The War FOR Talent Became The War ON Talent
It was somewhat of a seismic shift in the last, say, 15-30 years.
I’ve heard quite a bit about “employer value proposition” — sometimes also called “employee value proposition” — over the last 5–8 years. I honestly have very little idea what it means, because to most people, work is truly about making ends meet and it’s not so much about purpose. Purpose is awesome, but it also shouldn’t be “the point” of work, because so many jobs are devoid of it. If you think a job is supposed to help you chase purpose, you’d end up depressed in many jobs you end up taking.
Well, here’s a recent deep dive on EVP, including this graphic:
So you see here:
Material
Connection/Community
Meaning/Purpose
Growth and Development
I like these broad buckets, sure. “Material” and “Growth/Development” mean similar things here; very few people take courses or try to learn at a job unless they think they can make more money or get on a new track by doing so. That’s just reality. Connection and community is good, although you need to be careful about it. If work becomes too much of your community, i.e. “work is family,” that’s dicey too. We saw some of that during early COVID.
Again, meaning and purpose? Nice to have. Not a need to have. I would rather pay my bills and feel “successful” or “like a provider” at some shitty job than have a purposeful job where I’m broke 11 of 12 months per year. That’s just me. Maybe my morals are in the wrong place.
Rather than chasing these consultant-driven models, here’s how I might think about the supposed “talent” game.
1998 was when McKinsey released a paper on “the war for talent.” To the best of my knowledge, 1998 was about 24 years ago. In the intervening time, we’ve had much less a war for talent — i.e. getting good people — and much more a war on talent, i.e. alienating the hell out of job-seekers. That’s not good. Let’s explore briefly, shall we?
“The war for talent” is a buzzword
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