I live in the Midwest. The land of hills, farms, family values, and – if you’ve been paying attention – a 14 day-long heat advisory and 90+ temperatures. Unfortunately, 14 days ago, I was not paying attention, and I will publicly shame myself for that. See, I also live in a 100-year-old house, which is bursting with charm and severely lacking in modern comforts like central air.
Fast-forward to this past weekend when I caved in and went to purchase a portable air conditioning unit. It was supposed to be a simple process: do a smidgen of research (what nerd wouldn’t?); drive to the store; purchase unit; install in house; finally get some rest.
But a simple process it was not. After more than a week of temperatures in the 90s, and two days straight of climbing into the 100s with 70% humidity, no one was willing to stick it out anymore. My smidgen of research led to me to a series of “Product Sold Out” signs and pleading phone calls to every area hardware store – all to no avail. Air conditioning units had gone flying off the shelves weeks beforehand. People saw the forecast and they shuddered – metaphorically, anyway. They did what needed to be done before the going got rough, and they left the stragglers like me out in the hot dust.
Eight phone calls later and 38 miles down the road, I finally found salvation in the form of a portable air conditioning unit with hapless reviews and an absolutely terrible design. My glee over a 76 degree house outweighed the mediocrity of the unit, but now I’ve had time to reflect. Staying ahead of the curve is not as complicated or innovative as it’s sometimes made out to be. When it comes to talent – and properly developing your talent – it can be as simple as paying attention. If I had looked around and heeded the warnings of weather.com, I might not have found myself living in a sauna, and I might have had more than one option when it came to buying an AC unit.
Right now, the trending masters of the world agree that there is an imminent change in talent management. As the economy recovers, high performers who have been paying attention are beginning to look outside their current positions for bigger and better things, and competing organizations will be there to pick them up at the door. Smart companies must be aware enough to anticipate this shift and agile enough to proactively keep their best talent engaged, retained, and satisfied through methods like career development and total rewards strategies.
As luck would have it, the heat wave is supposed to break this week. Nevertheless, I’ll be keeping R2D2 (yes, I named him) around for a while, if nothing else than as a potent reminder of the drawbacks of procrastination. Next time, I promise to pay more attention.
Photo credit: andertoons
Having grown up in the Midwest and happily relocated to the northern West Coast where we complain if the temp rises above 80, I thoroughly enjoyed your post and the way you neatly tied dealing with the unbearable summer heat to the issue of paying attention to what's happening in talent management. I've been shaking my head lately at various posts around the web questioning the need to nurture high performers given the high unemployment rate and subsequent ease at which employees can be backfilled. Since high performers outperform average performers at a minimum of 2 to 1 (high estimates range upwards of 5 to 1), I'm astounded at the shortsightedness in questioning the need to do everything necessary to hang onto key performers. When provided, I note the name of the company that these posters work for; these go on my "do not recommend" list when an intersection occurs between my network of job seekers and knowledge of potential employers. Good performers are regularly pinged from the outside regarding potential job opportunities; employers who are too arrogant or uninformed to pay attention to this reality could be calling you when they find their star performer has fled and the only replacement they can entice in their doors is R2D2.