Value Every Job
I have a daughter, and everyone I know assumes I want her to go to college. I’ll admit that I do have that expectation, but I also actively say – to her and to those other people – that college isn’t for everyone.
Not everyone needs to go to college. As it turns out, very few skills are actually honed in college that are needed for the workplace. Much more is learned on the job.
Are you requiring a college degree for jobs that don’t need it? If yes, you are actively discriminating against a portion of potential candidates (and limiting your pool).
Is it possible you could teach the skills you need to people with the right aptitude and/or with a nontraditional background? (If someone who is otherwise a good fit for my organization wants to do the job I’m advertising for, I would certainly make sure they couldn’t do the job before I turned them away.)
What other steps could you take to grow people into positions they want? What about mentoring? Or apprenticeships? What about professional development opportunities and cross-training in other areas/departments of your organization?
And, as this post points out, we should also take a careful look at what work we decide to value.
In a former career path, I was a summer camp director (yes, like for children). My long-time friends were always amazed that I had chosen that job – and excelled at it – because I was never really one of those “kid people” who knows what to say or how to act with children. But, it turns out, I was a great manager, and I hired a heck of team of “kid people”. And they kept coming back because I truly valued the work they did. I made them feel important (they are! Your frontline workers are the people interacting with your customers/guests and doing the actual work of the company!), and I showed them how much I appreciated them and the work they did.
How are you showing your people you value them?
Do your frontline/entry-level people know how important they are to what you do? (Could you exist without them?) Do your managers know how important their teams are to your (and their) success?
What else could you do to demonstrate how much you appreciate the work your teams do for you and for your organization?