Talent

It isn’t a game of two halves

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I’ve written before about my dislike for sporting analogies in business. I’d argue that hiring ex sports people to come and speak to your management teams is the prime example of leadership development as a placebo. Very few are prepared or experienced enough to make the translation of their knowledge into the world of work, mainly because very few have lived in that world. Think of it the other way around, how many of you would suggest drafting in a CEO to speak to your favourite sporting team on the eve of their most important contest? If the knowledge and experience was that transferable, it would make absolute sense. And yet it doesn’t, because it isn’t.

Most sporting contests have a clear beginning, middle and end. Whether it is a triathlon, a football game, the pole vault, sailing around the world, or ice skating. There is a defined structure to it that includes a start, an end and an expected period of time. If you have a shocking race, match, tournament or competition, you get to go again at the next one and in most cases the slate is entirely wiped clean when you do so. You get to train, research and perfect your performance in a non-competition environment before you enter the live environment and perfect any set pieces, moves or manoeuvres time and time again.

By contrast, business never stops and is always live. As a business leader your practice is pretty much wholly in the live environment and your mistakes aren’t mostly behind closed doors but in front of the people that you will come in and be with every day of the working week – time and time again. You don’t get to go again, unless you leave the organisation – but even then your reputation will often follow you – and there is no resetting of the time, the score or the points.

My intention isn’t to make a qualitative assessment of one against the other, merely to say that they’re different and require different approaches, a different mindset and a different focus. Sport can learn from business as business can learn from sport but neither is a panacea for the other. But recognising the differences can also help us focus on the things that we need to do better as leaders.

If we recognise we are always on, then we need to recognise that people will see us falter and fall and we need to embrace that as a strength not a weakness. If we recognise that every day is the real thing, that there is no rehearsal, then we can forgive ourselves when we aren’t our best, learn from it and move on. And if we recognise that there is no beginning or end, we can view our leadership as a journey rather than a competition – one that will have highs and lows and many bits in between.

The talent you need is all around you

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Keen observers will know that I have a particular dislike for the made up, “Great Resignation”. I’d go as far to say that it put up a good challenge to “The War for Talent”, “The New Normal” and anything involving the word, “Disruption” to be the most vacuous phrase that has ever dribbled out of the side of a mouth. And whilst the context is different, the commonality between all of these soundbites is the lack of understanding and analysis that goes with their use. They’re just repeated mindlessly by the mindless.

There is no doubt that the labour market has been through a period of change. It was dormant for nearly two years, so it should come as no surprise that when it started up again it would behave in a less balanced way than before the pandemic. And there is no doubt that people have made different decisions over the last couple of years based on their experience during the pandemic period. That said, I have little time for anyone bemoaning the lack of talent.

Almost three quarters of a million young people are not in education, employment or training (NEET), around 350,000 people of working age with a disability are unemployed, single parents are twice as likely as unemployed as those in a couple, refugee unemployment rates are up to three times the national average, and only 25% of men and 20% of women leave the criminal justice system with any type of employment.

The idea that in all of these groups, in all these statistics there is a void of talent – well frankly it simply doesn’t add up. And whilst I know it is hard and I know it is unusual, as leaders of organisations we cannot overlook the opportunity that exists to create meaningful work for people and to mitigate the risk of the skills shortages we have created for ourselves through a lack of strategic workforce planning.

This isn’t about corporate responsibility, or employability programmes, whilst neither are among in and amongst themselves. This is about the search for talent and about the performance and productivity of our organisations. You can read more about it here.

You should always be free to leave

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I’m not sure about you, but when I think back to my early twenties I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. I ended up studying a postgraduate and entering into the world of HR mostly based on the advice of friends and family. I figured that if it didn’t work out, I could leave and do something else. Fortunately, it turned out to be the right career.

Having seen my son entering into the world of work last year, much of his experience has been similar to mine. A vague idea of the kinds of stuff that he likes doing and is good at. Less certain about what he wants to do and where he wants to do it. But an understanding that his first job won’t be his last job and that he will work for good and employers and sometimes have to move on. I’m sure neither he nor I are particularly unique.

But imagine if the mistake you made in choosing your first job meant that you had to pay off thousands of pounds in “debt” for “training” that didn’t lead to any formal qualifications. Of course it would all be in the small print of the contract, you’d have signed to say you accepted it, but how many of us in our 20s would either read the agreements to that level of detail, or be so cynical to imagine it would all go horribly wrong so quickly?

Unfortunately that’s the case for hundreds of young people every year who are approached by companies offering them placements with prestigious brands and training that can take as little as a few weeks but result in an obligation to repay tens of thousand of pounds if they leave before the fixed term of their “graduate scheme”. These companies have been highlighted as part of a campaign by Tanya de Grunwald. The stories shared by individuals trapped on these schemes is shocking and resonates with some of the personal stories I’ve also heard, where even in the case of some of the most personal and disruptive life events, the exit fees have been applied and legally enforced.

This is very different to the study aid that most organisations offer to employees who have been in their service for a number of years. Someone who has time to understand the company and the work before making a personal choice to undertake study for a qualification and commitment to repayment in the case they leave. These are young people at one of the most anxious and vulnerable points in their lives making a multi thousand pound commitment without knowing anything about the company or the work and then being threatened by lawyers and debt collectors if they leave. And of course this disproportionately impacts those without the family support or connections to fully understand the implications of the contract.

Exit fees aren’t illegal, although you can make a good argument that they should be, and these organisations can argue they’re doing nothing wrong and that the contracts are set out and explained. And whilst client companies are willing to contract with them, then the practice is legitimatised. But in a world where big organisations sign up to the Living Wage, Social Mobility pledges and employability programmes it feels pretty incongruous that at the same time they’re facilitating a modern version of bonded labour.

Which is why, if you’re running an organisation it is worth checking out whether you’re supporting this kind of activity and whether you think it reflects the values of your organisation or whether your commitments to society stop before they come to the actions of your supply chain. If you’re interested and want to do something about it you can find out more and sign up to the campaign here.

Building the future

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Rarely a week goes by without a headline or story about a particular skills shortage, last week in the UK it was the film industry but you can add to that IT skills, freight drivers and even lawyers – heaven forbid. And whilst, like most of our news stories these days, there is an element of hyperbole and “story making”, there is also a common link. That is organisations’ collective inability to properly invest in future skills.

With the exception of an extreme event – pandemic, ash cloud, insurrection to name but a few – businesses would be deemed to be negligent if they failed to build resilience into their supply chain and as a result were unable to deliver their core product or service. Supermarket supply chains were such a big story exactly because we are so used to turning up in our local shop and finding everything that we have on our shopping list. The planning and thought that goes into the supply chain far outweighs anything that organisations commit to the workforce planning. And yet “people are [their] greatest asset”.

The abundance of routes into qualification now have never been better or of a higher standard. Add to that that organisations in the UK are already paying into the apprenticeship levy, it begs the question what stands in the way of better, more thoughtful planning and resilience in the workforce planning? When HR teams (in particular) talk about wanting to be more strategic and having more influence at the “top table”, then you have to ask why they aren’t championing this more successfully? How many really understand the broader skills horizon versus just hoping that their latest recruitment campaign or family friendly policy will solve their current issues?

Our job should not only be to meet the current needs, but to anticipate and protect the supply for the future. That means we need to understand not only future needs, but likely supply, the demographic and geographical challenges of our markets and look to build the interventions now that may not serve us, but will be gratefully received by those that follow. That’s the proper work, the strategic work that we want to do and yet, when there is the opportunity, too often fail to take up. But what if we did?