war on talent 33


Focus on employee engagement and flexibility


The panel session concentrated on future challenges for recruitment and retention of skilled staff.


The focus on engagement and enablement within companies had soared in the past 12 months, said talent management specialist Lyndsey Simpson.


While this focus would be essential going forward, management teams would also have to think very creatively, very differently to attract talented young individuals, the audience heard.


The reason is that the potential Generation Y employees (born 1980-1990s) have only ever known a fast-moving, easy IT access, global technological world in their lifetime and so view the working world in a different way.


Grant Thornton’s national talent director Mel Wombwell mentioned that her son was amazed by 9-5 working and rush-hour traffic jams when work could be done anytime, anywhere through technology. “The younger generation sees us as creating our own headaches.”


Future employees will value work-life balance and indeed their freedom of employment far more. One reason is that the pace of technological change and Internet availability of knowledge will speed-up the rate at which certain skills become obsolete. The need for widespread awareness and personal skill improvement will lead to a natural transience and diversification within talent pools.


Long service within companies could become rare. Leaders needed to stop thinking about certain job roles being in their company forever, or of streaming staff into certain functions. People will be looking for ‘tours of duty’, work placements and roles that last typically two to four years and


will provide education, skills and experience they can carry forward in their working lives, perhaps even into other industries.


Leaders would have to get used to employees jumping ship and companies would have to “learn to be successful by attrition”.


Generating attraction for talent and returning talent would be a key future challenge. Providing continuous learning environments, flexible hours and home working, community and staff social activities, incentives such as mitigating childcare costs, could all be viable considerations.


Employee values of pride, community, involvement and job fulfilment were now coming to the fore. A company’s ability to be agile enough to meet the needs of the future working world might even be damaged by hierarchical management structures.


Speakers and hosts of event. Left to right, back row: Sacha Romanovitch, Jon Stradling (HSBC, head of corporate banking, Thames Valley), Lyndsey Simpson (Curve Group owner), Mel Wombwell (national director of talent, Grant Thornton), Mark Sanderson (head of Guide Dogs and Blind Children UK), Kevin McCavish (Shoosmiths, partner). Front row: Amrit Sandhar (Best Companies), Jim Rogers (Grant Thornton, partner), Paul Peplow (VP Talent, ARM plc)


more about person-centred planning, release the potential in your people.”


Hosting the session Jim Rogers asked the panel for leadership ‘words of wisdom’.


Wombwell said: “Become role-models for the change that you want to see.”


Mark Sanderson of Guide Dogs added: “Learn


Shining the best light on workplace performance


and compilers of The Sunday Times ‘Best Companies to Work For’ annual listings


Consistent high standard application of Mc3 – motivating, caring, conversing, considering – was at the heart of employee engagement, the building of corporate energy and relationships, by successful Best Company organisations.


Jon Stradling and Amrit Sandhar


The secret formula for top performing organisations – Mc3 – was revealed in an on-stage discussion between Jon Stradling, HSBC’s Thames Valley head of corporate banking, and Amrit Sandhar, senior engagement consultant for Best Companies, the workplace engagement specialists


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – NOVEMBER 2014


Evidenced-based research by Best Companies over the past 15 years had shown that


successful employee engagement could drive financial performance. Investment in 2007 of £1,000 in a typical FTSE company would today be worth £1,200, but invested in a FTSE company with high employee-engagement would have returned £4,300, said Sandhar.


www.businessmag.co.uk


Simpson advised leaders not to rely on surveys but to have real conversations with their employees. “Get your answers from your own people.”


Shoosmiths partner Kevin McCavish: “Think how your people can work better for you in a more imaginative way.”


It was not coincidence he suggested that when surveyed, 94% of Iceland’s staff, this year’s number one Best Big Company, strongly agreed that they knew what was expected of them in their role within the organisation. Organisational clarity, awareness of core principles, company ambitions and an individually valued purpose within the business were key, Sandhar stated.


Although, he didn’t have Best Company data to prove the value of improvements to the workplace environment, Sandhar mentioned the Hawthorne effect phenomenon. Early last century workers’ productivity was observed to have improved in a Chicago factory simply by making the workplace lighting slightly brighter.


Details: www.grant-thornton.co.uk


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