I'm always impressed to see the plaques recognizing 25, 30, and sometimes 50-year employees of construction firms. People are the core of a construction company, and their collective experience and reputation is critical to winning new work and delivering high-quality projects safely, on time, and on budget. A very critical success factor for any company is its ability to innovate. This comes from employee knowledge, and more specifically from the orchestrated collective knowledge across the employee base, from the tenured to the rookies.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that millennials will make up the majority of the workforce by 2015, with 75% representation by 2030. Members of this generation are not as loyal to employers as baby boomers approaching retirement. A 20-something project manager will be driven by access to ‘cool’ projects and the latest technology to enable her ability to innovate and accelerate her contributions, so the question becomes: will she find this at your company or your competitor’s? Millennials also have higher expectations for what their employers provide beyond a paycheck; for example training and education, continuous feedback, specific goals, and well-defined opportunities for advancement.
Companies such as Bechtel are attracting, developing, and retaining top talent with the following best practices, managed by SuccessFactors.
- Workforce analytics to find and keep top performers
- Succession planning processes at all levels that evolve with your business and workforce
- Individual goal and performance plans that are in sync with strategy that you employees will use.
- Automated recruitment processes so more time can be spent on recruitment strategy
- Integrated training and development plans with performance appraisals better aligning these to improve the other.
- Ensure continual engagement with intuitive self-service mobile access
What will your long-tenured employee list look like in 25 years? And more importantly, what are you doing to make sure it will be longer than ever? Contact me for complimentary access to Value Lifecycle Manager, SAP's globally-recognized database of key performance indicators and best practices for talent management, and to find out where you stand in comparison to your peers.
Carson Diltz
Senior Principal, SAP Industry Value Engineering
Twitter: CarsonDiltz
Email: carson.diltz@sap.com
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