By David Wolfe
Everybody wants to feel like they are contributing to something bigger than themselves.
I think this future workforce really wants a job that hits this sweet spot. It’s a really big passion for them, so living this is very important.
The first part of creating a bigger purpose is creating a winning organization. People naturally want to join organizations that are winning. If the perception and the reality is that you are doing really cool things and winning, people are naturally attracted to that. As stated earlier in the book, I learned this while I coached college baseball at San Francisco State and Charleston Southern University. No matter how hard I tried to recruit kids to these programs—come join our team, make an immediate impact, be a starting player from day one, be a star— nine times out of ten, they would choose the bigger school, the Pac-12 school, or the SEC school because they wanted to be a part of the image of a bigger school and a well-known team, even though they might sit at the bench and not play for two or three years.
What that means for you is figuring out how you’re winning and selling that, both in recruiting and in retaining the team members you have hired. How are you winning? How are you doing big things? Even if it’s something really small, make sure it is prominent. What are you doing in the community that’s different than other medical practices? Whether it’s the number of patients you’re serving in the county, or your patient satisfaction scores, or the tenure you have within your team, whatever it is, you want to pull that out and sell it to your staff constantly. Keep them immersed in a feeling of winning. I think the second facet of this is having that strong core purpose, core values, and vision. This younger workforce is really sensitive to the ideas that support the cool things you do and why you’re doing what you do. As I have said, our core purpose is, “We connect people to improve lives.” We’re improving our hiring managers’ lives and making their lives easier by finding them top-notch NPs. We’re increasing revenue for the practice. And we’re improving NPs’ lives by finding better jobs for them and their family, and perhaps they are earning more money.
Disney’s core purpose is, “We make people happy.” Walmart’s core purpose is, “We save people money so they can live better.” What is your core purpose? If your organization doesn’t have a clear core purpose, create one and then make it real.
Next, present a vision of where your company is going. What exactly do you want to accomplish in the next ten years? This needs to be big enough that people want to get behind it. Jim Collins calls it a BHAG—Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Our ten-year vision is to place six hundred NPs and PAs in 2027 and improve the lives of that many NPs and medical centers. Creating some sort of clear vision for your company is really important. This is not a mission statement or a core value. This is something that has metrics that you can measure to know whether you’re hitting it. This younger population, they’re looking for where you are going and what you are trying to accomplish.
Another part of creating your bigger purpose, and one that this younger workforce is really attracted to,is contributing to charity. Maybe you give 1 percent of all your sales to a certain charity, or a certain percentage of profit goes toward helping developing areas without food or clean water, or maybe it’s disaster relief, or diaper giveaways. Whatever it is, it can and should be a big selling point to your current staff. They want to know that every day they come to work, their company is affecting other people’s lives in a big way. They will definitely get behind that.
We are not alone in this. Companies are upping their community service and donations like crazy, and I think part of the reason for that is because this younger workforce is responding to it. By the way, some customers actually choose the companies they do business with because of that as well. A lot of those customers are the younger generation.
To sum this point up, the younger workforce wants to feel a part of something bigger, and that they are having an impact in that big picture. They want to be part of a winning organization. In the recruitment process, it’s important to hit on all these things, but then when they come on board, you have to actually do these things. It’s not a bait and switch—you are delivering, and they can feel it within the company culture. Most of these things that I’ve just mentioned are not costly, they’re not a financial drain. They’re simple. If you don’t have them, use your team to create them, which creates more power. If this workforce can create the vision and core purpose and take part in the great things you do, then they’re going to buy in more. And when your organization’s on fire, your retention numbers will skyrocket.