The Employee Experience Dilemma...

Lets set the stage...
There are 2 employees, John who has been with XYZ corporation for 23 years and then you have Steve who has been an employee for 3 years. Both are Middle level managers who possess a parallel job description, pay grade, and skill level.

Suddenly, due to economic hardship, XYZ corporation decides to lay off both employees. After the initial thought of disbelief and sadness, both employees go home and contemplate their next move. John is taking the news harder then Steve. XYZ Corporation is all that John has known his entire professional career. He knows their system inside and out and has been there through the very prosperous time in 1998 and the troublesome time in the late 1980s. Steve on the other hand has held several positions in his career and possesses the experience utilizing several different systems.

Now it is time for these 2 laid off employees to find work at another organization. Both are applying for the same position with LMN Corporation. Here is a few lines from the meeting between hiring managers... "John has been with the organization for 23 years, he has incredibly company loyalty and retention." "Steve has been with several organizations and doesn't necessarily show that he has the ability to remain loyal to an organization."

This is a common conversation happening across America in some of the largest organizations in the world. But is this the correct argument to make??

You have heard it all of your professional life, get a job and stay with that company for your entire career. That is what we are all trained to do. Employees who have been with organizations for 10, 20, even 30 years are held in the highest regard. They are looked up to by every employee and praised by every senior level manager in the establishment.

But the real question is why? The name of the game in this economy/marketplace is flexibility. We are all asked to do more, know more, and jump into any situation and succeed.

An individual who has worked with several systems, a myriad of personalities and situations and has flourished through all of them is considered to be a risk and someone not as highly regarded as someone who only knows one system and one set of methods? To me the math doesn't add up.

Common sense would conclude the most valuable employees are those who have a broad range of experience as they are typically quick thinkers and can adapt to any environment they are thrown into.

A good analogy would be a chef that has been making lasagna for 30 years and when someone has a request for fettuccini alfredo, he can not produce a quality product because all he knows is lasagna.

To argue for the other side of the story, salaries are by far the largest expense in any organization and a large portion of that expense is dedicated to employee hiring, training and retention. With that being said, the value is high for employees who stay with the organization because they require the least amount of money in training and retention.

Now this blog is about marketing so I will refocus on that avenue. If you are a large organization looking for the "best" employee available, who would be a better candidate?? John is highly skilled in system A but your organization runs system B. When John is thrown into this mix, he will not flourish and require even additional time training which in turn digs deeper into your ever-shrinking budget. Steve has had experience with System A, System B and System C but for not nearly as long a time dedicated to one system as John. Steve would be the best candidate as he is familiar with the basics of System B and could jump into his role with less training as a result. Organizations are looking to decrease the amount of time and money it takes for a new marketing employee to start making them money, so with this being said, the employee with the broader knowledge is more accustomed to being thrown into foreign atmospheres and therefore would flourish more quickly as a result.

But still you have some large organizations still weighing heavily on the tenure of an employee in selecting who is brought in for interviews. Leaving out the employee who possibly has succeeding greatly in various atmospheres and has become bored with the current situation and is seeking one which will provide the room for improvement that could lead to a long term position. If the employee provides to be successful and your organization is one that would challenge this candidate greatly, it is an obvious conclusion that the employee will remain with the organization. Those who remain stagnant and do not want to further challenge their brains are the ones who are held in the highest regards but are often not the most successful choice... it is a debate that will continue...