Carrots, Not Sticks
Case in Point: Jake Bebar
The American workplace is in the midst of an epochal sea change.
In 2011, the first baby boomer came of retirement age, a tiny ripple in the workforce pond that is expected to grow into a tsunami. The Greatest Generation — a major force in the labor market for more than 20 years — has begun its exit. Labor reports say that 4 million workers will retire each year for the next 19 years. That’s almost 11,000 people per day.
And who will be filling their jobs? Meet Jake.
Jake Bebar is a senior management consulting major who zings into a room like a super ball of human energy. Although he’s just 22, Bebar already has an impressive list of campus and community projects he’s supported in various ways, including the Jubilee Initiative for Financial Inclusion (JIFFI), a payday-loan alternative micro-lender that he cofounded while still a sophomore.
Smart, curious and gregarious, he’s a technophile of the highest order, who can whip out his ever-present iPad and strategize a social media campaign on the spot that a paid consultant would envy. Yet he spent spring break in Ontario, Canada, studying the ancient meditation method Vipassana, eschewing access to phone, email and other technology.
And yet again, he’s a fan of “being busy.” “This past summer, I worked as an associate account executive at a financial marketing firm in Chicago from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” he said. “Yet, I found myself too bored with just one job, so I worked as a host at an Italian restaurant from 5:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. five nights a week.
“To me, keeping myself busy and engaged leads to a higher sense of purpose and more motivation. It helps me give more back to the communities which have given so much to me.”
Bebar is a millennial — a member of the generation born roughly between the early 1980s and the early 2000s who will account for about 75 percent of the workforce by 2030, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Like many millennials, he is a study in contrasts, to be sure, with big dreams, wide-ranging passions, a steadfast commitment to social justice and a singular devotion to shaking up the status quo.
After commencement, Bebar will be working as a project manager for health-care software company Epic Systems in Madison, Wisconsin, implementing software in hospitals across the country. The position neatly encompasses his interests in technology, health care and working in areas that improves life for others.
How long will he work there? He thought maybe three to five years before his need for change takes him to the next opportunity.
“I only want to work for an organization that is continually challenging me and striving to make me develop into a better global citizen. Personal growth simply cannot occur in comfortable situations, and I continually strive to ‘be uncomfortable’ as my high school English teacher, Mrs. Fleming, so often advised me. If I ever find myself becoming complacent in a position, that’s a personal sign that it’s time to move on to something else.”
For companies trying to solve the problem of retention, millennials such as Bebar seemingly present a whole new landscape of challenges. But their demand for meaning and engagement might also point the way to a new vision for a workforce that’s engaged, evolving and yes, turning over.
“I’ve realized that we have a short time on this planet, and we need to make the most of it,” he reflected. “I sadly don’t have the time to be an expert in every industry and hobby, but I do have the time to be an amateur in many of them. It’s nice to get a good insight into different industries, and I think it helps me become a more well-rounded individual, even though I realize this definitely goes against the norm (though I’ve never been one to follow the norm).
“I’m not sure what my future holds, but I’m quite satisfied with that. It makes life more exciting!”
One Potential Stick
As companies consider how to keep their valuable employees on their payrolls — and off those of their competitors — many are turning to the use of noncompete clauses (NCCs), which prohibit former employees from working for another company in the same industry for a given period of time, to keep their employees around.
“Employers may see NCCs as one way to retain employees,” said Accountancy Teaching Professor Tonia Hap Murphy, who studies such agreements. “And employees may be more likely to stay put if they feel like they have few other attractive options because they’re hamstrung by these clauses.”
NCCs traditionally were used only by companies with valuable trade secrets, like technology or financial services corporations. But with the ever-increasing difficulty of retaining employees, their use has spread to every sector of the economy — even fast food. Last October, the sandwich chain Jimmy John’s came under Congressional scrutiny for making its workers sign contracts in which they agree not to work at a competing sandwich shop for two years after leaving the company.
Murphy called this an abuse of the NCC’s purpose. “A sandwich maker at Jimmy John’s can’t really hurt the company if he or she goes to work at Subway,” she said. “That’s not fair, and it’s getting in the way of employees making a living. It may make sense with a company like Microsoft that has a lot of trade secrets that employees could take to a rival company, but this is a different situation.”
Laws on NCCs vary from state to state, with California and North Dakota banning them entirely. Although they’re increasingly common, there’s evidence that they can be counterproductive.
“There are studies that say it’s a bad thing for management, because it’s never a good thing to retain employees by compulsion,” Murphy said. “Those companies may be harming themselves, because they’re harming employee morale. Employees might think, ‘The employer doesn’t trust me and is forcing me to stick around.’ Wouldn’t it be better to retain employees with good pay and benefits and prospects for advancement rather than keep them there with NCCs?”
Murphy added that there are other, less restrictive legal protections for employers, including confidentiality agreements that prohibit an employee from sharing sensitive or secret company information and non-solicitation agreements that prevent employees from soliciting the company’s customers.
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