial qualities are indeed true, perhaps the most meaningful insight employers must keep in mind is that Millennials are still individuals, just like all other generations. Not all Millennial characteristics apply to all of their growing numbers, which makes choice in the workplace that much more pressing.
Below, I present my take on the highlights of each BIFMA 360° keynote:
>Dan Schawbel, author, founder of WorkplaceTrends.com, a research and advisory membership service for forward-thinking HR professionals, and managing partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen Y research and consulting firm, gave attendees a complete rundown of the Millennial generation, in case anyone was living under a rock. The skinny on Millennials:
-Making a positive difference in the world is more important to them than professional recognition, so employers need to show them that what they’re doing matters.
-They’re more likely to freelance, for the flexibility and freedom, but also out of necessity. They’ll also put more stock in their alternative options such as “side gigs” and business startup ideas outside of their main source of employment.
-They’re more entrepreneurial and will more naturally think outside the box, which will help grow your company in ways previous generations might not have at that age.
-41% of Millennials do what their managers tell them to, which is greater than previous generations. They’re not as badly behaved as some feared!
-They learn differently. Millennials collaborate with their peers more often to learn (social learning) and want to develop more skills actively throughout their careers, as opposed to more traditional learning systems that stress formal classroom work before a career begins, followed by here-and-there required job training.
-Many of them hope their employer can offer them: workplace flexibility programs, real-time feedback, mentoring programs, transparency, an embracing view of social media, internal hiring programs, rotational programs, community support/service programs, entrepreneurship and intrepreneurship programs (a startup culture that encourages new ideas and projects from within)
-Millennials want to be leaders, but companies are not supporting their ability to become leaders. Mentoring programs that help develop their soft skills (a weak link compared to their tech skills) and rotational and internal hiring programs will help close the leadership gap that some companies are experiencing as older generations retire from the workforce.
>Ben Casnocha, award-winning entrepreneur, author and executive in Silicon Valley, defined specific practices in hiring and managing Millennials.
The most profound change between the careers of Millennials and those of previous generations is the amount of time they will remain in one position; two-to-five years is a good window that employers should expect to keep a Millennial in the same position.
Mr. Casnocha also noted that most hiring failures stem from dishonest conversations between companies and potential employees, and that employers must start treating their employees like allies – not like coworkers, not like direct reports, and not like family. Honest conversations about what the job looks like and about what the interviewee is really looking for will result in fewer hiring mistakes. And once hired, an employee should be able to count on their company for career development, including the development of his/her own professional LinkedIn page.
Mr. Casnocha also outlined a “Tour of Duty” framework that employers can offer to employees, younger ones in particular. A Tour of Duty is a program that develops a natural cadence of learning the job, doing the job, and then transitioning the job to a successor before moving on to a new position.
He noted that all of these efforts should be underscored by real-time feedback; regular one-on-one conversations between employees and their managers is in, and annual performance reviews are out.
>Mark Barden, author and head of west coast business for the highly regarded brand consulting firm eatbigfish, spoke about inventiveness, and of developing a company’s ability to change its mindset to see opportunities within the threats it is dealing with.
“Embracing constraints forces you to invent alternatives that can actually elevate your business.”
Mr. Barden outlined his top strategies to push inventiveness within a company, highlighted below:
-Ask yourself what your company’s constraints are, both in the present and future. Then, identify what you have in abundance that you can trade/leverage. In essence, be resourceful when you’re short on resources. “Silicon Valley companies are doing deals all over the place because they often don’t have money to spare; they create partnerships with each other for mutual gain.”
-Practice “Can-If” thinking. In everyday discussions and overall business strategy, shift your employees’ language in approaching all challenges to start with, “We can, if…” Can-If thinking keeps the oxygen of positivity going.
-Frame projects in a way that is impossible to produce, and then use that framework to “break through the common sense,” stretching beyond the limitations of habitual thinking. Move away from thinking and practices that follow, “It’s how we’ve always done it” logic.
-Capitalize on “reverse mentoring.” Identify the strengths and knowledge your young employees have, and transfer that “intelligent naiveté” to your entire organization.
-Get real about your product. Then, surround it with amazing marketing experiences and provocative campaigns that people will remember.
Check out Mr. Barden’s books Eating The Big Fish and A Beautiful Constraint: How to Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business Now.
>Mike Ettling, president of SAP SuccessFactors and leader of its HR line of business, spoke about digital business models and the powerful advantages of cloud-based solutions in HR and business strategy. Cloud and mobile experiences, increased processing speeds, and a priority shift toward learning has led the workforce to change its expectations of what going to work should mean. He stressed the need for companies to develop a fluid way of giving young people exposure to different areas of the business, and also discussed a crucial shift in mindset regarding human resources strategy:
“The future of HR is no HR,” said Mr. Ettling. “Companies should not have an ‘HR strategy.’ Instead, we should be looking at the CEO’s business strategy and hiring directly from that. HR should not exist for its own purpose.”
>Erica Javellana, employee relations manager at Zappos.com and Speaker of the House for Zappos Insights, presented the online retailer’s radical approach to human resources, management, and company structure in general. The company prides has been a leader in innovative HR practices and workplace culture for several years, and Ms. Javellana pointed to customer service (every single employee takes a rotation working the phones for their first month at the company) and finding company culture by defining core values. At Zappos, 10 core values prevail, and employees, who helped define the values, are held to unusually high standards in upholding them. In fact, documented evidence of a failure to uphold the values can result in firing. “These are committable core values, values that we were willing to hire and fire on,” said Ms. Javellana. Below, the 10 core values:
- Deliver WOW through service
- Embrace and drive change
- Create fun and a little weirdness
- Be adventurous, creative and open-minded
- Pursue growth and learning
- Build open and honest relationships with communication
- Build a positive team and family spirit
- Do more with less
- Be passionate and determined
- Be humble
In 2013, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh transitioned the company to function as a holocracy, an operating system for self-management and self-organization that eliminates titles and managers, and provides every employee with almost complete autonomy. While smaller companies have implemented a holocracy with success, Zappos’ transition seemed disorganized, and time will tell if a company of that size can actually function that way long term. Nonetheless, the Zappos case study is fascinating and definitely worth a Google search.
>Chris Hood, managing director and platform lead for Occupancy Services within CBRE’s Global Corporate Services organization, spoke about the fast-growing phenomenon of coworking, and the emergence of the “third space” – the space between home working and the office. He highlighted the growing numbers of contingent workers (also know as freelancers and contractors); by 2020, 40% of the workforce are expected to be contractors, according to an Intuit 2020 report. This “shared workforce” points to a power shift in employee-employer relations, and an employee’s ability to make choices in his/her work environment will increase as work contracts change.
asks a speaker a question during a Q&A session.
“Think of the shared workforce as a marketplace, with much greater flexibility of engagement and working location for both buyers and sellers,” said Mr. Hood. “This transformation has arrived and is here to stay,” said Mr. Hood. “Companies can take a lot from the basic coworking virtues.”
The coworking movement provides a framework for a community-based work environment. It gives choice to employees, promotes flexible capacity, reduces carbon footprint, better connects the company to external ideas and local solutions, encourages a part-time solution, and inspires off-campus teamwork and relationship-building. In return, coworking centers can learn a lot from the corporate campus structure in ergonomics, health and wellness, energy efficiency, sustainability and business planning.
The implications of coworking on office furniture companies with a large manufacturing component remain foggy; will this at all impact manufacturing employees who need to physically be in the workplace because they’re building things with complex tools? Perhaps, but on a smaller scale.
Instead of making drastic changes to work locations and schedules, manufacturing companies would do well to incorporate simple features of coworking spaces. Things like amped up breakroom amenities in the factory – nicer food and drink options, interior upgrades as simple as a paint refresh, and the addition of a breakroom ping pong table – can all make a difference. And every business in the industry has a front end of executive, customer service, sales and marketing teams that can adopt coworking strategies more easily to increase employee engagement.
>Antonio Tijerino, president and CEO of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF), spoke to attendees about diversity in the workplace, a topic which grows more and more pressing as minorities move into a majority position in student populations and subsequently in the workforce.
“America has no choice,” noted Mr. Tijerino. “When you’re looking at the future, you’re looking at minorities. It’s an issue in almost every industry, and the mindset that you’re compromising and that you’re getting less needs to change.”
>As is tradition, audience members also received a few quick updates from Tom Reardon, executive director of BIFMA, regarding the organization’s current initiatives in bringing value to its members and in providing a forum for solution-building to challenges the industry faces.
Mr. Reardon noted BIFMA’s significant shift to a broader perspective – moving its statistical reporting from simply “U.S. office furniture” to “North American furniture consumption,” which will include office furniture, accessories, healthcare furniture and education furniture. The distinction also occurs geographically, in a shift from looking at where product is manufactured to where the product is being shipped and consumed.
He also provided a stick to go with the carrot of better statistical reporting about and for BIFMA members, noting that if a company does not submit its data, it will only be able to view very basic high level statistics, and will not have access to the full composite of data.
And no BIFMA 360° conference would be complete without its famous speed dining event on the first night of the conference – a success yet again. A fun cocktail party at Austin City Limits and small group dinners at hotspots around the city rounded out another inspiring year at BIFMA 360°.