Reevaluating Our Response To The Great Resignation

by Ron Holifield

For the last two decades we have talked about the coming Baby Boomer Bust and our need to do something about it. Unfortunately, that is exactly what most organizations have done – talked about it. Our lack of preparation meant that the outflow of Baby Boomers was already challenging. But when COVID-19 appeared in 2020, we had no idea how intense the problem would become.

The Baby Boomer Bust, political dysfunction, and the pandemic-inspired quality-of-life reevaluations by employees at all levels have converged to create a recruitment and retention crisis in local government unlike anything we have ever experienced. We have been forced to shift from “We need to think about this” to “Oh crud what do we do NOW.” There simply is not an adequate supply of top talent ready and willing to meet the demand for positions at every level of the organization. Unfortunately it is going to get worse before it gets better.

Many organizations are reacting to the talent shortage with quickly developed succession-planning tactics, but the real answer is to think and lead strategically. Despite the pressure to “do something NOW,” the real answer is to invest the time and resources to create a sustainable culture that is aligned with organizational values. This takes longer but draws new employees at all levels to your organization and virtually eliminates the need for succession-planning programs. It is the natural byproduct of doing the things that will create an authentic and sustainable culture.

The question is not whether creating a sustainable culture will virtually eliminate the need for special succession planning programs (it will); or whether creating an authentic and sustainable culture that is aligned with our values will dramatically improve organizational performance (it will). The question is whether we have the courage and discipline, and even political will, to modify our systems so that they are actually aligned with the values we claim to hold dear.

The problem is that we have recruitment processes designed to produce apples; selection processes designed to produce oranges; onboarding processes designed to produce pears;

"Design a succession-planning program and you will incrementally improve your ability to fill vacancies as they occur. However, create an organizational lifestyle that authentically walks the talk of your desired values and behaviors, and you will transform your future and solve your recruitment and retention problems for the long term at every level of the organization."

training and development processes designed to produce bananas; promotional processes designed to produce peaches; etc. The net result is the production of a culture that can best be described as fruit cocktail, an ill-defined and mushy mixture of stuff that is the lowest common denominator of each of the individual ingredients resembling nothing that inspires passion or commitment or excellence.

When we actually modify our systems so they are all designed to produce and reinforce a consistent set of cultural values in how we recruit, assess and develop our people, values move from a bunch of words on the wall, into an authentic organizational lifestyle. Once we create an authentic organizational lifestyle, succession planning is the natural byproduct without being a “program.”

To create an organizational lifestyle that authentically walks the talk at every level, we must create a fully integrated “system of systems” that reinforces the same set of values and behavioral norms in how you recruit, assess and develop people in every position.

Key Systems for Recruiting, Assessing And Developing

Brand and Reputation Management, at first blush, does not appear to be part of the system of systems for recruiting, assessing and developing leaders. But in reality, the reputation of our organizational culture predetermines the quality of the candidate pool from which we will choose. Look at the employment sites for leading edge companies such as Netflix, Google, Apple, etc., and you will see they lead with the culture, not the specific job in question. Organizational reputation predetermines the quality of the candidate pool.

When Recruiting, the medium really is the message. Using old world ways of writing and placing job ads, telegraphs to the best and the brightest that the organization is behind the times. Using leading-edge recruitment strategies such as top-quality recruitment profile brochures, social media talent marketing, and even video to tell the story of organizational culture has a significant impact on the quality of the candidate pool.

Interviewing and Selection is one of our most consistent weak links. To do a better job of hiring, we need to start with acknowledging that we are not as good at it as we think. We are all biased to replicate ourselves, meaning that traditional interviewing and selection techniques are a really lousy predictor of actual success. There are some easy things we can do to dramatically improve our odds of hiring success including: the use of various low-cost psychometric assessments to predict job fit; diverse hiring panels; prohibiting anyone from being on a hiring panel who has not been trained to do behavioral interviewing; more sophisticated reference processes; and utilization of hiring exercise tools among other things. You only have about a 14% chance of making a great hire using traditional techniques. Succession planning begins by upping your hiring game so you are bringing more people onto the team who have high potential to rise through the organization instead of simply hiring them to do the immediate job.

New Employee Onboarding, for most organizations, is little more than filling out forms and signing a sexual harassment policy. This should be the first opportunity for us to really begin imprinting new employees with a deep understanding of the organizational lifestyle comprised of values and expectations with which they are expected to align. This will help start them on a path from compliance to commitment – the greatest determinant of whether they will succeed long term or not.

Individual Development Plans should be developed for every employee very early in their service. Using low-cost psychometric assessments to help employees understand their own career strengths and opportunities for development will make training investment far more meaningful and cost effective, and help every employee reach their full potential. This also provides a valuable baseline tool for succession planning.

Training and Developing is simultaneously incredibly underfunded AND wasted spending. The problem is that we tend to offer a lot of menu-based training that is not really developing people. To create an authentic and sustainable culture you should focus on a coherent and integrated

development program that is working a plan instead of merely offering training. Every single training class should have a red thread funning through it that reinforces a unified message regarding the organizational lifestyle of consistently demonstrated values and expected behaviors.

Aspirational Performance Coaching should be implemented so that it is forward-looking based on helping employees achieve their potential rather than our current backwards-looking and oft-manipulated employee evaluation process. This change is essential to actually developing people who are ready to be promoted to the next level of responsibility. But it will require a huge mind shift as well as altering our performance evaluation processes.

Promotional Processes are the primary focus of most succession planning programs. But the fundamental flaw in our promotional processes is tied to weaknesses in both of the last two systems. Most organizations promote people and then prepare them for the new role. If we really want to create an authentic and sustainable organizational culture, it starts with preparing people for the next rung on the ladder before promoting them. When preparing before promoting is part of an organizational lifestyle, it not only eliminates the need for special succession planning programs, but we do a better job of promoting people with much higher odds of success, and a better job of nurturing and reinforcing the desired organizational values and behaviors that ensure an organization that walks the talk.

Instilling Organizational Culture is only successful when a system of systems are actually aligned to hold people accountable to the stated values, and when employees have become convinced that their leaders (at the very top and everywhere in between) are authentically walking the talk as well. They must hear their leaders talking the talk, they must see them walking the talk, and they must believe their leaders are committed both intellectually and emotionally to the stated values.

This is an unsatisfying formula for an organization that wants a quick fix, a simple solution or a silver bullet to solve recruitment and retention problems. But whether focusing on recruitment and retention of senior executives, mid-level managers, employees just entering the job market, or laborers – it is the right solution for the long term at every level.

Design a succession-planning program and you will incrementally improve your ability to fill vacancies as they occur. However, create an organizational lifestyle that authentically walks the talk of your desired values and behaviors, and you will transform your future and solve your recruitment and retention problems for the long term at every level of the organization.

Ron Holifield, a former city manager, is CEO of Strategic Government Resources (www.GovernmentResource.com), helping local governments recruit, assess and develop innovative, collaborative, authentic leaders. His second book, 4th Dimension Leadership: a Radical Strategy for Creating an Authentic Servant Leadership Culture, is available on Amazon. Contact Ron at Ron@ GovernmentResource.com.