Attract and retain young talent? Apply the TSC (trust, support, and care) strategy!
When talking to CEOs and HR managers, many of them are struggling in the current economic context with two significant challenges: on the one hand finding, attracting and retaining talent that can push their organization to a higher level and on the other hand ,ensure that the group of existing employees does not fail due to stress or burnout, increase the involvement of those employees and look for the best ways to succeed.
At the same time, other factors also play a role, including the fact that several generations are now working simultaneously within organizations that have grown up in a different way and in actively evolving social context. Generation Z, for example, is well aware of the fact that organizations can no longer afford only to seek the maximum profit. The youngest generation also requires a strong social commitment from their employer that goes beyond paying lip service to people and the environment.
Organizations that cannot live up to that risk to see the lack of involvement - the annual Gallup figures continue to be harrowing in that regard - increasing. With all its consequences, because then productivity and profit decrease, and the focus must again go to earning more so that the desired social involvement falls even more. What can managers and HR departments do about this?
According to the American generation watcher Ryan Jenkins, author of the book The Millenial Manual, they must first of all realize that young people born after 1995 and now entering the labor market view work differently from the generations that preceded them. The most important thing they expect from a job is "supportive leadership.” Jenkins refers to studies that indicate that a quarter of Generation Z's American youth are not willing to accept a job if they do not experience that supportive leadership. There are no reasons to believe that this would be different here.
Support by managers is the most essential and crucial factor in contributing to the well-being of employees. "The three most important leadership characteristics to convince young people and thus play out in employer branding,” he says, "are Trust, Support and Care. Those who can best embrace this TSC strategy will also be able to attract and engage the most talented younger employees."
Leadership expert and bestselling author Patrick Lencioni supports him in this. According to him, it is still the case at many companies and organizations that managers and supervisors are making too little effort to get to know their youngest employees, to listen to their stories and wishes, and to start a dialogue with them. They still do not realize enough that the growth and profit they are pursuing - even if that happens with the noblest intentions to, for example, provide more employment and give jobs to disadvantaged groups - will be easier to achieve if they are based on an attitude in which the relationship between people is given a thorough insight into what their employees really expect from their job.
According to Jenkins, several prejudices, in particular, prevent them from taking the right path in this area. For example, they fear the perception that they will interfere too much in the private lives of their employees. The employees can, however, correctly set the limit themselves, and all surveys show that they feel much better if "the boss" also indicates an interest in their private life. Footballers also say in interviews that their best trainers are the "people managers," who look beyond tactics and game systems but also have an ear for the man behind the player. Furthermore, managers often think that it will take too much time if they want to enter an in-depth dialogue with employees. "But, of course," Jenkins says, "it takes even more time to recruit and train new employees again because those who were first recruited passive don't feel at home in the workplace." He also wipes out the argument that work and life remain two separate worlds. After all, it is an irreversible evolution that work and life are increasingly intertwined. The work/life balance discussed in this way will become an anachronism in the eternal future.
Trust, support and care that are supported throughout the organization and that not only consist of actions that are merely window dressing for the gallery, are the key to making the youngest employees go whistling to work, achieving good results and in this way retaining resources to also respond to the sustainability requirements of the youngest generation.
