What do your employees really want?
Money…of course.
Time off. But of course.
Access to mentorship? Career ladder? Learning? Re or Upskilling?
Service days?
Company to back social causes?
Make political statements?
Make scientific statements about COVID or gender?
The slope gets slippery pretty quickly and thankfully the tide is turning back to be more sane…or at least what I call sane. I try to vet out people really quickly when it comes to ‘who do you want your employer to be?’
If I get any sense they are looking to me to fill a gap that a family typically helps fill I run the other way.
Two reasons.
Adults take responsibility for their decisions and make things happen. They are not kids looking for shelter or food or ______. Adults take care of others. I want a culture of caring for each other, kids worry about themselves first, and adults (should) seek to serve others.
I/we can not hire someone looking for a corporate daddy or mommy. We don’t have the time or want the burn rate of a company that hires children. Obviously, this has nothing to do with age. Adults learn on their own time and up-skill themselves. Why? If you aren’t doing that how will you take care of your family or keep your company out in front?
Do you want to learn how to code? Cool, go for it. During work hours…um no, you are in support. You can go to some of their meetings but you can choose to learn on your own time.
Do you want to build a house with co-workers? Cool, go for it but you don’t need me to do that…just go do it.
You should be able to go to work and be yourself, absolutely! You should be able to thrive, be supported, and all the other Maslow’s hierarchy essentials. Totally get it.
However, you want the company to be personified…take on your religions, political-isms, and worldview? Absolutely not…companies simply need to delight customers and have a great culture. If taking on those topics is a company’s business I bet their customers are suffering and their culture has no real basis.
