Maureen Farmer of Westgate Executive Branding & Career Consulting On The Labor Shortage & The 5 Things We Must Do To Attract & Retain Great Talent

An Interview with Phil La Duke

To attract great talent, be crystal clear about your organization’s values and promote your “employer brand” consistently and constantly within your talent acquisition funnel, including your website, annual reports, proxy statements, and especially job descriptions.

The pandemic has allowed people to reevaluate what they want from work. This “Great Reevaluation” has led to the “Great Resignation” which has left the US with a great big labor shortage and a supply chain crisis. What can we do to reverse this trend? What can be done to attract great talent to companies looking to hire? What must companies do to retain their great talent? If not just a paycheck, what else are employees looking for? In this interview series called “The Labor Shortage & The 5 Things We Must Do To Attract & Retain Great Talent” we are talking to successful business leaders who can share stories and ideas from their experience that can address these questions.

As a part of this interview series we had the pleasure to interview Maureen Farmer.

Maureen Farmer is the CEO and Founder of Westgate Executive Branding & Career Consulting and leads a successful boutique personal branding and executive leadership optimization firm with an emphasis on helping CEOs onboard into new organizations or when they’ve been appointed internally as the new CEO. Since 2011, she has proven her exceptional coaching skills, branding awareness, and consistent ability to innovate executive leadership optimization strategies through satisfied clients and fast expansion of their professional network. She has contributed to articles for FemFounder, Glassdoor, and has earned the 2021 Career Leader of the Year Award with Career Professionals of Canada.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would like to get an idea of who you are and where you came from. Can you tell us a bit about your background? Where do you come from? What are the life experiences that most shaped your current self?

Known as the global consultant who helps CEOs maneuver transition & succession, I originally came from the corporate world. After 25 years serving publicly traded companies in human resources, administration, operations, and professional development, I used my writing, marketing, finance, and other business skills from my corporate career to launch an executive personal branding and career services firm serving CEOs, boards, business owners, and entrepreneurs.

A classically trained business education teacher, I’ve always been obsessed with the world of business, finance, and the people who lead these businesses. My father was a major inspiration for me. I inherited his keen sense of curiosity, and this has served me well. As someone who read 6 books per week in addition to a busy career, he taught me the value of learning about the world through the written word. My mother often said, “if you can read, you can achieve.” So, using my sense of curiosity, my interest in business, and my drive to help others, I launched a business 10 years ago and never looked back.

At the time I launched the business, I identified a lack of personal career services in the marketplace, and so created a business to fill the gap while permitting me to honor the gifts I inherited from my parents while leveraging the experience I garnered from my corporate career.

Employee engagement is a passion for me because I experienced the wrath of a bully boss for five years. Despite loving my job and my colleagues, she made it impossible for me to stay. Luckily, I had the option to leave my organization with the support of my family. Not everyone is this lucky.

Let’s jump right in. Some experts have warned of the “Great Resignation” as early as the 1980s and yet so many companies seem to have been completely unprepared when it finally happened. What do you think caused this disconnect? Why do you think the business world was caught by surprise?

At the highest level, successful companies optimize their employer brand by establishing, communicating, and optimizing deep-seated values for their organization. They are clear on their product, their market, and they are clear about what type of employee can best deliver their products and services. The employer-employee values are aligned.

These organizations attract values-aligned employees who buy into the mission of the organization. Companies that value the needs, opinions, and efforts of their employees will achieve greater success because of this alignment. The values of the company become a filter for decision-making and for the way that employees interact with one another.

Recognition is a powerful tool for organizations (and one that costs very little time or money). Talented and satisfied employees who are regularly recognized and acknowledged for their efforts by their manager will remain loyal to the organization.

At the operational level, companies today often don’t take the time to plan for their human resources needs for the future. Succession planning is a key tool that helps build sustainability and capacity in an organization, yet many companies treat their employees no better than widgets. I’ve seen some organizations completely ignore their high employee turnover rates and then wonder why their business is losing money.

The Great Resignation is a market disruptor driven by the global pandemic. Unhappy employees who are dissatisfied with the way they are treated by their board or senior management team have voted with their feet and walked away from the people in their organizations — not the organizations themselves. The fact that companies are so surprised is a surprise to me.

During my 25+ years working inside corporations, I wondered why division heads with the highest employee turnover were never challenged. While the leadership team would examine the reason a product wasn’t performing well or why the fleet of vehicles was spending so much money on fuel, no one asked why the divisional finance team (one example) was burning through so many employees.

Cash flow and people are the lifeblood of any organization and yet organizational leaders are not at all curious about their turnover problems. While many blame turnover on poor salaries or benefits, most turnover (in my experience) is caused by a tone-deaf leadership team. Listen to your people, support them, and communicate with them. Don’t ignore them or treat them like widgets.

Of course, the challenge is understanding what motivates each person because we are all motivated by different things. For example, one of our senior directors was offered a raise and bonus for doing exemplary work in one of our ESG areas. She refused it. She didn’t want to earn more than her husband and instead wanted to attend an international convention. She was not motivated by money. Surprised?

Another senior director let his paychecks pile up on his desk for months and when someone from HR asked him why he didn’t cash them, he said he forgot.

How do you know what motivates your employees? You ask them.

What do you think employers have to do to adapt to this new reality?

Employers need to redouble their efforts to support employees’ ability to do a good job and to keep them committed to the organization. Employees who have the right tools, resources, and a clear line of communication to their manager will often remain with a company despite their compensation level. As someone who works with executives from around the world, I know that a key complaint these individuals have is that they don’t feel that their work is acknowledged or appreciated by their manager, whether that person is a manager, director, or the CEO.

Based on your opinion and experience, what do you think were the main pain points that caused the great resignation? Why is so much of the workforce unhappy?

Employees don’t feel heard today. A key component of human recognition is being respected and acknowledged as a human being. I’ve seen employees treated no better than farm animals. I’ve seen business owners completely ignore the communications of their employees, such as when they fail to acknowledge something as simple as an e-mail message. I have a long list!

There are signals in the workplace and people are smart. People pick up on these signals. If the signals are not positive, employees will feel uneasy, feel as though they can’t trust their boss, and begin looking elsewhere for a safer professional community. The herd mentality is that people are leaving companies because of the daily grind, tough commute, or overall malaise. I disagree wholeheartedly with this notion.

Because I’ve interviewed thousands of executives in the last 10 years in my work, I can confidently report that the majority of those individuals left a bully boss, corrupt board member, or narcissistic colleague. The pandemic simply nudged them out the door because the pandemic has taught many of us what’s most important to us — health, family, and the ability to sleep peacefully at night. No one deserves to be mistreated.

Many employers extoll the advantages of the entrepreneurial spirit and the possibilities of an expanded “gig economy”. But this does come with the cost of a lack of loyalty of gig workers. Is there a way to balance this? Can an employer look for single-use sources of services and expect long-term loyalty? Is there a way to hire a freelancer and expect dependability and loyalty? Can you please explain what you mean?

Loyalty is loyalty whether you are a gig worker or a full-time employee. People are loyal to people. At a bare minimum, companies who pay their gig workers fairly and treat them like human beings should expect loyalty from the gig worker. I’m a gig worker, at the heart of it, and I’m loyal to the person, not the institution. In fact, I’ve hired a team in another part of the world to help my own firm with a project. The relationship is critical.

Companies who pay gig workers fairly and on time will earn the loyalty and respect of their gig workers, guaranteed. Loyalty cannot be bought or mandated, it must be earned, steeped in trust and respect. While this may appear Pollyanna, companies who behave in this way have higher employee engagement, higher profitability, and are successful in the long term.

Not every organization needs employees with an entrepreneurial focus. Entrepreneurs must make quick decisions with limited information. I’m not convinced every organization is able to support an entrepreneurial type of employee.

It has been said that “people don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses”. How do you think this has been true during the Great Resignation? Can you explain what you mean?

I agree 100 percent with this statement, especially during the Great Resignation, because people are unwilling to tolerate the sometimes poor behavior of senior management and are unwilling to tolerate abusive or negligent senior management teams. Many senior managers are time poor and are they themselves required to make decisions with less-than-enough time or information. They may not have the time or capacity to do the things that keep employees committed and loyal. Knowledge workers and professionals who can do so, are taking an inventory of their work lives and many are deciding that the global pandemic has helped them become clear about what they want (and don’t want).

I am fond of saying, “If it’s fun they charge admission. But you get a paycheck for working here.” Obviously I am being facetious, but not entirely. Every job has its frustrations and there will be times when every job will aggravate employees. How important is it that employees enjoy their jobs?

First and foremost, employees need to honor their contractual obligations to the employer. Companies do not exist to provide employees with jobs — they exist to provide a product or service to the marketplace. I think the notion of “fun” and “joy” is highly subjective. Imagine an introverted person being asked to host a dinnertime TV show. Or imagine an extroverted person being asked to work on a computer all day in a room by themselves. Neither of these would deliver joy. However, it surprises me when people are so miserable with their employer that they don’t try to change their reality. I do believe that when people are doing meaningful work they enjoy, the enjoyment factor will be present and employees will remain.

Leaders who understand the motivations of their direct reports and honor those motivations will enjoy a higher retention rate. They must understand what brings satisfaction to each direc report.

What are a few things that employers, managers, and executives can do to ensure that workers enjoy their jobs?

Listen to employees and give them an opportunity to feel heard and demonstrate their accomplishments. Acknowledge their concerns, even if they are unfounded. Ensure employees understand their accountabilities. Role ambiguity can be a source of frustration and inefficiency. It can also lead to turnover.

Can you share a few things that employers, managers, and executives should be doing to improve their company work culture?

Employers, managers, and executives have a tremendous opportunity to improve their company work culture, especially if the organization has established written (and hopefully practiced) values. The values system can easily become a filter by which employees are treated and held to account. In the absence of a values statement, leaders can easily recognize their direct reports by showcasing the employee’s work, by acknowledging them in email communication, which can then be used by the employee in a performance review.

Check in with your direct reports regularly. Think of one personal question to ask your employee that demonstrates you care about them as a human being. Copy your own boss on this email so that the employee feels they have an audience with the leadership. This gesture can go a long way in building a positive culture — and there is no bureaucracy to navigate to do so and it won’t impact your budget.

Okay, wonderful. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 things employers should do to attract and retain top talent during the labor shortage?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. To attract great talent, be crystal clear about your organization’s values and promote your “employer brand” consistently and constantly within your talent acquisition funnel, including your website, annual reports, proxy statements, and especially job descriptions.
2. To attract great talent, write compelling and transparent job postings and performance profiles that communicate — at a human level — what specific skill, characteristics, and values the organization is seeking in down-to-earth, emotive language that engages the reader. Write the job description specifically and especially for the “ideal” candidate. Clarity is key.
3. To select great talent, test the candidate’s values for alignment with the organization’s values. If there is no alignment, there is no match. Many products help with this, including DISC assessments and motivators assessments, to name a couple. Candidates can and do adapt their behavior long enough to get through a series of job interviews. The real test, especially at an executive level, is what their performance and commitment demonstrate over the first 120 days.
4. To retain your people, consistently engage your team with regular and transparent communications. This cannot be understated. With video and audio technology, the CEO can record a simple weekly message to the organization with a simple message, including what is coming up for the week, what challenges they are currently facing, and what the wins were for the previous week. The critical success factor for this strategy is consistency because consistency builds trust.
5. To retain your people, recognize your people regularly and authentically. Do not underestimate the power of recognition. A simple note, voicemail, text, or email will generate loyalty and cost you nothing but time. When you know your team at a human level, you will learn what motivates them, and then you can use this knowledge to recognize them in a way that is important to them. Recognition is of “psychological importance” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/recognition/).

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would be honored to interview Stephen J. Squeri, the CEO of American Express, on my podcast Get Hired Up! The Podcast for Next-Level Executives & Board Nominees. I’ve been an American Express member for nearly 20 years and am a huge fan of the product, especially their customer service. Getting in touch with a human at American Express is much easier than other credit card companies. I also admire Mr. Squeri’s efforts to lead the company’s Environmental, Social, and Governance framework and commitment to enterprise-wide Inclusion, Diversity, and Business Engagement, which are all important to our work at Westgate.

Our readers often like to follow our interview subjects’ careers. How can they further follow your work online?

I would be delighted to connect with like-minded individuals and am active on LinkedIn. Reach me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/maureenfarmer-executive-coach/ or at maureen@westgatecareercoaching.com

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this. We wish you continued success and good health.