The war for talent. The battleground has moved.

Much has been written about the war for talent, the term and book made popular by McKinsey & Company and Steven Hankin back in the 90's. The premise is that the competition for attracting and retaining talented employees will intensify due to greater need for talented people (as our organisations and the environment they operate within become more complex) as well as changes to demographics (our ageing population) which will decrease the supply.

I think in part this war for talent still exists but the war is being waged on different battlegrounds

Since the war for talent was written there are potentially other factors at work. Many markets and organisations haven't recovered since the 2009 GFC, there is a decreasing supply of talent to the traditional organisation as well as the potential decrease in organisations as we know them. The one job for life notion is certainly dead and while sitting in Brisbane airport Saturday night (yes my social life is awesome) I read this article called "Kiss the corporation goodbye". It really rang true for me working in big organisations. It talks about everything being cut back, outsourced or temp workers being used to fill a short term need. I certainly feel that a large chunk of my role over the past few years has been spent helping to downsize and cost cut. No one likes to see me at their site.

Some of this is about business models that don't work any more, particularly in Australia and similar developed countries. With high cost of living and high wages, labour intensive manufacturing businesses are just about gone and unions who could have played a role in partnering with organisations to address the issue of low-skill, high-wage jobs, have failed in ensuring their members have ongoing employment. High wages is not the only force at work but they have been a contributing factor in these jobs disappearing from the lucky country.

I think other factors are also at work. Women returning from maternity leave find that either their job has gone (despite the myriad of legislation that supposedly protects it) or they either don't have the skills to negotiate an arrangement that also allows them to support their family requirements, or the traditional corporate environment can't/won't accommodate something different from the 9 to 5 dream (or nightmare) or their partner doesn't contribute equally in the home or childcare is too expensive or the waiting list too long. Or all of the above. I had a little rant about this issue here.

What do these women do? They either decide to look after their children full time, giving up their income, or they do something else like start their own business. I have just been on the Gold Coast with around 500 bloggers, mostly women, many who are making an income from their blogs. Not all have kids and are blogging as a way to have flexible work that allows them to look after their family, but many are. And you know what? These women have attributes that organisations are wanting to go to war over:

• They are smart. Super smart.
• They are organised
• They work bloody hard. Some 80 hours per week.
• They know what is important to them and what they want.
• They are passionate and engaged.
• They are usually working for a higher purpose. They want a different life to what is offered by large organisations. They have built a community of readers that they fiercely protect when brands and advertisers come offering the bucks to market to their readers. 
• They are self starters. They have initiative and are curious and courageous.
• They are inspiring. 

While corporations are struggling and downsizing and losing sight of values that mean something to their customers this particular group of women have moved off the battleground of the offices and towers of big cities and into the homes of (mainly) women. And the women are not at war. They are not competing. They are doing their own thing in their own way. They are collaborating and sharing and connecting and as a result changing traditionally held business models, and making money while they do it. I can't help but think that the traditional organisation has lost the war for this group of talent. Completely. 

Do what you love. Love what you do.....

I'm here at the Gold Coast attending the Problogger conference. I have been looking forward to this conference for months. I came last year for the first time and it was awesome. I wrote about networking while I was here. Anyway, I haven't been looking forward to this conference because it's nice to be across the road from the beach, although that is nice.

And it's not because I'm staying at the QT Hotel which I love. I get to stay in lots of hotels and this one is a fav because it has character. It's fun and cheeky. Check it out!

And it's not because I finally put my sneakers on my feet and actually went for a walk this afternoon so that their trip from Singapore to Perth to Brisbane to the Gold Coast, wasn't for nothing.

No. The reason I have been looking forward to this conference is because bloggers are passionate about what they do. They live their passion and they love talking about it. There is so much energy and excitement here. This is in contrast to some conferences I have been to. In particular people at HR type conferences like to whinge during the conference breaks. They like to talk about how they don't have big enough budgets and about how no one takes them seriously and stuff like that. I hate it. Doesn't happen at a blogging conference. Nope.

In my experience blogging conferences are about connecting and sharing and learning and passion. It's about sharing where you are from and what you blog about. It's about sharing where you are at on the blogging journey. Are you new at it? Have you been doing it for a few years?  Or are you pro? And it's ok wherever you are at. Sometimes blogging can be a lonely pursuit despite connecting with people through social media so I suspect bloggers also just like to get out and socialise! The welcome drinks at the bar tonight was packed!

The other excitement here is getting to see and meet some amazing people. I have already spied the very striking and talented Clare Bowditch heading to the lift (she was on Offspring, apart from being a great musician) and met Chantelle Ellem from FatMumSlim in the lift and she is gorgeous! I would say she thinks I'm an idiot at this point. Chantelle does the photo a day challenge on Instagram.

The conference starts tomorrow so I better get my hair washed and my outfit sorted.

Lisa xx

Exit Interviews

Ever been through an exit interview? You know, you have resigned your job and someone from HR, like me, gets in contact to ask you about your experience working at XYZ Company. Then someone from HR, like me, collates exit interview information and presents it to your Manager or group of Managers with the idea that they will take the information and use it to make XYZ Company a better place to work for all. That's the theory. It's one of those theories that HR people, like me, hold dear to their hearts.

Unfortunately the reality is somewhat different.

This week one of my lovely Sydney friends who has been working for a pretty crappy ordinary organisation secured a new role in a much less crappy ordinary organisation and you guessed it, has been asked to complete an exit interview. She wanted some advice. I wanted blog post inspiration. Here we are.

It would be fair to say that I feel a little, well a lot jaded about what happens with exit interview information. You see, HR people, like me, take the activity of understanding the experience of an employee and why they have chosen to leave an organisation quite seriously. HR people, like me, like to do things that make organisations good places to work. Feeding back exit interview information is one way to do this.

The trouble is that most managers and leaders tend to stay a while at organisations and some, not all don't realise that XYZ Company may not be the best most satisfying place to work. Some, not all don't realise or have forgotten that there may be other places employees want to work because, well...it's less shit!* So what happens is HR people, like me, present summarised exit interview information such as reasons for leaving, and  some managers and leaders, not all, reject the information. In these situations, HR people, like me, feel sad that the exiting employees have been honest and spent time helping to make an organisation a better place, but to no avail.

In one particularly memorable organisation, a senior leader actually lied about why another senior leader left. He said she left because she wanted to spend more time with her children and was spending too much time travelling and on teleconferences at all hours of the night. She was going to take some time out. She had actually found a much better organisation to work for, but the other leader couldn't comprehend that.

So what's my advice about participating in exit interviews?

1. You are under no obligation to participate in one. HR people, like me, appreciate when you do though, and you really have nothing to lose.
2. Be constructive. Doing a complete dump about how awful XYZ Company is doesn't really help anyone. Well it might help you a little. HR people, like me, are usually trying to do a good job for you and the company.
3. Burning your bridges is never a good idea so don't do the group email rant. The CEO and your work mates will just think you are a clown, even if they agree with what you have written!
4. Don't expect anything to change and you are leaving anyway

What is your experience with exit interviews?

*less shit is an important HR term

Change is as good as a holiday.

Well that's bullshit crap rubbish! I mean really. Lie on a beach drinking cocktails, or sell your house in 4 weeks? Sightsee in a new city, or pack up your life in 2 days? Go skiing for a week or move to another country with a 2 year old and 5 year old?

I mean what is more stressful in your opinion?

When I moved to Sydney 13 years ago, I got to do a little work with Expatriates. I helped organise cultural training for employees and their families moving to countries in Asia and also assisted with medical insurance claims. My experience left me with 2 indelible thoughts.

1. Expat employees are difficult, and
2. How amazing would it be to move to another country to live and work?

My first experience with Expat families was when the company I worked for, sent two employees to the Philippines, one as the head of the business and the other in a finance role. I helped organise the cultural training for a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 kids) and a couple. I was able to sit in on the training so I understood what it was all about, and subsequently desperately wanted to move to Manila with them! 

I have visited Manila since then and perhaps it wouldn't be my first choice for an Expat assignment but the idea that I could live and work in another country seemed exciting none the less.

Now I realise that perhaps those Expats were not so much difficult, they were just stressed! Actually, some of them were probably difficult but overall I just didn't understand the head exploding stress of packing up your whole life and moving to a different country where everything is slightly or very different, you don't understand the culture and you are still expected to do a good job. 

Over the past 4 weeks Arran and I have been in Singapore I have been reflecting on how we approached this change and how this approach has helped us through a difficult period. We approached the move with excitement and possibilities. We knew that we couldn't have the same style of housing that we had in Sydney so we decided to embrace condominium living. We knew we would be living in a much smaller place so we got rid of a lot of our furniture (not enough as it turns out) but we have the motivation of people visiting us soon will get us organized quickly in our smallish apartment!

Moving in day. Rainy and humid. View from our balcony

 

We have a view of the pool just 4 floors down, which someone else maintains as well as a kids playground and beautiful gardens. We have apartments all around us and instead of feeling overlooked we feel part of a big busy city. Sitting on our large-by-Singaporean-standards balcony drinking wine and blogging in the humid air is bliss!

View from our balcony as the sun sets

We have both started to make contact with people with know here. Me with a lovely colleague I met when working at Coca-Cola Amatil, who took me to just the kind of place I needed for coffee, and Arran a friend (and his wife) from high school, who invited us to their "condo" for drinks nibbles and dinner (just when we were getting sick of each others company). I also have other friends who are ready to catch up when we are. Both of us enjoyed a dinner with some of my new work mates in Singapore. Networks and contacts are important and in the 4 weeks we have,been here we have missed our social life and are looking forward to seriously ramping it up.

I'm sure if you approached an opportunity like this negatively you are never going to have fun or learn from it. If you expect things to be like home, they won't be. If you expect the same kind of housing with the same amount of room, you will be disappointed and if you expect people to be the same, well you are kidding yourself. And if you expect the weather to be the same and the ability to buy the same food and clothes well I guess you should give up*

How does this to relate to your career? Well I think it relates very well. Sometimes we end up in a place where we are not happy, and we don't really know how we got there and we don't know how to get out and move forward. This is a miserable existence and when I have been there myself my health suffered and so did those around me.  In these circumstances it's hard to get positive. The ability to make a deal with yourself about what you can learn for the experience and how long you are going to put with where you are can make a massive difference. It can get you focused with purpose in the short term.

I'm not feeling this way about my career. I'm generally happy. How could I not be? I have reached a  career goal and I still have so much to learn including the best way to work with a new business leader. Everything I touch at the moment seems hard and I don't know the answer, but I guess I will get there, as I have done before. I have never set up a payroll in South Korea, but I'm learning. I have never supported employees in the Middle East or Kazakhstan but I'm learning. Actually I'm still learning to even spell Kazakhstan! What did we do before spell check?

So tell me about when your career has been hard for you. How did you get through it?

Lisa xx

*I have already felt like giving up trying to buy swimmers. I'm only human.