Purpose Driven Employment

PURPOSE DRIVEN EMPLOYMENT

Attracting and retaining the workforce of tomorrow

By Paul Comfort, Esq., Transit Evangelist

We are today in a new world where literally for the first time in a long time there are more jobs available than applicants looking for work. (https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/05/news/economy/job-openings-unemployed-workers/index.html) Across industries top talent is hard to find and even harder to keep.  Times are so tight that you shouldn’t be surprised if good managers at your agency/company are receiving calls from job recruiters telling them that staying at your agency or company is keeping their wages depressed and they need to test the market. There are venture financed companies willing to pay top dollar to top talent and you may only be nurturing them to spread their wings and fly.

What about your front line employees? In our industry these are the bus drivers and mechanics, the customer service representatives, the street supervisors, the radio technicians the IT staff, the back office administrative team in Human Resources, Finance, Procurement, Legal, Marketing and Grants. How are you recruiting for these key positions and retaining them after you spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours training them?

Today’s environment requires more than the traditional pay and benefits discussion with applicants. They also want more than just meaningful work in a conducive environment and a career plan that includes development and opportunities for advancement.    

This used to be enough to attract great talent. But now particularly the Millennial generation (born between 1980 – 2000) wants to know that the organization/business they are working for is actually doing good for society. They want to know your company/agency purpose and how it ties into their desire for meaning in life and work.  Many want their vocation to be intertwined with their avocation.

“Today’s Millennials are just as interested in how a business develops its people and its contribution to society as they are in its products and profits” said Barry Salzberg, CEO of Deloitte Global in a LinkedIn Study titled Purpose – A Practical Guide. LinkedIn and Imperative’s 2016 Global Report on Purpose at Work is the largest study so far on the role of purpose in the workforce. Surveying 26,000 LinkedIn members, it found that purpose-driven professionals consistently outperform their peers who work primarily for money or achievement. Also in a recent LinkedIn survey, nearly half of these employees said they would consider taking a job with lower pay if it meant they could work for a company that makes a positive impact on people’s lives and society.  In other words they are putting their money where their heart is.

After the Millennials, there is a new generation just entering the workforce. They are called Generation Z or Gen Zers. These young people were born after 2000 and they are a big generation. The latest statistics show that this cohort will make up 32% of the global population of 7.7 billion in 2019. So there will be more of this group than Millennials, who will account for a 31.5 percent share, based on Bloomberg analysis of United Nations data, and using 2000/2001 as the generational split. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-20/gen-z-to-outnumber-millennials-within-a-year-demographic-trends)

Gen Zers have never known a non-digital world (e.g. what’s a land line?) and they have grown up amid events such as the "war on terror" and after the Global Recession. They have always used streaming music, don’t remember VCRs, grew up on Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber music, Snapchat is their social media of choice along with maybe Instagram but definitely not Facebook. 

Another study outlining the differences between the four current generations from the Pew Research Center Technology noted recently (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/defining-generations-where-millennials-end-and-post-millennials-begin/) the rapid evolution of how people communicate and interact, is another generation-shaping consideration. They state that “Baby Boomers (born 1945-1964) grew up as television expanded dramatically, changing their lifestyles and connection to the world in fundamental ways. Generation X grew up as the computer revolution was taking hold, and Millennials came of age during the internet explosion.”

Gen Zers have had all of this as the backdrop for their lives. As the Pew Report continued, “the iPhone launched in 2007, when the oldest Post-millenials (Gen Zers) were 10. By the time they were in their teens, the primary means by which young Americans connected with the web was through mobile devices, WiFi and high-bandwidth cellular service. Social media, constant connectivity and on-demand entertainment and communication are innovations Millennials adapted to as they came of age. For those born after 1996, these are largely assumed.” Gen Zers are “always on” – their phones, consuming media, text messaging and using social media to connect with their friends and cohorts.

So those leading the public transit/mobility industry really have three generations of employees that our focus needs to be on when recruiting, training and retaining our future workforce. Generation X (those born after 1964 – 1980 - my generation) are most likely already the top managers and leaders and/or those with the most experience in your agency. Their learning and communication styles are very different from Millennials and Gen Zers. So recruitment and training materials designed by and for those over age 35 will be most likely not be as relevant or helpful for those under age 35 who are more purpose and digitally focused.

We in the transit world have a compelling message to attract purpose driven employees. We are assisting in the mobility of society. We are helping the environment, partnering to build sustainable and smart cities and innovating faster than almost any other industry. We have an exciting agenda that lifts those who need help such as people with disabilities or that have lower income, while at the same time producing rock solid economic development benefits such as getting commuters to work, customers to shop and reducing congestion by taking cars off the road.

As Veronique Hakim, Managing Director of the New York MTA said in the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) August 20, 2018 edition Commentary section of Passenger Transport: “Our job is to help moms get to work; assist dads on their journey home; make sure kids get to school on time; and keep the region, its culture and its economy moving” AND “Our team has been given a mandate to reimagine, rebuild and reinvigorate a vast system that spans subways, buses, rails, bridges and tunnels”

So for the Millennials and those who want a purpose beyond profit for their work, let’s tell our story.

How?

Show how your agency delivers the three core elements of an experience of purpose identified in the LinkedIn Purpose Study:

Impact on others – Show how your transit system makes the world a better place (i.e.  mobility, sustainable practices, helping people with disabilities, smart cities, economic development even societally positive practices such as recruiting ex-offenders for mechanic jobs).

Rick Ramirez-Diaz, Recruiting Manager for Keolis Transit America, told me to reach these purpose driven employees he likes to relate his job postings to “help move your community” and to compassion and helping others in life for paratransit type of driver positions. He also likes to use some kind of notification indicating how the company/agency is either being “green” or using electric vehicles/natural gas, hybrid, etc., or moving into a “green” culture.

Personal development – Show the opportunities you provide for personal growth (i.e. – exploring new, cutting edge technologies like autonomous vehicles and Mobility as a Service)

Delivery through relationships – Explain how you encourage authentic relationships at work (i.e. set up a “buddy system” for new employees, encourage working as part of a team delivering important service and helping out at public hearings and other after hour events, take employees to lunch as a group)

These will appeal to your core audience of millennials as you seek them mto be part of your service development, customer service, administrative, IT and operations teams.

To reach the Gen Zers, your recruitment messages need to get to them via social media. Advertise careers on Snapchat or Pandora/Spotify. Use Instagram updates to attract attention to “cool” jobs in transit that highlight the technological aspects of your agency. Update your job training to include on-line material and testing. Focus on your transit agency’s role in the connected, Smart City of tomorrow.

Finally, in order to recruit team members who will fit into your agency’s culture:

Bring in top management who you know or trust to be competent, dedicated and loyal team members. Build you own team. Then invite your team to encourage their capable friends or top notch former work associates to apply so they can build their own teams.

Growth is on the new shoot. Remember - the newest happy employee is your best recruiter. 

 Retention

Once you hire and train these recruits, you want them to stay. For Millennials who seek meaning and purpose in their work - use your intranet corporate site and other internal communications newsletters etc… to deliver purposeful stories and statistics about how your transit agency is making a difference in the community. For example, highlight how many new jobs will be available within a 30 minute ride after your new re-routing of the bus routes. Show how this quicker access to jobs ties to reducing poverty in recent studies. Also encourage employees to share their own experiences of work purpose at staff meetings or in a quick video they shoot on their phone that you can post on your internal website. Celebrate the positive impact your employees and system are having in your city.

Get your Millennial employees out of the office to witness their impact on your city first-hand. Invite them to attend public hearings, ride the bus to work, or serve as transit ambassadors for a new route.

Also hold an annual all staff meeting to review and celebrate the transit system’s impact and delivery of its purpose. We did this in Baltimore with presentations from all key directors for a half day meeting with lunch provided.  We practiced our presentations the day before in front of each other and critiqued each other’s presentations. We showed photos, videos, and graphics demonstrating our achievements, KPIs and stories of success. With nearly 300 staff and managers in attendance it had a big impact and ripple effect throughout our service. People saw and felt that their work made a real difference in the lives of the hundreds of thousands of passengers we served. 

As for your Gen Zer employees, get them involved in cutting edge projects such as connected vehicles, new CAD/AVL or other IT technology, developing Mobility as a Service apps or exploring the possibilities of bringing in autonomous buses into the service.    

Finally, if possible allow quality employees to try out other jobs in the agency if they aren’t fulfilled in their current position. Transit systems have many career opportunity areas, let your trusted employees explore other job fields within your agency instead of leaving to try them elsewhere. I did this at the MTA and kept several high potential employees who weren’t happy in their current jobs. For example I allowed one Millennial to transfer from the Office of Performance Management to the Planning Office team involved in rolling out new service changes. She loved it and stayed with our agency. 

 Summary

In order for our transit systems to continue to attract and retain the best and brightest of tomorrow’s workforce, we must in the words of Steven Covey “seek first to understand, then be understood”.  Do this by practicing Purpose Driven Hiring and retention for Millennials and keep your workplace messaging relevant to today’s digitally “always-on” younger generation from Gen Z.