Dramatically shifting expectations

Every time you talk with employees, you'll find that they have very little in common with their senior managers. And I am not just talking about salary and bonus either. The dramatically shifting expectations on the part of employees are seldom addressed in the boardrooms of corporate Britain, America, France or Germany. Those that run our organisations are not fully in tune with the real aspirations of those they employ . This is the break point where the disconnection really begins. But the lack of belief in the corporate cant that is being disseminated (invented by leaders who don't know the full story and wouldn't necessarily believe it if they did) and the need for a fully flexible lifestyle are two time- bombs that will make it very, very difficult for companies to continue to recruit and retain successfully, especially in a talent squeeze (and there's one on its way to your neighbourhood very soon)

Of course we've been really good at disengaging our employees these last years . We've spent millions in consulting fees to find ways to cut our employees' pensions and health benefits (now there's disengagement for you) and then we say we want you to be part of our brand. We've fired thousands of people after mergers and sell-offs and our websites proclaim that one of our goals is to be an employer of choice. We've cut personal and professional development programmes to the bone and then we expect our employees to be up-to-speed and enthusiastic. Somewhere along the line, we lost most of the plot and started a new script. Trouble was we didn't explain that new script too well: or explain it at all. Employees tend on the whole to be a pretty durable lot. However, there is one thing they don't like: SURPRISES! And we are very good at cooking up a couple every week or so.

We shouldn't, therefore, be too surprised when they fail to engage with our plans.

As you will have realised, in most cases I have for the most part been referring to large corporations, with thousands of people in them. Trying to get these giants to dance (as was famously explained some years ago) is a major challenge. But that too shows that any reasonably large business has its work cut out to be a place where people want to work for any length of time.

Survey after survey shows that the preferred workplace today is small and medium enterprises (SMEs) where people say they are listened to, they do get to talk with senior managers and they do get to feel that their contribution counts. However, these organisations too are vulnerable. They are not always the Edens of employment that a casual glance might first suggest. Acquisitions and takeovers pose a constant threat, as do defections of star talent and the financial vulnerability that accompanies many in start-up or stagnant market mode. No one - no matter what category of business - is really free of the concerns of how to engage people. If you are managing in an SME, it is likely you will have less talent, less choice and less room for manoeuvre than bigger rivals. So it is equally important to understand these shifting trends whatever the size of business you are running.

Consider it this way. If you are a 100-person firm and three of your managers - even two - suddenly embark on fulfilling their real lifestyle dreams and want to quit or revise their work level commitment, you've got problems. So thinking that this only happens to big business is a very misguided view.

For this book, the aim is to be able to offer up some ideas of what well-performing companies - large, medium and small - are doing to try and replace the vacuum left by the departure of trust. And I approach the subject through the eyes of managers who need to find successful solutions in order to recruit, reward and retain their employees for at least a reasonable length of time. Well-performing operations work regardless of size or industry, but it is important to realise that it takes a great deal of hard effort to make it happen.