The war for talent according to Pitney Bowes

Johnson explains that employee benefit programs that attract the right talent and sustain performance—delivered with immediacy and connected to company performance—often deliver the highest impact. “There are some programs that we drive on a regular or annualized basis that we see as important, but the ones that employees respond to most favorably are those that acknowledge performance on a short term basis,” he says. “We have development or training programs, where someone is put on a short-term assignment for a project, possibly even internationally, that people see as a real opportunity to grow and develop towards their career aspirations, which are highly cherished and prized.”

Value
On discerning which benefits are valuable to employees, Johnson explains that employee demographics have a direct influence on value. Those closer to retirement age care more about retirement services and programs, while employees who are in the early stages of their career care more about pay programs and short-term incentives.

“There are many different demographics that come into play when trying to make the program successful for any discrete population,” he says. “One of the challenges for someone in benefits design is that we usually have a fixed amount of resources for a population which has many variables in demand. The challenge is to create the appropriate mix. Because of the current economic conditions, there are less people coming into the workforce today, and they are demanding opportunities to grow and develop in order to stay with the company. The goal is to meet as many of those demands as possible, knowing full well that you are not going to be able to meet all of them.”

Productivity initiatives
In terms of performance management, Johnson explains that employees look for feedback on two issues: how they are performing based upon expectations and what their potential is to move forward. He suggests that the systems used for performance assessments, leadership qualities and potential based upon skills and abilities should be linked together using the same messaging capability across the company. Something every organization should focus on, he adds, is the management capability to deliver messages to employees on their performance and potential.

“One of the things we did recently was a complete revision of the performance management system,” says Johnson. “For our 35,000 employees worldwide, we had several different performance management systems that measured and paid for performance differently. Today we have one system that measures performance the same way in every part of the world and there is great value in that.”

Outlook for 2010
Johnson expects performance management and retaining and attracting new talent to continue to be an area of focus for Pitney Bowes. “As different global economies begin to shift, becoming less disabled by economic conditions, employees will begin to think about what that means for them. There will be an increased focus on attraction and retention vehicles, because the war for talent will heat up again. It has somewhat been subdued by the current economic conditions, so there will be a critical need for companies to refocus on the vehicles used to attract and retain the right talent.”

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