How to Win The Talent War

The Talent War is heating up.
 
Boomers are retiring. At last, they can afford to.
 
GenX has business experience, but is not nearly big enough to replace the Boomers person-for-person.
 
Millennials, despite what some of the more, ahem, confident of them think, are generally not ready to step in at the executive level. They are also in the period of life where many leave after a short time.
 
What’s a CEO, business owner or HR professional to do? How do you keep the good employees, and attract the new ones you need?
 
Turns out Maslow was onto something with his Hierarchy of Needs:

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​And others have helped expand his concepts.

​Studying past employees that were the most engaged (and disengaged!) the mash-up that makes the most sense to me:

            Certainty                        Variety
            Significance                        Connection
            Mastery                        Contribution
 
These are needs. Not wants or desires or values. These are the needs of all human beings. Everywhere. Even when they are at work.
 
You attract and keep talent by meeting their needs. As individuals.
 
When individuals meet their most important needs at a high level, you get all kinds of wonderful things happening at work. On a macro level.
 
Engagement. Passion. Which breed Culture and Innovation.
 
Which helps attract more talent.
 
The winners of the Talent War will not ask workers to check their humanness at the door. Instead employees will bring their full humanity with them. And organizations will build their culture up from the bottom up, one human connection at a time. Not artificially down from the top.