Thriving Through Uncertainty

Editor’s note: In the wake of the great resignation last year, we began writing about organizational structures, work culture, and leadership. Marketing and sales professionals have notoriously high turn-over rates and the disruption it causes is especially harmful to the companies in which they work. So, we think it is valuable to continue to share insights from the best minds when it comes to attracting and retaining good people for your companies, and your marketing and sales teams.

Inflation is squeezing wages and there continues to be signals indicating a potential economic recession. Yet unemployment rates are low, and millions of positions remain unfilled. On top of that, society is emerging from a significant experience, the COVID pandemic, and thinking differently about work.

This has many employers on edge and feeling uncertain about the future. According to Marketing Week’s 2022 Salary Survey, nearly 60% of marketers are considering leaving their jobs this year.¹ They are comprised mostly of younger workers who possess digital and technical skills and more than half of them stated that their personal values are not aligned with their employer’s culture and priorities. That is concerning when you consider these are the same people responsible for communicating their company’s value and influencing external target audiences.

The Lasting Effects of COVID on People

While many of us want to put the COVID pandemic in the rearview mirror, and I am with you, we are still dealing with its impacts. According to Kate Bravery, Senior Partner and Global Advisory Solutions and Insight Leader at Mercer, their research indicates “there has been a real step change coming out of the pandemic period.”

The issues that business organizations are facing now go well beyond the debate around working from home versus going back to the office. However, the fact that the debate is on-going should give us pause and it may be a symptom of something deeper. Earlier this summer, Mercer conducted a pulse survey that indicated 67% of companies had returned to a work-from-the-office model, but only 50% of their workers had fully returned. Why?

Bravery believes “the pandemic has left of lasting legacy of feeling fatigued and depleted.” Energy levels are at an all-time low globally and burnout rates have gone from 67% to 81%. She adds that during the pandemic period, work had intensified, our jobs and lives had become more complex, and we had to grapple with being hyper-localized. COVID has certainly left indelible marks on our society and workforce.

The Arrival of the Employee Centric Era

For those employers and business leaders who are still speaking about going back to the way it was before the pandemic, you and your organizations will be well-served to accept that we have entered a new era that Bravery refers to as employee centric.

Mercer’s research reveals that what workers are seeking from an employment covenant is twofold, flexibility and well-being.

Bravery thinks that the “great flexible work experiment has reset people’s views on how work can be done” and she doesn’t think that is going to change. This is a fundamental issue for companies, and it is a tough challenge, she says, because only a few of us are getting it right. Many businesses made it through the flexible experiment, not only intact, but better than they were. Employees are naturally skeptical when employers now demand in office work and less flexibility by touting that the health of the business requires it.

Healthcare has moved toward a more holistic form of well-being and so have employee expectations. Bravery offers a broader and more accurate understanding of well-being based on Mercer’s research that includes not only healthcare plans, but financial, mental, and social well-being along with work-life balance.

Bravery articulately describes marketing professionals as being among the “acute talent demand groups.” The best B2B marketing professionals possess a blend of business acumen, effective communication skills, influencing abilities, and they are able quickly adopt and use technology. That blend of skills in a one person is tough to find and retain.

So, what should we make of this? Bravery says that “for organizations to be attractive to young talent with high-demand digital skills, they need to embrace what this group wants from the world of work.”

What can leaders do?

Mercer’s Global Talent Trends 2022 not only defines what employees seek in a relationship with an employer, they offer advice and best practices in meeting those needs and achieving success.²

Bravery, who led the research team, refers to the relationship between employer and employee as the “thrive contract.” It is a relationship, she says, in which employees are willing to give their time and energy to a company in return for the company looking out for them as human beings, not simply a worker that is plugged into a corporate engine.

Bravery says that there are companies who are doing very well in this new era of employee centricity. I encourage you to dive into her report titled, “Rise of the Relatable Organization”, but here is a summary of tips. 

One, reset for relevancy. Begin by listening intently to all the stakeholders in your business. It is of course important to listen to executives and investors, but it is critical to understand the other important populations that make up the business, employees, their families, and customers.

Two, determine how best to partner with customers, external partners, and internally with employees. The goal is to have talented people gravitate to work with your organization. This includes being vocal about what your organization stands for beyond profits and revenue.

Three, develop, publish, and deliver on a pay philosophy. The number one reason people are seeking new positions is more pay. According to Bravery, companies used pay to counter the great resignation last year and many have systems that are now inequitable.

Four, deliver on total well-being. Bravery says that employees who describe themselves as thriving in their work environments “are seven-times more likely to work for a company that prioritizes well-being.”

Five, attitudes have changed and are continuing to change. Bravery emphasizes the need to maintain a dialogue with employees to understand what is important to them today.

Six, we traditionally have reflected on work through a business lens in which we benchmark our organization’s health based only on metrics related to revenue generation or sales projections. Bravery says now “we must reflect on business and work though a human lens.” Ask yourself, what is the human experience of working in my organization?

One final point that Bravery makes is “the organizations that are experiencing the most success and revenue growth, are being bolder” in doing the six things outlined above. And the key to bold implementation is looking forward rather than back. 

1. Marketing Week 2022 Career and Salary Survey. Charlotte Rogers, More than half of marketers want to quit their job (marketingweek.com)
2. Global Talent Trends 2022, Mercer, Rise of the relatable organization (mercer.com)

Kate Bravery is a Senior Partner and Mercer’s Global Advisory Solutions and Insight Leader. She has worked in Asia, Australia, US and Europe – helping organizations achieve a talent advantage through their people. In her current role, she supports Mercer’s thought leadership agenda, knowledge management and colleague sales enablement, she also leads on solution innovations for the HR buyer and colleague learning in the Talent, Reward & Transformation practices. She has held office, practice and market leadership roles at Mercer and prior to her current position she was the Career Global Practices Leader and before that the Growth Market’s regional practice leader for Talent Strategy and Organisational Performance.

She is the author of Mercer’s annual Global Talent Trends study and speaks regularly on the Future of Work. She is currently partnering with the World Economic Forum under their Good Work Alliance project to define Good Work standards and metrics. She is a non-executive director of Digital Frontiers.

About Mercer. Mercer believes in building brighter futures by redefining the world of work, reshaping retirement, and investment outcomes, and unlocking real health and well-being. Mercer’s approximately 25,000 employees are based in 43 countries and the firm operates in 130 countries. Mercer is a business of Marsh McLennan (NYSE: MMC), the world’s leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy and people, with 83,000 colleagues and annual revenue of approximately $20 billion. Through its market-leading businesses including Marsh, Guy Carpenter and Oliver Wyman, Marsh McLennan helps clients navigate an increasingly dynamic and complex environment. For more information, visit mercer.com. Follow Mercer on LinkedIn and Twitter.