Keeping Your Best: Strategies for Employee Retention

Talent Report+THRIVE

Description:

This episode delves into the importance of training and retaining your greatest assets - your employees. We discuss how investing in employee training and development can enhance their skills and knowledge and increase their job satisfaction and loyalty to the organization.

Our guest for this episode is Jim Morgan, Vice President, Business Development & Workforce Strategies. He shares insights into MRA's March Talent Report, which includes trends from recruiting & retention, top creative HR strategies, c-suite level happenings, and more.

Whether you are an HR professional, a manager, or an employee looking to enhance your skills and advance your career, this episode offers valuable insights and practical tips for training and retaining your greatest assets. Join us as we explore the importance of investing in your employees and building a culture of continuous learning.

Key Takeaways:

1. Companies are teaching about the challenges that come with change—letting go of control, getting teams to buy in, communication, not understanding the “why” of the change, thus preparing their staff to handle the disruption.
2. Generational diversity training is showing up more and more in corporate learning and development.
3. Some companies have included developing the preferred organizational chart during their strategic planning,
   and using it as a guide when making key hires.

Resources:

Talent Report + Webinar Series

March Talent Report +

MRA Membership

About MRA

Let's Connect:

Guest Bio - Jim Morgan

Guest LinkedIn Profile - Jim Morgan

Host Bio - Sophie Boler

Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler

Transcript:

Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.

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Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive,

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your go to podcast for anything and everything HR.

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powered by MRA, the Management Association

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looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR?

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MRA has got you covered.

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We'll be the first, to tell you what's hot and what's not.

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I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.

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Now it's time to thrive.

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Welcome to this episode of 30 Minute Thrive.

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We're happy you're here, and I'm excited to give you the latest information on

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all things Talent related is our guest, Jim Morgan, vice president of Workforce

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Strategies here at MRA, covers the March edition of MRA’s Talent Report.

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So if you aren't familiar with the monthly talent report, Jim

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Morgan gives an up to the minute review of what's going on in the world of business

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with an emphasis on talent, which is based on input from CEOs, CFOs

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and HR leaders from MRA's 3000 plus member companies,

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1000 roundtable participants and subject matter experts.

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So thanks for coming on the podcast, Jim.

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My pleasure.

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Good to be back.

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So so let's really kick off

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the conversation with what's happening in the recruiting retention world.

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And I know that staying on top of mental health needs is always been a priority

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for HR.

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and employers, but it's really a tricky thing to be proactive on.

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So do you want to really start us off with what you're seeing here?

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Sure.

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You know, the mental health, everybody mentions it.

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But when you're trying to figure out, okay, exactly what is it

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that we do about that, that's where it gets a little bit more difficult.

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We're starting to see companies now use wellness and fitness things as incentives

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for more time off or for additional pay that maybe if you walk

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10,000 steps a day for ten days in a row, you get a half day off

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or if you eat right or if you lose weight or you quit smoking,

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they're trying to figure out how to not necessarily monetize it,

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but develop it in such a way that now there's real motivation

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for employee to say,

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you know what, that's it's worth it for me now to go and do that

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because the rewards are not just I feel better and maybe I'll be healthier,

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but it's also like there's a short term to it that, you know,

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maybe just kind of keeps people motivated for a while to stick with it.

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That reminds me of those treadmills that you can get for under your desk

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when you're working.

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Exactly. Walk your steps.

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Yeah, well, incentive. Those those are the types of things.

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So we're seeing companies doing mindfulness breaks and telling people

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during the course of the day,

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you know, take a couple of minutes to yourself, take a walk outside.

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Companies are bringing massage chairs into the office.

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We do that here.

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They're, you know,

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providing now experiences where a lot of people have been giving gym memberships.

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And that's directly related.

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But it might be also a Netflix subscription with sort of a note

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that says, hey, once a week, take 2 hours and just sit back and watch a movie.

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So I think they're trying to just find things

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in everyone's lifestyle that those are moments where you

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you feel good about it and you know, it's good for you.

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It's what you should do.

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And then if we can give people a little extra nudge to go do it, you know,

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hopefully they're happier, they're healthier,

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and that means they're more productive at work.

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I know you just listed a few, but do you have any other

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wellness trends that you are seeing from employers?

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I think some of it now is around almost training

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people to understand the wellness and how to take care of them.

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So, I mean,

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I can give you a gym membership,

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but if you never go, it doesn't have a whole lot of value to it.

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But if we can explain to you what are the good things that happen

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if you exercise three times a day or if you get out and walk and you do things.

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So I think the education part of it is becoming a bigger a bigger deal.

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And a lot of companies

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have employee assistance programs and they've always had an EAP,

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but they didn't necessarily tell anybody they had it.

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It was probably buried in your benefit somewhere that says, Oh, we have an EAP,

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and some of those cover everything from, you know, doing your will

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to, you know, how do you identify your beneficiaries

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and leave money behind to financial planning.

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And those are all things that are additional stressors in people's lives.

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And so again, if we can figure out how to help them with some of those

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things, then, you know, that's helpful to the employee as well.

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Yeah.

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And I know you've mentioned before, like for workplace cafes or cafeterias

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now, employers are replacing some of that food with a healthier option.

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May not be. Yep.

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No more late summer apples. Exactly.

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Or another topic that I'd like to dive into is your talent thinking section,

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which I know the importance of training and developing employees

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is really emphasize this month.

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So can you expand on that a little bit?

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Yeah, the learning and development, a couple of things have happened there

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and we'll talk a little bit

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about emerging leaders, I think, in a minute

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because that's been another big part of it.

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But the shift that's taking place in the workforce right now

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generationally has been a big one.

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And the

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expectations of people in the workplace, especially managers and supervisors,

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have changed.

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So now you're watching all of the baby boomers begin to exit.

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Finally, and they're being replaced by smaller,

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a smaller generation, which means we're dipping into the next one,

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which are the millennials.

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And a lot of them are now being pushed into a leadership position

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earlier than perhaps I would have been.

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I might have had 20 years on the job to watch other people, as I say,

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watch other people make mistakes.

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So I didn't have to make my own

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and then hopefully be smarter as a leader when I got there.

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And some of the younger folks are not getting that same amount of time to do it.

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So there's a training issue around that that we can talk about.

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And the second part is, I think for a lot of hiring managers

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and supervisors, especially those that have been at it for a long time,

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their job has changed dramatically.

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It's changed because of the shortage of people we have.

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So they have to be much more involved

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now in recruiting and retention and making sure their people

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feel satisfied in their job and that they want to stick around.

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And they've also had to take on more of a role in the entire employee.

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It's not that I'm just going to evaluate

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you on your ability to get your work done and your innovation at work.

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Now it's you. What's your mental health?

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Is there any stress in your life?

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Is something happening

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that we need to know about that maybe we can help accommodate it?

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And so their life has changed quite a bit, too, and trying to help

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them understand that they need to understand the younger employees.

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They're not better, they're not worse, they're different.

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And what they want is very different.

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And you can complain about it, but you're also the people that are saying,

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I need more people to come work for me because I'm working too much.

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All right.

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But if you want us to help you find new people,

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then you've got to understand how do talk to those people,

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communicate with those people and keep those people happy.

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Because if they leave your back to having too much work again.

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So all of that falls into that learning and development

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sort of bucket that says, what do people have to deal with now?

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And how is we as

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how are we as an employer going to figure out how to train them in that?

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And can you give some examples of what companies

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are actually doing with that information?

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Yeah, you know,

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I think what they're trying to do is, one, they're trying to identify the skills.

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We did that in our in our last talent report webinar that it's communications.

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It's decision making.

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It's accountability.

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It's things that, you know, have been there probably for a long time.

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But they

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they are much more prevalent right now.

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And so they've got to figure out how to do some of those things.

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We are trying to begin to mix people a little bit

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more by age as well as by a variety of other things.

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If you and I are in the same meeting and somebody says, here's

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the direction that we're going in, this is what we're going to do,

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your take on it's probably going to be very different than mine.

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And so it's a good thing to have a 25 year old, a 45 year

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old and a 65 year old in the same meeting, because they're going to see things

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very differently.

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So you're starting to see the way people do meetings differently, the way they do.

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The strategic planning is changing

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dramatically to have different voices in the room.

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Mentoring and reverse mentoring.

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I think there's a couple of things I could probably teach you.

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I know there are things that you can teach me, so how do we set up those meetings

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and those relationships in a way that people can take advantage of that?

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So trying to take that, this is what we need

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and now how do we work it into the to the daily work?

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Because if we just say Jim, Sophie, you two should talk to each other

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once in a while, that might happen and it might not.

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And so we have to sort of be intentional in how we're doing it.

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Absolutely. Kind of going along with that.

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You recently spoke at a generational differences conference

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where you really talked

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about emerging leaders and how how they can use their skills

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and how to develop them, communicate with them and more.

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So can you kind of highlight some of the key points that you discussed there?

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Yeah, we actually tag teamed it.

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So we had a millennial and then a baby boomer,

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you know, and started it just by, you know, sort of saying, okay,

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let's just ask you a couple of questions

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if you needed technical assistance,

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who would you go to the the 27 year old or the 62 year old?

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If you wanted help with strategic planning, which one would you go to

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if you had a financial question, if you needed a project manager,

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if you wanted to understand what TicTok was

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and went through a series of questions where some of them are pretty obvious

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and they're correct and some of them you might, you know, be wrong

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that you're just assuming that, well, he's never been on TicTok as he's this age,

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but she's been on Tic TAC as she did Tic TAC.

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One of the biggest generational differences.

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It's a Tic TAC to me. Is the TicTok to you?

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It's a hard to say. It is.

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And you know, I've been saying tic tac longer than it's saying TicTok. So.

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All right. Showing my age,

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you're one of those

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more likely to have that type of experiences as well.

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So, yeah, we started with that.

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Just trying to get people to say,

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you know, what sort of opinions, what biases do we have already?

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I just assume a 25 year old can tech can do technology.

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Yeah, there's probably a 90% chance. You're right.

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But there's some 25 year olds who never bothered. So

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and there are 60 year olds who got into it as soon as it came and they love it.

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So just trying to get people to think just because they look like this age,

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you know, doesn't necessarily mean that that's that's what's right.

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And then, you know, we introduced ourselves

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kind of in a joking way saying, okay, what's

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what's your impression, you know, of this person?

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And I can, you know, say, well, they're on Tik tok too much.

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Okay, that's just my opinion.

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And then I get to hear the rebuttal on that that says you are

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you can learn on Tik tok and now you know that that that's legit,

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you know, and saying, okay, you got to speak up more

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because you have really good opinions

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and you know, you're not necessarily sharing them with people.

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And so some of it is constructive and some of it is, you know,

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just in good humor.

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And, you know,

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the young person can look at me and say, God, your memos are way too long.

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You have these long paragraphs just like get to the bullet points

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and let's be done.

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That or joking when I say, Hey, did you see the commercial

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or what you look like?

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Why in the world are you watching commercials?

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How dumb can you be?

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So some of those are just sort of like, understand?

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Yeah, most definitely where they're at, how they consume things, technology,

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television, radio, music, you know, just very different things.

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So just, you know, try to open up their minds a little bit to saying, yeah,

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let's think about some of these things before we just run

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and make, you know, assumptions of of what's happening.

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Absolutely.

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And in terms of communicating with emerging leaders or developing them,

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what do you really think members ought to be thinking about?

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I think we've lived in a world for so long that, you know,

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usually there was a primary form of communication.

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You know, at one point it might have been actually having

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to make copies of something and stick it in everybody's actual mailbox.

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And then we knew all the staff got it, and then we sent out

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all emails emailed to all staff saying, okay, here it is.

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We assumed everybody got it, we faxed it to people and we assumed everybody got it.

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And we're in a world now, especially with these four generations

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that, you know, if I said to you, what's what's your

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primary way that you would like me to communicate with you?

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So if I said, I want to get a hold of you and I want a quick answer,

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how would you want me to communicate with you?

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Text. Text to me.

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And that's that's spot on, you know,

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and I might say I'm actually I would probably say, text me at this point, too.

00:12:56:19 - 00:12:58:23
Mostly, though, because I'm adapting to other people.

00:12:59:05 - 00:13:03:06
I would have said normally I was at email me because that would be the fastest way

00:13:03:15 - 00:13:04:21
to get a hold of me.

00:13:04:21 - 00:13:08:10
But what companies now are having to deal with is if your primary way of

00:13:08:10 - 00:13:14:15
communicating is texting and mine, is email in others might be on our system.

00:13:14:15 - 00:13:17:18
And so they wanted in chatter and others say, you know,

00:13:17:18 - 00:13:21:07
if you could just do a video and I could watch it, that's easier.

00:13:21:10 - 00:13:22:01
And quite frankly,

00:13:22:01 - 00:13:25:19
if you recorded it, I can listen to it while I'm driving or something like that.

00:13:26:10 - 00:13:28:23
So that's five different ways of communicating

00:13:28:23 - 00:13:32:06
the same message, trying to make sure that it gets to everybody right.

00:13:32:16 - 00:13:35:17
And I think we have to understand that if there's a primary way

00:13:35:17 - 00:13:39:05
of communicating with people, that's the way that they're going to consume it.

00:13:39:10 - 00:13:43:23
And I can not like it, but I can't be mad either when they say, Well, I don't know.

00:13:43:23 - 00:13:44:21
Did you ever text me?

00:13:44:21 - 00:13:46:19
What's that? No, I never texted you.

00:13:46:19 - 00:13:47:19
Come on.

00:13:48:00 - 00:13:48:12
Right.

00:13:48:12 - 00:13:51:01
And, you know, you went through our entire leadership program.

00:13:51:01 - 00:13:53:06
And that was one of the questions we asked people was,

00:13:53:06 - 00:13:55:23
what do you want most when you you know, you start your employment

00:13:56:06 - 00:14:00:20
and after the box of swag was I want my supervisor cell phone number.

00:14:00:20 - 00:14:01:04
Yeah.

00:14:01:09 - 00:14:04:14
And that's a huge you know, you might have a 55 year old

00:14:04:14 - 00:14:07:06
like I'm not giving my cell phone number to a 25 year old there.

00:14:07:10 - 00:14:09:21
Call me from the bar on Saturday night.

00:14:09:21 - 00:14:11:16
You know, that's not the point of it.

00:14:11:16 - 00:14:14:08
You know what the probably you're looking for is

00:14:14:12 - 00:14:17:01
And in answer to a question and I want it quick.

00:14:17:03 - 00:14:17:19
Absolutely.

00:14:17:19 - 00:14:20:00
And if I text you, I better get a response from.

00:14:20:13 - 00:14:21:20
I can attest to that.

00:14:21:20 - 00:14:23:04
So, you know, there you have it.

00:14:23:04 - 00:14:26:03
So I think you are having to try to begin to figure out

00:14:27:00 - 00:14:31:09
how do we communicate with everybody in a way that they will actually consume

00:14:31:09 - 00:14:34:11
what it is that that we want them to consume For sure.

00:14:34:11 - 00:14:36:15
Because like I said, I can throw out a thousand messages,

00:14:36:15 - 00:14:40:04
but if I'm putting my messages on commercial TV,

00:14:40:17 - 00:14:42:16
you're not ever going to see it right?

00:14:42:16 - 00:14:46:17
And if you're putting everything on Spotify, I might never hear it.

00:14:47:03 - 00:14:50:13
And so where do we go and how do we communicate?

00:14:51:15 - 00:14:54:14
So kind of moving in a new direction here.

00:14:54:20 - 00:14:56:12
There were two recent surveys

00:14:56:12 - 00:15:00:07
that MRA just published in there and this month's talent report,

00:15:00:07 - 00:15:05:00
but it's the Business and Economic Outlook for 2023 in the Turnover survey.

00:15:05:08 - 00:15:07:12
So what was found in these surveys?

00:15:09:10 - 00:15:12:01
I'll go with the second one first because it's easier.

00:15:12:13 - 00:15:14:13
Turnover was up

00:15:14:13 - 00:15:16:19
and it was up in almost every type of job.

00:15:16:19 - 00:15:22:06
It was about 25% this past year, which is what it was last year,

00:15:22:13 - 00:15:26:09
but historically had been more in that 15, 16, 17% range.

00:15:26:09 - 00:15:29:14
So it's still there and it's still going on.

00:15:29:18 - 00:15:35:18
It's much higher at the lower level jobs than it is at the executive jobs.

00:15:36:01 - 00:15:38:16
Executives as low as eight or 9%.

00:15:39:10 - 00:15:42:23
But the people that maybe are in a manufacturing job

00:15:42:23 - 00:15:46:02
that are just starting, it might be as high as 35%.

00:15:46:16 - 00:15:50:18
So the turnover is still there and companies are really trying

00:15:50:18 - 00:15:55:01
to focus on keeping them for that first week and month.

00:15:55:06 - 00:15:57:00
And if they can keep them for that

00:15:57:00 - 00:15:59:00
first week in month, they've got a much better chance.

00:15:59:00 - 00:16:00:15
And so you're seeing a lot of

00:16:00:15 - 00:16:04:12
how do we surround this person with buddies or friends or mentors?

00:16:04:17 - 00:16:06:02
How do we keep in touch with them?

00:16:06:02 - 00:16:07:14
How do we contact them?

00:16:07:14 - 00:16:09:00
And spending a lot of time on that.

00:16:09:00 - 00:16:12:06
But the the turnover is up, I think right now

00:16:12:17 - 00:16:15:17
the employers are a little bit more optimistic that maybe we're going to

00:16:15:17 - 00:16:19:11
stabilize here, that those who are jumping just for money

00:16:19:17 - 00:16:21:06
have perhaps jumped

00:16:21:06 - 00:16:22:06
and others are starting

00:16:22:06 - 00:16:25:14
to look around and say, okay, I've got the wage that I'm looking for.

00:16:25:14 - 00:16:27:18
We always want more, but I'm pretty comfortable.

00:16:28:06 - 00:16:31:22
Now. What I'm looking for is maybe a little more longevity,

00:16:31:22 - 00:16:33:00
a little bit more about

00:16:33:00 - 00:16:36:03
what do you have to offer, a little bit more about my work life balance.

00:16:36:03 - 00:16:38:21
So maybe it's going to start the evening out.

00:16:38:21 - 00:16:39:23
We'll see.

00:16:39:23 - 00:16:43:09
We're still at 2% unemployed moment here in Wisconsin.

00:16:44:01 - 00:16:46:01
We're around under three.

00:16:46:01 - 00:16:50:01
In Minnesota, we're around three in Iowa, a little bit higher in Illinois.

00:16:50:09 - 00:16:52:06
So there's still going to be opportunities for people.

00:16:52:06 - 00:16:55:03
If there's opportunities for people, they're a little bit more likely to move

00:16:55:04 - 00:16:55:18
right in.

00:16:55:18 - 00:16:58:06
How about the business and economic?

00:16:58:12 - 00:17:01:02
The business, an economic one is really fascinating

00:17:01:02 - 00:17:04:01
because I think individually it was in people's companies.

00:17:04:08 - 00:17:07:13
They remained pretty optimistic that if I'm a manager,

00:17:07:13 - 00:17:11:07
I'm a manufacturer, I might have six months backlog.

00:17:11:07 - 00:17:14:21
So I know I've got work that's coming in and people can see that

00:17:15:10 - 00:17:18:13
most of their customers and clients are still doing well.

00:17:18:13 - 00:17:21:19
So they're feeling pretty good about that.

00:17:21:19 - 00:17:24:11
But then you ask them about, well, do you see a recession coming?

00:17:24:12 - 00:17:25:20
You think that's going to happen?

00:17:25:20 - 00:17:30:23
And, you know, over two thirds are saying, yeah, I think we're going to see that.

00:17:30:23 - 00:17:34:09
And then you ask another question, it says, well, then how optimistic are you?

00:17:34:14 - 00:17:39:16
And almost 90% are either very or somewhat optimistic

00:17:39:16 - 00:17:42:15
that their company is going to remain profitable and do all right.

00:17:42:23 - 00:17:46:15
So it's almost like my company's okay, but the rest of the world

00:17:46:15 - 00:17:48:01
is in a lot of trouble.

00:17:48:01 - 00:17:50:12
But there's a lot of people saying, my company is okay.

00:17:50:12 - 00:17:53:14
So if there's enough companies that are saying, I think mine's all right,

00:17:54:01 - 00:17:56:14
maybe we're in better shape than we think.

00:17:57:02 - 00:18:00:17
Now, the Midwest, I think, is very unique because as we've talked

00:18:00:17 - 00:18:04:12
demographics in the past, we were going to have a labor shortage

00:18:04:19 - 00:18:08:18
and we could have some people doing layoffs and still have other companies

00:18:09:03 - 00:18:10:03
who can pick them up.

00:18:10:03 - 00:18:13:19
So to the extent that we're going to keep people employed

00:18:14:05 - 00:18:18:00
in northern Illinois and Iowa and Minnesota and Wisconsin,

00:18:18:08 - 00:18:20:05
that's going to make a difference for us, I think.

00:18:20:05 - 00:18:23:09
And I think it'll make us a little bit more resilient

00:18:23:09 - 00:18:27:23
because those companies optimism means, okay, they're going to be hiring people.

00:18:28:04 - 00:18:30:12
And most are still saying they are looking.

00:18:30:21 - 00:18:35:13
So that that gives us kind of a leg up on maybe we're going to be okay here.

00:18:35:15 - 00:18:36:08
Yeah.

00:18:36:14 - 00:18:41:06
And in terms of C-suite level, what are the leaders really doing now?

00:18:42:07 - 00:18:42:21
They are

00:18:42:21 - 00:18:47:03
you know, they continue to be concerned a little bit about the uncertainty.

00:18:47:03 - 00:18:50:21
And that is one of the things that, you know, if you're a CEO

00:18:50:21 - 00:18:53:02
and you're looking at things, the one thing you want to do

00:18:53:02 - 00:18:55:22
is really be able to control the narrative.

00:18:55:22 - 00:19:00:02
You want to be able to say, look, I, I can control these types of things,

00:19:00:02 - 00:19:03:15
but if you're going to have price increases every two weeks,

00:19:03:23 - 00:19:07:23
yes, the government is going to pass some new compliance law

00:19:07:23 - 00:19:12:21
or they're going to change the way in which they might say we can

00:19:12:22 - 00:19:16:18
We can't have non-compete that changes the way we do things.

00:19:17:03 - 00:19:20:22
There is all kinds of political activity out there.

00:19:20:22 - 00:19:23:13
There is world affairs going on.

00:19:23:19 - 00:19:27:00
So all of those things combined, you start adding five

00:19:27:00 - 00:19:29:11
or six or seven or eight of these together and it's kind of like,

00:19:30:04 - 00:19:32:04
you know, let me control what I can control.

00:19:32:04 - 00:19:34:22
I can hire people, I can improve my processes.

00:19:35:03 - 00:19:38:09
But you're throwing all these other things at me and that's caused me

00:19:38:17 - 00:19:39:18
quite a bit of strife.

00:19:39:18 - 00:19:43:01
So I think that that's that's an issue for them.

00:19:43:12 - 00:19:47:05
They understand the talent issue for sure, and they continue to be concerned

00:19:47:05 - 00:19:47:17
about that.

00:19:47:17 - 00:19:50:15
And I think they're spending a little bit more time with their HR.

00:19:50:15 - 00:19:53:01
Department saying, you know, what do we do about this?

00:19:54:00 - 00:19:57:01
And in my presentations, i often say, well,

00:19:57:01 - 00:20:00:03
you know, the problem looks an awful lot like me, that there's a lot of people

00:20:00:03 - 00:20:04:01
that are, you know, 60 some years old, have been doing this for a long time.

00:20:04:01 - 00:20:07:17
And they're saying all these young people, you know what's coming in here,

00:20:07:22 - 00:20:09:18
How do we get them to be more motivated?

00:20:09:18 - 00:20:13:14
And I would argue that I think they're motivated as I've ever been.

00:20:13:14 - 00:20:17:08
It's just we're looking at digging into the the 2%,

00:20:17:08 - 00:20:21:05
which I think unemployment was 7% when I was looking for my first job.

00:20:21:12 - 00:20:23:15
So there's 200 people applying for every job.

00:20:23:15 - 00:20:24:23
I pick the best one.

00:20:24:23 - 00:20:28:07
You're walking around saying, I got five people who want me to come work for them.

00:20:28:15 - 00:20:30:03
I can pick whichever one I want.

00:20:30:03 - 00:20:33:19
So that's a that's just a very different world.

00:20:33:23 - 00:20:34:15
Absolutely.

00:20:34:15 - 00:20:37:19
And I think they're pushing their HR.

00:20:37:19 - 00:20:42:13
Departments very hard on especially going back to this emerging leader thing.

00:20:42:20 - 00:20:44:01
What should we be doing?

00:20:44:01 - 00:20:48:10
The mentoring, the reverse mentoring, the helping them with assessments

00:20:48:10 - 00:20:52:06
of personalities and assessments of communication styles,

00:20:52:18 - 00:20:56:00
getting them into team building and cross-functional teams,

00:20:56:00 - 00:21:02:01
putting the high potentials on our Strat planning group, giving them opportunities

00:21:02:01 - 00:21:06:02
to see this is where I can be a bigger part of this organization.

00:21:06:02 - 00:21:08:17
If I know I'm a part of it, I'm going to stay in.

00:21:08:17 - 00:21:11:18
If I see opportunities, then we'll be much better off.

00:21:12:07 - 00:21:14:13
So I think at this point everybody's figured out who we can hang on to,

00:21:14:14 - 00:21:16:19
people we don't have to be looking for as many people.

00:21:16:19 - 00:21:18:07
So that's

00:21:19:06 - 00:21:21:10
that's sort of where folks are at and saying, yeah,

00:21:21:15 - 00:21:25:01
let's let's keep the ones we get because we spent a lot of money time

00:21:25:01 - 00:21:26:09
trying to get them. Yeah.

00:21:26:09 - 00:21:29:00
And how about for HR. Strategies?

00:21:29:00 - 00:21:32:15
What are you seeing for creative strategies wise?

00:21:32:20 - 00:21:35:10
You know, i think the most creative one that I got

00:21:36:03 - 00:21:38:15
this time around from one of my roundtables.

00:21:38:15 - 00:21:42:13
It was a smaller rural town, but it was a company that had changed

00:21:42:13 - 00:21:45:18
their name, wasn't necessarily

00:21:45:18 - 00:21:49:16
delivering a product direct to consumer where you'd say,

00:21:49:16 - 00:21:52:08
Oh, I recognize that it's Coca-Cola, you know, I get it.

00:21:52:23 - 00:21:55:17
And they were they've been recruiting and are trying to find people

00:21:55:17 - 00:21:57:00
and there's just not that many people.

00:21:57:00 - 00:21:59:07
And a lot of folks are, you know, stealing from each other.

00:22:00:01 - 00:22:02:03
And they decided it

00:22:02:16 - 00:22:05:06
really as an effort to try to get their name back out there

00:22:05:06 - 00:22:09:00
and remind people that they were in town, basically held a community event.

00:22:09:10 - 00:22:11:23
And it was just sort of like a community fair.

00:22:12:05 - 00:22:14:18
They had games for the kids.

00:22:14:18 - 00:22:18:12
They had, you know, drink tickets, they had a tent.

00:22:18:20 - 00:22:22:17
They had all kinds of fun activities for people to do and just said, come on in.

00:22:22:17 - 00:22:26:03
We want to celebrate the community and we'll see what happens now.

00:22:27:00 - 00:22:29:10
And then near the where the drink tickets were,

00:22:29:11 - 00:22:30:14
they had set up a booth

00:22:30:14 - 00:22:33:02
that just explained who their company was and what they did.

00:22:33:02 - 00:22:35:19
And you know, they had job applications there as well.

00:22:36:11 - 00:22:40:12
And what they found was, one, people didn't know they were there and they were

00:22:40:12 - 00:22:43:11
picking up brochures and saying, Wow, this is really interesting.

00:22:43:11 - 00:22:48:02
But they also got 25 employees out of the deal from the applications

00:22:48:02 - 00:22:49:09
that were picked up here.

00:22:49:09 - 00:22:52:23
And these weren't even necessarily people that were looking, but they saw it.

00:22:52:23 - 00:22:55:01
They came to a place that was fun.

00:22:55:01 - 00:22:58:17
They saw the employees that were there and they were having fun and looked like

00:22:58:17 - 00:23:00:07
they were committed to the company.

00:23:00:07 - 00:23:03:11
And if you ask them about it, I would say you know, good thing.

00:23:03:11 - 00:23:04:00
Yeah.

00:23:04:01 - 00:23:06:22
And this is a company that puts out activities like this.

00:23:06:22 - 00:23:08:18
This all sounds pretty good to me.

00:23:08:18 - 00:23:13:18
And just based on their experience there that day and talking to their employees,

00:23:14:06 - 00:23:17:03
they got 25 new employees out of it

00:23:17:11 - 00:23:20:17
at a time when they'd been spending thousands on advertising

00:23:20:17 - 00:23:23:23
and using recruiters and maybe getting two or three.

00:23:24:15 - 00:23:28:21
So almost by accident, but outside the box time.

00:23:29:10 - 00:23:32:06
So so I would say that that was probably

00:23:32:06 - 00:23:35:06
the most creative one on Newcastle on in the last month.

00:23:35:11 - 00:23:37:17
That sounds creative. Ended up

00:23:38:20 - 00:23:39:16
well for that one.

00:23:39:16 - 00:23:39:21
Yeah.

00:23:39:21 - 00:23:42:12
All worked out well and I might have another one.

00:23:43:14 - 00:23:46:16
Or as we kind of wrap up here, there's a lot of changes

00:23:46:16 - 00:23:51:02
happening in the workforce and a lot of those hard population.

00:23:51:02 - 00:23:55:09
So can you talk about the change in population over the last ten years

00:23:55:09 - 00:23:57:16
and how that's really affected the workforce?

00:23:57:22 - 00:24:01:01
Yeah, you know, if you look around and I've mentioned this

00:24:01:01 - 00:24:04:06
before, the the Northeast and the upper Midwest

00:24:04:19 - 00:24:09:04
are sort of the places where that is now where people are moving to.

00:24:09:05 - 00:24:13:11
And so without that migration that's been that's a problem.

00:24:13:11 - 00:24:16:09
And so good news over the last ten years.

00:24:16:18 - 00:24:21:13
We saw growth in Wisconsin and Minnesota and Illinois

00:24:21:20 - 00:24:27:09
between three and 5%, which isn't great, but at least it's growth.

00:24:28:05 - 00:24:30:07
Illinois is is struggling.

00:24:30:07 - 00:24:32:19
It's one of the biggest migration out states.

00:24:32:19 - 00:24:35:13
So they they have their own set of issues.

00:24:36:00 - 00:24:38:15
But before everybody gets too excited about plus three or four

00:24:38:15 - 00:24:42:23
or 5%, the digging into the numbers is really the key.

00:24:42:23 - 00:24:47:23
And that grows in three, four, 5% are all working age people.

00:24:47:23 - 00:24:51:19
In fact, very few of them are in the working age population.

00:24:52:12 - 00:24:56:13
More of them are going to be near the retirement age side of things.

00:24:56:13 - 00:24:57:02
And so

00:24:59:05 - 00:25:01:03
it could be worse.

00:25:01:08 - 00:25:03:18
But most of the states, especially when you go south

00:25:03:18 - 00:25:06:03
and when you go west, are having more growth.

00:25:06:03 - 00:25:08:23
And that most of it is around hotspots.

00:25:08:23 - 00:25:12:05
So when you see the Portland's in the Denver's in the Carolinas

00:25:12:05 - 00:25:15:18
and Austin, Texas, that's where people are going

00:25:16:12 - 00:25:20:06
and we don't necessarily have one of those in several states.

00:25:20:14 - 00:25:21:13
Minneapolis St.

00:25:21:13 - 00:25:23:16
Paul is a draw, it's a hub,

00:25:25:06 - 00:25:27:17
but that's really about the only one for Minnesota.

00:25:27:22 - 00:25:29:05
Milwaukee's trying hard.

00:25:29:05 - 00:25:31:02
Madison's doing a good job,

00:25:31:02 - 00:25:34:21
but they still don't compete with that sort of national buzz

00:25:35:04 - 00:25:38:21
about some of those other places where you might just say,

00:25:38:21 - 00:25:41:05
That looks like a cool place and that's where I'm going.

00:25:41:05 - 00:25:43:07
I'll find a job, I'll figure it out when I get there,

00:25:43:18 - 00:25:46:23
because you can do that because you know that there will be a job there right now.

00:25:47:10 - 00:25:49:18
Well, looking to the future a little bit,

00:25:49:18 - 00:25:53:07
can you give us a sneak peek on April's talent report?

00:25:53:13 - 00:25:55:23
Yeah, we're going to be looking at employee engagement,

00:25:56:09 - 00:25:58:19
and that's I know others have talked about here.

00:25:58:19 - 00:26:02:20
Last year was a really big let's go recruit, recruit recruiting fruit.

00:26:03:05 - 00:26:05:03
And I think people are going to keep doing that.

00:26:05:03 - 00:26:08:08
But in the process of doing that, you started realizing, well,

00:26:08:08 - 00:26:13:03
if I've got to recruit 20 and ten others leave, I'm only up ten.

00:26:13:03 - 00:26:14:21
And so I got to keep recruiting, recruiting.

00:26:14:21 - 00:26:19:01
So I think people are looking more at retention and we'll have Lisa Poulin,

00:26:19:09 - 00:26:20:09
who does a lot

00:26:20:09 - 00:26:24:18
of our organizational development work, talking about some of the assessments

00:26:24:18 - 00:26:27:09
you can use and trying to make sure that people are happy.

00:26:27:09 - 00:26:28:10
Employee engagement

00:26:28:10 - 00:26:32:20
surveys, finding out what's on their mind, and then trying to figure out, you know,

00:26:32:20 - 00:26:34:10
what are the benefits and what's the culture

00:26:34:10 - 00:26:36:16
and what's the structure we've got of the organization

00:26:37:01 - 00:26:39:11
that's going to have those people stay with us for the long term?

00:26:39:11 - 00:26:43:08
Because the longer that they're, the more they know and the more we need a great.

00:26:43:08 - 00:26:45:15
While looking forward to it. Yeah, I do.

00:26:45:15 - 00:26:50:05
Any other last pieces of advice or lasting comments on.

00:26:50:05 - 00:26:50:22
Sure.

00:26:51:00 - 00:26:54:08
I think people do that and just, you know, dig in and keep fighting.

00:26:55:06 - 00:26:57:05
I think the creativity is going to be key.

00:26:57:05 - 00:26:59:11
It's just, you know, it's the party.

00:26:59:11 - 00:27:03:07
It's figuring out what's the niche group that we want to go after.

00:27:03:07 - 00:27:05:23
It's finding a new place to go look for people.

00:27:06:20 - 00:27:07:22
It's not going to end.

00:27:07:22 - 00:27:10:01
And so people are going to have to just keep working at it.

00:27:10:01 - 00:27:11:11
And that's exhausting.

00:27:11:11 - 00:27:12:18
I'm sorry about that.

00:27:12:18 - 00:27:16:10
But the creative ones are winning and they're successful.

00:27:16:10 - 00:27:19:23
Yeah, well, I want to thank you for being on 30 minute Thrive today

00:27:19:23 - 00:27:22:22
and really sharing this month's talent report with us.

00:27:23:06 - 00:27:27:09
So if you liked our chat and topic today, make sure you share it with episode.

00:27:27:09 - 00:27:28:06
Leave a comment,

00:27:28:06 - 00:27:32:07
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00:27:32:12 - 00:27:35:04
We have all the resources you need in the show Notes below,

00:27:35:13 - 00:27:38:18
including Jim's bio, his LinkedIn profile.

00:27:38:18 - 00:27:43:03
So if you want to get in touch with him, I'm sure he'll be happy to chat with you.

00:27:43:15 - 00:27:44:06
Otherwise.

00:27:44:06 - 00:27:47:18
Thank you for tuning in today and we will see you next week.

00:27:47:18 - 00:27:50:13
And that wraps up our content for this episode.

00:27:50:14 - 00:27:53:18
Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect.

00:27:53:18 - 00:27:55:09
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00:27:59:05 - 00:28:04:04
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00:28:04:04 - 00:28:05:06
Thanks for tuning in

00:28:05:06 - 00:28:08:18
and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.