The battle for highly skilled employees is tight. While tech companies and firms in large markets have used pay, amazing benefits and career growth to create magnetic workplaces; traditional and smaller companies have found other ways to compete.
The recent increase in paid maternity leave, extended paternity leave and flexible work schedules and locations are all indicators of organizations’ desires to attract and keep their skilled workforce.
Underlying all of this talent management is a critical component: the significant other.
While we are very willing to talk about benefits, work-life balance, and salary during the negotiation we rarely (and often with good reason) do not talk about the important people in the candidate’s life and how that affects his or her decision making. Here are a few tips for understanding and incorporating the spouse factor into hiring and retention.
Recruiting, retention and relocation?
Jane Stevenson, global leader of CEO succession at Korn Ferry has researched, written and spoken about the role of spouses in recruiting. As a woman who put her husband’s career first then shifted to focus on hers, she has also had direct experience relocating, restarting and re-centering her career.
Because of her career path, she is able to creatively look at options for her candidates and genuinely show them that while the opportunity may involve a shift in the couple’s dynamic, it may also help them both and is not necessarily forever. Her insight and ability to use her own experience to stay open to the needs of her candidates is something hiring managers in any organization can do.
Who’s bringing home the bacon, tonight?
Landing these employees is one thing, keeping them happy and productive is another. In her book, “Couples that Work,” associate professor of organizational behavior Jennifer Petriglieri, focusing on dual-career, highly skilled couples, explains both the employer and employee sides of this equation.
Employers, to retain this highly skilled talent, must stop acting as if employees exist in a vacuum. Instead of looking at the employee in isolation and providing advancement advice and support as if they were a single person with no outside interests, companies must recognize that employees make decisions that incorporate variables other than their current employer.
Employees, on the other hand, must understand the key components in making sound decisions about their careers. To this end, Petriglieri explains the three transitions dual-career couples go through and how to successfully navigate each one. Specifically, she recommends couples at all phases are clear on their values; discuss their boundaries (geography and time); and their fears of the future or regrets of the past.
Couples that engage in active discourse around these areas are better fit to make sound career decisions. To support them, employers can provide reading material, coaching or employee assistance programs to help facilitate these discussions for highly skilled workers and their significant others.
Next steps
Whether an employee is single, married or has 10 kids, they can and should have interests outside of work. Competitive workplaces find a way to acknowledge and support that thereby better positioning themselves to attract and retain talented employees.
The bottom line is, by finding a way to incorporate the importance of significant others in the offer process, culture and work environment, organizations of all sizes have the ability to attract and retain highly skilled employees.
