{"id":42151,"date":"2022-05-31T18:32:13","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T22:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/948294437a.nxcli.io\/?p=42151"},"modified":"2022-05-31T18:32:13","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T22:32:13","slug":"how-to-be-an-employer-of-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/31\/how-to-be-an-employer-of-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Be an Employer of Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

The One Thing Critical to Being an Employer of Choice:<\/span><\/h1>\n

How to attract and retain a High-Performance Workforce<\/em><\/h2>\n

The concept of being \u201can employer of choice\u201d is not new. Throughout most of history, indentured workers have been whose basic survival depended on earning a daily wage. Still, organizations have also seen the quality of their employees\u2019 work as a critical factor in being profitable and sustainable. These organizations prided themselves on attracting and developing a high-performance workplace that distinguished itself from their competition.<\/p>\n

Labor laws that came into effect in more modern times helped expand the recognition that workers were not fodder \u2013 and that treating people with respect and dignity was a workable strategy for achieving success.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just look to the chocolatier and philanthropist Milton Hershey for a clear example of how well this approach worked. His legacy still lives on to this day. It was an enlightened point of view that eventually grew to become more modern movements such as Conscious Capitalism, as defined by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and his co-author, business professor Raj Sisodia. According to their research, the 18 publicly traded companies that employed the concepts outperformed the S&P Index by a factor of more than ten over the 15 years they tracked them. Add to this the advent of \u201cB\u201d Corporations \u2013 and the shift to viewing workers as stakeholders rather than a captive labor force.<\/p>\n

Now, over the past year or so, there has been a great deal of consternation and explanation concerning what was first labeled \u201cThe Great Resignation\u201d \u2013 which turned out to be more a great reshuffle. The workforce dynamics following the disruption caused by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic \u2013 and the various policies put in place to control the medical crisis \u2013 and economic fallout \u2013 created a form of \u201clong Covid\u201d in the workplace.<\/p>\n

There were many places to point fingers at and explain away the problems. Some argued that the stimulus money made it lucrative for people to collect unemployment benefits rather than work, encouraging people who are inherently lazy to find shelter in welfare programs. Others pointed to a childcare crisis made worse by school-aged children needing to remain at home \u2013 when schools have been a mainstay for childcare needs. Others suggested that the work-from-home or work-anywhere opportunities allowed people to examine their life and lifestyle choices and either alter their expectations and sense of what is possible – or abandon the\u00a0lives they had built around an ideal that they no longer subscribed to.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the reason, the balance tipped towards an employee market where employers have both struggled to fill positions and paying exorbitantly to, in some cases, bribe people to fill critical roles. This is clearly an unsustainable situation \u2013 and while there is some indication that it is easing, the underlying changes in the attitudes around work choices will likely remain for some time.<\/p>\n

One solution might be to wait it out and struggle until the pendulum swings back to favor employers. Or focus on what it takes today to be an employer of choice, taking into account the conditions present in today\u2019s workplace.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The secret to distinguishing your company as a desired place to work may have something to do with your industry. The competition within any industry will most often grab hold of the best talent \u2013 and this approach tends to be as fickle as betting on fashion trends, where things go in and out of style with predictable disruption. Knowing this isn\u2019t much help unless you are starting a business and can choose whatever trend is attracting talent today. But these trends also tend to change over time.<\/p>\n

The better solution is to insulate your company from the fashion trends and focus on creating a workplace culture based on high-performance, grounded in purpose, and driven by effective leadership.<\/p>\n

The critical factor is leadership. In the absence of effective leadership, you cannot have sustainable high performance or a common drive around a specific purpose.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exceptional leaders demonstrate the ability to engage and inspire the people needed for accomplishing whatever is necessary to serve the aims of their cause. Leaders don\u2019t merely set the course; they define and then create a better future that captivates the imagination or the hearts and minds of those willing to do what it takes to realize that vision.<\/p>\n

Exceptional leadership elevates talent by making it necessary and possible for the people they influence to choose to be conscientious \u2013 and to exercise the kind of grit that separates high-performance organizations from mediocre ones.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s environment, where the talent you need might be elusive, attracting and retaining all stakeholders, your suppliers, customers, and your employees is vital to being profitable and successful. Understanding what it takes to attract and retain talent is essential.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some of the best talent on the market will only consider working remotely. These workers want or need the flexibility \u2013 and are willing to prove their value to the organization. If possible, create smart systems that these people to serve your customers with you.<\/p>\n

Here are three things an exceptional leader might consider:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Recognizing that not every role can be fulfilled remotely, you must either find people who simply prefer to work at your place or business or job sites \u2013 or else you must persuasively communicate the importance, value, and personal satisfaction associated with accomplishing significantly meaningful things. Conscientious people respond positively to making a valuable contribution \u2013 especially under adversity.<\/li>\n
  2. Build a culture around whatever you can make work. Celebrate the diversity of your team, which includes remote versus on-site workers. If you are all remote or a hybrid company, make it necessary and possible for your people to gather periodically \u2013 and get to know and appreciate each other.<\/li>\n
  3. Train your remote workforce around the competencies that make them high-performance employees. There are skills and knowledge that apply to being successful when working at home \u2013 or on the road. Developing these people to be fully competent is an investment that will pay huge returns. And create support groups or learning cohorts to work together to identify and solve problems, share ideas, solutions, and war stories, and advise leadership on how the workplace culture can best support its objectives and key results (OKRs) and focus on its worthy indelible purpose (WIP).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Your current employees are your best recruiters. High-performing people prefer to be surrounded by similarly productive people. Every employee in your organization should understand that part of their role is a duty to be why the most competent and talented people want to work for your company.<\/p>\n

    The old expression is that a fish rots from its head down. Ultimately, though, it comes down to you as the leader of your organization. At the top of the organization, you can either zap the energy down to the roots or be a source of nourishment. As my mentor Lee Thayer suggested, you start by recognizing that it is the organization that makes the leader successful and not the other way around. And you must understand that leaders are measured not by what they do but by who they are. You must begin by making yourself into the leader you need to be \u2013 and then, people will literally follow you.<\/p>\n

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     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The One Thing Critical to Being an Employer of Choice: How to attract and retain a High-Performance Workforce The concept of being \u201can employer of choice\u201d is not new. Throughout most of history, indentured workers have been whose basic survival depended on earning a daily wage. Still, organizations have also seen the quality of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cohort-reading-resources","category-leadership-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42153,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42151\/revisions\/42153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}