Attracting New Talent

It’s a bold new world out there. Not just a new world for young adults either, it’s a new world for most of us in the working world. Most of the traditional job markets are having a difficult time attracting young employees and fresh talent into our workplaces. Why is that?

Are younger employees disloyal?

The rising stars of today are smart, talented, tech-savvy, and some would say they have less loyalty to employers than their predecessors. I tend to disagree with a few of those assumptions. The talented youth of today are not only tech-savvy but more job savvy than we were at their age. They have less tolerance for poor management and feeling unappreciated.

I’ve heard colleagues tell of how the youth of today are lazy and think everything is owed to them. I lay that on their parents. Our generation gave them more and asked less in return. We were probably not as good at parenting compared to our parent’s generation – as a whole… but that’s just one hypothesis.

They need to know we value them

We all need to feel important, valued, and that we are contributing to the mission and goals of our organization. The hierarchy that fails to empower their employees and stands behind them is one where problems dwell.

Do we show our appreciation to everyone on our staff that makes our lives easier? I’m talking about the really important people. The people we would notice if they were not there to do their jobs. You may know them as:

• Housekeeping
• Maintenance
• Administrative Assistants
• Secretaries
• Clerks

Centers of Influence

We should also focus on our informal leaders, the regular staff who are held in high regard and have a realm of influence that many in management do not realize. You may know them as – Senior Field Staff, Training Officers, and others. These people have influence over our policy and procedures, and how everything within our organizations is carried out.

We must secure buy-in these centers of influence if we are to get buy-in from the people of our organizations.

Use the unofficial leaders

It is this behavior that also forces us to look at our new hires and see how they might fit in. They will all need some on the job training for familiarization until they feel comfortable. They will also need a mentor. Hopefully, you can pair up a suitable mentor to facilitate their integration into your culture and we can all improve by their assimilation – growing as a whole by learning from their skillset and knowledge.

Let them fly

They could have radical ideas that could dramatically improve operations, just because we had not thought of an idea before.

The next generation is more comfortable with implementing technological solutions than we are, as they grew up with this level of technology. Our generation adapted to it while they are native to its use. This gives us quite an advantage if we are to utilize the ideas they bring forth, no matter how resistant we may be -as it does solve a problem without generating others of consequence.

Fish for talent. You may get a bite.

We need to up our game. Improve our online integration and outreach to pull in the youth of today. We can no longer employ archaic methods of paper applications and traditional mail to get the job done. We need to go out and get them. Using job fairs, web videos, web applications, social media, and others that will help us leverage our offerings. It takes effort and proper integration to attract and hold on to the new breed.

It is up to us to bring our agencies along. The younger breed does not want to work in an environment where the technology is 20 years behind the times. They want cutting edge tools and operational methods that will make their lives easier and better. This also has the potential to translate to better patient outcomes. Use them to help with the research. They can use some of their energy to show us how we can improve.

We need them, and they need us. They just don’t know it yet.