ALUMRISE

 I had the chance to quickly read a very interesting report shared the other day by a friend and longtime ALUMRISE advisor, Haris Ahmed. Haris is a consultant with Oliver Wyman Delta, a firm that helps large clients around the world deal with HR changes and plan for the future. He’s specifically focused on advising leaders and developing leadership strategies.

Parts of the “New Imperative” report authored by his peers at Oliver Wyman, Mark Nadler and Dan Plunkett, focus on how people working at large companies are being affected by the current climate, framing a “crisis of talent.” (Fair disclosure: they touch on a whole lot more; I simply gravitated toward this section as the head of a company focused on talent through life stages).

Why a “crisis of talent”? They report talent is walking away from large companies, driven by disillusionment and fear of the impact of the recession - greater stress, enormous accountability (think of the sad taking of his own life by Freddie Mac’s CFO recently), and stalling of work/decision making.

People are jumping to smaller firms and start ups, and will continue to, the report predicts. I don’t find this at all surprising - many who join ALUMRISE do so seeking a better fit between their skill sets, life and aspirations and an organization. Size of organization doesn’t matter - peace is a new part of the “total compensation” package that millions care more and more about. Sobering for the big-company driven stock market, but so great for innovation.

At ALUMRISE, we built our tool precisely to promote a better work-life fit and have seen real-life examples of this at work, including three of our own team contributors, who found us, interviewed and got a deal done, in under a month each by simply stating their skills and objectives and allowing us to find them in a matter of minutes online. (Hmm …. are we the Dallas startup that many long-time corporate contributors are gravitating toward?)

The report also suggests victims of a layoff are less likely to return to a similar job in the same industry, but instead will move to a more entrepreneurial goal or start afresh in a new industry context.

I wonder - does that ring true for you, members and readers? Please do leave a comment either agreeing or disagreeing, so we can continue our dialogue on how to best help you make that cross-industry or cross-sector move.

A section of the ALUMRISE profile - The Transparenskey

For example, the “transparens-key” section of our site, (here’s a partial snapshot of mine), lets a member clearly indicate what moves they will make.

We’ll be adding the ability to indicate interest in new industries to this list soon .. so it will get even more targeted and specific in finding the right fit for you and an employer of any size-start up to large enterprise.

Thirdly, the report says if you’ve been waiting in the ranks, gainfully employed for the past five, ten or fifteen years, just waiting for that so-called retirement wave around the corner, you today may be stressed by the realization that people aren’t retiring, and the corner office isn’t accruing to you. Sadly, it could be years before the next ladder rung.

Stay or go, there’s a stalemate in excitement or energy that may affect you, or your gainfully employed spouse, friend or parent. Many who join ALUMRISE are joiners by choice - not because they have lost their position, but because they exited consciously seeking a new wave of inspiration, a new set of experiences, a new productive way to use their mind and energy. It’s why we say that people stop working - but minds don’t stop working. It’s because many of us at ALUMRISE have been there.

 All in all, I see a glimmer of hope in an otherwise somber report from Oliver Wyman Delta. It tells me that whether or not companies are in a position to react and innovate, people are doing so each day. (People - aka “Talent”).

They aren’t giving up or giving in, they simply are re-evaluating what it means to life a productive, income-generating life. My husband and I have thought a lot about this. In another post, another day, I’ll share the conclusions we reached. 

Whether personal or professional, in every “crisis” there’s an opportunity.

Jobs, economy, health, wealth, security. These are the themes I heard echoed across three regions of the world recently – South Asia, the Middle East and Europe – during three enlightening weeks of travel abroad.

Interestingly, I fell into somewhat esoteric, philosophical conversation late one night around the idea that the recent global economic crisis has led to a true discrediting of the world order. 

It got me thinking. If the last century was about the prevalence of two competing systems – communism, and capitalism, with passing nods to socialism – it is becoming unclear what governing tenets will prevail in the coming one and how the system will evolve.

Today, it’s certainly clear too many are falling outside the important, social net that keeps our world healthy. Whether it’s the millions losing jobs and baseline security in the previously secure U.S. market, or the many millions who never had that security in the first place across the poverty-stricken, crime ridden developing world, have enough now fallen outside that the system faces a genuine threat?

Here’s my position or thought … for what it’s worth. The functioning of stable, liberal democracy and a world order as we know it today is based on satisfying enough people enough of the time by taking care in a meaningful way of the needs both primal (home, health, food, water) and emotional (culture, expression, art).

The bell has rung to begin the exam to figure out how to save, or evolve our world system. The mandate for any evolution of the system – with no prejudice for governing names or ideologies – should be that we do a better job of protecting and securing the baseline needs of more of the people, more of the time. Are we close to satisfying even a meager 50%; will we pass or fail?

Note to system architects: primal needs matter greatly when you age, or during the early years of life – stages that much of the world are now in. We are not a middle-aged world concerned only with freedom and wealth. We are a young-old world concerned with health, security and the proper nurturing of changing life stages.

We need to lay the foundation of a more humane evolution of our governing world systems before we rush to protect ideology. I’m not arguing against or for free market capitalism or for any recreation of something like communism. Frankly the older I become, the more boring I find pure ideology.

Instead I’m simply saying that our system needs to recognize the changes occurring in our world, and do a better job of evolving to fulfill the needs of ….

• A newly minted retiree without a pension or healthcare in the U.S., no savings, and no family member with a job
• A young mother in Dubai whose husband will be deported next week with a home that has depreciated 50%, she lives in a car
• An engineer in Pakistan who wants a real world-class education in every sense
• An artist in Eastern Europe whose livelihood depends on enough people having the time or interest to travel and think about art, because their bellies and pockets are full
• An so on

Jobs, economy, health, wealth, security. Better linking the economic engine to the social net.  Whether you’re in the US or elsewhere, aren’t these the things that matter most?