The outsourced economy is here to stay. As a leader, you may not relish the idea of outsourcing. However, the reality is that you may soon need to. When that happens, you will want a workforce that is nimble, adaptable, and prepared to participate in your organization at a new level of competitiveness. Conversely, your smartest employees right now are developing the skills necessary to be free agents. These motivated, talented people are the last ones you can afford to lose.
Turning the Power Hierarchy on Its Head
In the past, we did not ask people what they could do. We asked them if they could do what we needed done. Our employees expected to be told what to do. This arrangement favored ownership or leadership of the organization over the individual.
Those days are gone. In the outsourced economy, our businesses, our organizations are now environments for us as employers to steward—and steward does not mean control. It means creating the kind of place where knowledge workers want to work with you, not for you. This economy requires employees who are capable, committed partners, who share our business objectives and have a stake in the company’s remaining competitive.
As employers, we need to develop a radically new relationship to the people we invite to join us in our enterprise.
Employees as Assets
If we relate to those we pay as assets rather than expenses, we might find ourselves asking different questions of these people, and taking different actions toward them. This is the radical shift I am recommending.
The concept of “employees as assets” is going to require that you create and maintain a culture of interdependence, where employees feel valued and return value in equal measure. This type of environment has little or no concern for control for human assets, but places attention on systems that inform the organization of what the talent needs are, now and in the immediate future. Plenty of attention is given to attracting and selecting the right people, developing them once they are on the team, and understanding the full scope of their capabilities so as to support their adaptability at times when the jobs they do can be moved and completed by less expensive talent.
Knowledge workers are more important to your business today than your strategy. They are your main asset. If yours can be the kind of workplace these people will be looking for, you have a distinct competitive advantage.
Building a Culture of Interdependence
Here are some guiding principles for building a culture of interdependence in the new, outsourced economy:
- Know what human assets you have on hand, and have a plan to optimize these.
- Know what human assets you are likely to need, and have a plan for their acquisition.
- Create a senior-level position in your company—Vice President of Human Assets or Human Assets Officer—who is accountable for the value of your human assets.
- Insist that your leaders take the long view and are accountable for the development of your human assets.
- Focus on building relationships. Do not take on this challenge alone or only with members of management. Get everyone involved.
- Employ people who are intrinsically motivated by what you are trying to accomplish.
- Employ people who currently possess skills and competencies that you really must have in your employ, and who are willing to continue to develop skills as needed in the interest of the greater good.
- Employ people who understand that yours is a collaborative environment. They must be willing to operate in that fashion and develop their collaborative skills.
- Make all your reward systems some combination of return to the individual for value produced and performance of the whole.
- Create and maintain systems that allow people to grow professionally, and require that they take advantage of them.
- Let it be known, from day one, that it is an expectation of membership that everyone be responsible for their own development.
If you are operating a business today and have not made the shift to a much more collaborative approach, to having people work with you, then you are already in deep trouble. Begin acting like people are the most valuable assets of your enterprise, if for no other reason than the future of your enterprise in the outsourced economy depends on it.
MIKE COOK is founding partner of Vitalwork, Inc. (www.vitalwork.com), an organizational development firm that helps companies and employees compete in the outsourced economy. His new book is Thrive: Standing on Your Own Two Feet in a Borderless World (St. Lynn’s Press). For more information visit www.thrivebook.com.
