70 is the new 50?

Overheard from one of the talking heads on CNBC this morning in the context of a discussion on the potential candidates for new CEO of Microsoft: (Note: I am paraphrasing the below exchange as best as I can from memory, as I was still a bit groggy waiting for the coffee to brew).

Host - Now how do you feel about Alan Mulally from Ford to be the next Microsoft CEO?

Expert guest - I think he'd be fantastic. He's done an amazing job at Ford, he has ties to the Seattle area, and would be able to turn around that company.

Host - But is he able to take that job and do it well for say another 7 years? Isn't he something like 68 years old now? (Note: Mr. Mulally was born on August 4, 1945 making him, indeed, 68 years old).

Expert guest - Sure he could. Why not? 70 is the new 50 after all.

(Chuckles around the table).

Except that it really is not all that funny.

The issue really isn't whether or not Alan Mullally would in fact make an excellent CEO for Microsoft and even at 68 years old still has the energy, drive, good health, mental agility, etc. necessary to succeed in such a big, complex job. 

Rather, to me, what made me stop what I was doing and shake off my still-waiting-for-the-coffee early morning stupor was the really casual way in which none of the show's other participants really pushed back on the notion that '70 is the new 50'.

Is that really accurate? And is that how folks working today need to contemplate their working lives? Planning for a future where you will need to (or be expected to), be churning out the widgets at 70?

To me this is not some long term trend playing out over decades and decades, it seems much more like a one generation shift. 

I suspect most of the folks reading this blog are in what we'd consider their 'prime' working years, probably between 35 and 55. And probably most of the folks can look back just one generation, to their parents, and see how the arc of their professional lives looked much, much different and sets up in contrast to the '70 is the new 50' point of view.

And since I don't know your specific story, I will share mine, (and assume it resonates, if not, please share in the comments).

My Mom was mostly a stay at home Mom until the kids were older and two of the three of us were out of the house. She then had a few different part-time jobs, a couple that she really liked, but then opted out of the workforce for good at about 55 or so. 

My Dad, after leaving the Army, worked for one company his entire professional career, held various management and administrative roles, and retired for good at about 62 years old, (and was 'ready' to retire way before that).

I suspect the stories of your parents are similar. And I'd also suspect at least for many of us today, we expected our stories to play out along similar lines. But it does seem that, in just one generation or so, these expectations, borne out of a combination of economic necessity and some measure of changing cultural and societal pressures, are being rapidly altered.

The talking head on CNBC might have been (kind of) joking when he said '70 is the new 50.'

But let's pretend for a moment it was not a joke, and it really is more representative of how more and more of our careers will look.

Are we ready for that?

Are our organizations ready for that?

Will you ever see your Grandkids while they are still young enough to spoil?

Employee of the Week - '75 Stingray Edition

I am not a huge car guy, (some close friends might know that recently I flirted with purchasing a sweet white 2003 Ford Crown Victoria because I thought it would be fun to cruise the freeway and have everyone I approached from behind think I was actually a State Trooper, but I digress), but I found this recent story about the intersection of car culture and employee recognition and rewards pretty fun.

In Michigan, home of the American auto industry, a chimney sweeping and cleaning company named Doctor Flue has put a new spin on the traditional 'Employee of the Week/Month' certificate or plaque on the office wall and replaced it with, get this, use of a 1975 Corvetter Stingray that the selected employee will have use of for the week of their recognition.

Additionally, the Stingray has been fitted with a custom car wrap in the Doctor Flue corporate colors, and has a vanity licence plate that reads 'My Week.' So as the employee of the week rides down the road showing off the '75 'Vette he or she will help spread the corporate message and brand, and also to help promote Doctor Flue as a fun and rewarding place to work. 

I don't want to make too much of this story, I did think it was kind of interesting and fun and that is why I decided to post about it on the blog today. But it does give us another reminder of what should be pretty obvious and apparent but often is not - that many of the time-honored and traditional ways that our organizations try and recognize and reward employees could benefit from a fresh dose of creativity and new thinking.

Getting a mention and a kudo in the company 'all-hands' meeting or having your name etched onto a plaque that hangs on the wall in the corporate lobby is nice. It's even pretty cool. And lots of companies still do those kinds of things.

Cruising down the road for a week in a custom 1975 Corvette Stingray with 'My Week' on the tag is much, much cooler. You'd spend the entire week talking to people about the car, where you work, how you came to get use of the car, etc.  You'd probably be really proud of both where you work and what you specifically accomplished to garner the recognition and reward. No one drives around town waving their 'Employee of the Month' certificate out of the window.

And that is pretty cool.

Happy Wednesday.

The Celtics, Coaching, and Compensation

The Boston Celtics shocked the professional sports world earlier this week when they named Butler University Men's Basketball Coach Brad Stevens to be their new Head Coach, replacing the recently departed long time coach Doc Rivers.

The signing of Stevens as the C's new on-court leader was notable and surprising on several levels:

• None of the NBA writers or pundits seemed to have Stevens named as a potential replacement for Rivers or even in a fuzzy, 'sources say' kind of way

• Stevens has no prior NBA experience as an assistant coach or a player, the most common kind of experience possessed by first-time NBA head coaches

• There has been a recent history of failure at the NBA level for a number of very high profile college coaches, i.e. success in college coaching hasn't not been carrying over to the NBA

• Stevens, at 36, immediately becomes the youngest head coach in the NBA

• And finally, while at Butler for the last six seasons, Stevens' teams had success, including reaching the National Title game twice, (losing on both occasions), he had not reached the 'top' of the college coaching ranks reserved for the leaders of most historic and storied programs like Duke, Kentucky, or North Carolina.

All in all, the announcement of Stevens, by all accounts an excellent coach and still rising star in the profession was one that took nearly everyone off guard. And it may or may not work out for the Celtics and Stevens, but dig just a little deeper into the details of the deal, and the former coach Rivers' contract, and then it begins to make more sense from a pure Talent Management perspective.

The Celtics are a team that is in rebuilding mode - they recently traded away two of their most highly paid and best performing players Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets, and rumors are circling that their other key franchise player Rajon Rondo might be next to be shipped off. The team clearly wants to build around some younger players and hopes to utilize the increased number of draft picks acquired in the recent trade with the Nets to stockpile more young, (and importantly, cheaper), talent.

And in essentially trading Rivers, the former head coach who has over 12 years experience as an NBA head coach and led the Celtics to the NBA Championship in 2008, for the much less experienced Stevens, the C's also give us all in the talent game a lesson and reminder of the tradeoffs that organizations have to make when chasing talent, and more importantly, aligning the talent strategy to the business and organizational reality.

Rivers with his years of experience, demonstrated success in the job, and reputation amongst the players was a very highly compensated coach - he had 3 years and $21 million remaining on his Celtics contract. At $7M per season, that is the kind of compensation that elite NBA head coaches can expect.

Stevens, by comparison, signed for 6 years and $22 million. Still a lot of scratch, but by NBA head coaching standards not so much. 

You pay Rivers, or similar, $7 million a year because he is a proven championship coach. These are incredibly hard to find. But the Celtics are not going to be a championship-caliber team next season, and probably for two or three more after that. They are essentially starting over after six or seven years of really high-level, title-contending play. Paying an elite-level coach top of the market compensation in this scenario makes no sense. It's wasted money (not to mention Rivers himself losing interest in the club as well).

So you make the smart move - bet on a younger coach, hopefully on the rise, at half the salary of the last guy knowing that in the next couple of years anyway, his inexperience in the role won't matter too much because the team isn't ready to contend.  Maybe it works out, and the Celtics look like geniuses for locking up a great coach at a bargain rate.

But the key here is the Celtics know who they are right now. For all their storied history and many championships over the years, they are not an elite team at the moment. And that fed into the call and the decision to release their elite coach, some of their elite players, and move in a new (and cheaper) direction.

All organizations say they want to attract and retain the 'best' talent. But sometimes doing what is necessary to land the 'best' talent doesn't make sense from a broader organizational context. And when you need to move off what is needed to land the top talent in terms of compensation, then you also likely need to think more expansively and creatively about who you can bring in. Maybe you place a bet on an up-and-comer. Maybe you don't worry so much about '10 years experience doing exactly the same job'.

Maybe you find a way to land the next star employee before the competition does.

You have to know who you are, and make talent decisions accordingly.

Have a great weekend!

Your Top Ten Most Wanted Recruits

Earlier this week the FBI announced the capture of one of the fugitives on its 'Top Ten Most Wanted' list, a man named Walter Williams, who had been sought for a number of accused crimes and interestingly had only been named as a 'Top Ten Most Wanted' person one day prior to his capture.  The surge in attention and interest in Williams' case once he was placed on the Top Ten list was considered the primary reason for his rapid arrest, but even at one day, he doesn't get the distinction as being the 'fastest to be apprehended after making the Top Ten' - back in 1969 a man was captured a mere two hours after being named to the list.

Overall, including the now in custody Williams, a total of 500 people have been on this list over the years, with 94% of them eventually getting captured. And while not all of that success can be directly attributed to the attention and following upsurge in tips and calls from the public that generally stem from a case being featured on the list, it certainly has become an extremely effective tool and mechanism for the FBI to bring widespread attention and focus on individual fugitives, and does in most cases lead to their capture.Excellent.

The Top Ten Most Wanted list is successful as a policing tool because it is well known, it rallies the public behind an important cause, there are often monetary rewards attached to successful apprehensions, and finally, and I think most importantly, it is extremely precise in what it asks. The FBI asks the public for help in finding specific, named individuals. They provide the most recent picture of the fugitive that they can. They publish the relevant details of the fugitive's back story to help paint a more full picture of what citizens should be on the watch for.

Simply put, the FBI  asks for help in finding this very person - not someone like him or her, or someone that might have a similar background as someone else unrelated to the case but may be more familiar, or even to find someone who would have been likely to do the same kinds of things that the Top Ten fugitive is accused of doing.

What's the point you might be wondering? (If you have hung on this far, and thank you if you have).

It's that when most organizations go about hiring, and particularly when they try to engage their exisiting employees in the hiring process via referral programs, they are usually not at all precise about what they are looking for. They ask open and murky questions like, 'Do you know anyone who might be a good fit here?' or 'We need to add a few more engineers - here is the job description - do you know anyone who has that kind of background?'

Only in pretty rare circumstances do we or can we engage the organization's current employees to help in finding and attracting specific individuals or can provide candidate profiles that are so precise that employees themselves can more easily identify potential candidates on their own. It would be pretty cool if instead of asking employees to do the kinds of mental and historical exercises that are required to actually succeed at providing hireable referrals, we instead could post a list of Top Ten 'most wanted' recruits like the FBI does.

HR or Recruiting could then slap the list up on the break room wall next to the minimum wage laws poster with a big sign that reads 'Know any of these people? Help deliver one of them to XYZ Corp and a $10,000 reward is yours'.

Could you even create that kind of list do you think? Or maybe you have it already - the Top 10 dream recruits you'd love to convince to come to your organization. And if you do have that kind of a list, is it tucked away in a file on your PC or in a folder of your ATS or is it plastered all over the company in hopes of enlisting your 'public's' help?

Happy Thursday.

Follow-up: Big Data for HR - what do you make of this?

Yesterday I took about 550 words to say essentially this : Once your CEO decides that 'Big Data' is the next big thing to upskill your organization's talent level it is on you as an HR or Talent pro to make that happen. (It was in the Times you know).

One of the ways, besides the more obvious ones like 'Invest in some new technology' or 'Take a statistics course' is to challenge yourself to starting thinking differently about information and data (and not the typical data you might be used to considering) and what it might or might not mean for your organization and your talent game.

Here's an example of what I mean pulled from a recent Business Insider piece on some data around student loan debt load and default rates by State, (and let's assume for the purposes of this exercise that college recruiting and hiring is an important part of your workforce planning).

Chart 1 - Average Student Loan Debt

Dang, that doesn't look good anywhwere, but student debt loads seem particularly high in certain states and regions. Let's take this one more step.

Chart 2 - Average Student Loan Delinquency Rates

Interesting - not perfect alignment between the states with the highest average student loan levels and the highest default rates. But nevertheless, there are some pretty large sections of the country with average default rates at 15% or more. So the exercise is this - what, if anything would or should you do with data like this, (incomplete as it is, bear with me, it's just an example to make us think).

What if you are recruiting college grads or soon-to-be grads in the parts of the country with the highest debt loads and default rates?

Would that change your approach at all to things like signing bonuses or retention schemes that have an element of student loan repayment built in?

Would you formulate a plan for more strategic counter-offers for your younger talent that is likely to be much more receptive to make a jump to a competitor for even a small bump in salary?

Would you consider overpaying in the first few years for the best college grads knowing that some or even most of them have pretty significant financial worries outside of work?

Would you make access to a financial planner or accountant part of your signing package?

Or would you do nothing at all?

The point to all this is not really the student loan data, but rather to raise just one possibility of the potential and challenge that big data holds for you as a Talent pro, and to try and illustrate that using data to your advantage is likely going to require not just technical skills, but the ability to think differently about what drives your business.

And like we established yesterday, since it hit the Times, you can't pretend it doesn't matter for much longer.