It s the geography, stupid


It's the geography, stupid!

Earlier I referred to the disaster that one firm visited upon itself by not taking into account employees ' expectations and forcing them to make the choice of changing lifestyle or leaving (they chose the latter). This emphasises the fact that location plays a huge role in a company's ability to acquire true commitment. That particular firm actually moved to really great offices. The fact that you could see cows grazing from the windows rather than the line of trendy restaurants they had left behind in Covent Garden simply underlined that, not only had they lost the plot, they never had one to begin with. In the last few weeks I have witnessed two new recruits at a major headquarters quit after week one because they were taking up to an hour to leave the firm's car park at rush hour . This was something they were not prepared to put up with and they moved on. Certainly the sheer drudgery of commuting into most major cities (not to mention the cost) means that if other opportunities arise, employees are more likely to take the plunge and leave. Once again it depends on what sort of employees you want and what their expectations are.

Single people have no real desire (well not many anyway) to live and work in the middle of nowhere. It just isn't practical for the lifestyle they have chosen to lead. They naturally congregate where there are more people like themselves . This doesn't mean that single people only want to live and work in major cities where worklife and nightlife are great. You will have seen for yourself that there are thousands of single young people filling jobs in resorts from Fort Lauderdale to Faro. But again this is the lifestyle option they have chosen for a certain, probably limited, period of time. Some of them may possibly stay forever, others will move on. But their experiences and new, emerging, expectations will mean that they will rarely return to their roots. So as employers , we have to be clear about the type of people we want and we have to be sure that our location ensures a ready supply of that type of person. Then we have to be confident that we can create an employment offer that is attractive and lasting .

When times are harsh people will take anything they can. When times are good, the choices multiply. If we are to engage and excite people we must have a really good proposition and be prepared to adapt it quickly and radically if necessary.




The New Rules of Engagement(c) Life-Work Balance and Employee Commitment
Performance Tuning for Linux(R) Servers
ISBN: N/A
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 131

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