A New Respect for HR
 Special Editions, Inc. Reprinted by Permission

Author
Steven M. Worth

Publication
Southeastern Association Executive Magazine

Publication Date
July 2000

Plexus Consulting Group, LLC
1620 Eye Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
Phone:  202-785-8940
Fax:      202-785-8949
Email:   info@plexusconsulting.com

Now, over the past eighteen months, virtually every membership needs assessment survey our firm has conducted for trade associations has found that one of the top needs of their members -- regardless of industry sector -- is in attracting and keeping employees.

Similarly, the top need identified in membership needs assessment surveys for professional societies is for skills improvement and networking opportunities to help in identifying and qualifying for new career opportunities. Such marketplace trends have created a demand for increased association membership services in the areas of human resource management and the development of professional education, training and certification programs.

Today a want ad in the newspaper might generate the same numbers of job applicants as ten years ago but the candidates now are different. Many if not most already have jobs -- as often as not they are simply testing the waters trying to find that next step in their career ladder. Even students fresh out of college are circumspect. Will this job offer them the opportunity to further advance their skills? How will it position them for their next career move? In the field of employment, we are in a seller's market.

The long understood ratios of supply and demand in the labor market have flip-flopped. The economy is booming and demand for every type of skill is high. The demographics are changing as well. The generation that has come into the labor market is fewer in number, so they have more choice over what jobs to take-and they know it.

But there is even more to it than this. Bruce Tolgan the author of Managing Generation X tells us their values are different. Unlike the workaholics of previous generations, they appear to have a life and a self-image that is not work-dependent. They also have learned lessons from their parents' workplace experience and have seen that corporate loyalty to their employees is weak to non-existent. If downward loyalty is no longer a given then why should employees be any more loyal to their employers? All these trends have created a role reversal in the job interview room.

This situation affects not only the members of trade associations and professional societies; they affect the associations and societies themselves. Forty percent turnover rates are not uncommon for nonprofit organizations these days. And in the accounting and information services departments, where market demand for these skills are booming, turnover rates are likely to be higher still.

As an association manager how do you explain a forty-percent staff turnover rate to your Board and to your members? More importantly perhaps, how do you deal with the knowledge and skills that you are losing and which you now have to recreate?

Associations are part of the service industry and as such their most important assets go in and out the front door at the start and close of each business day. So dealing with these human resource issues should be a priority; but it is curious to see how many managers continue to operate as if it were easy to find and to keep talented people.

Those association managers who have the best chance of keeping their own jobs long-term apply the following principles to everything they do:

• Everything about the organization and its policies needs to reflect the value it places on attracting and keeping the best people. For example: Are your salary and benefits comparable to what is being offered for similar talent and experience in the marketplace at large, and do you verify this on a regular basis? Do you encourage employees to develop a career path for themselves within the organization? Do you give priority to promoting from within? Do you encourage participation in the decision-making process? Are your best performers recognized and promoted?
  
  
• Offering the opportunity to improve skills is critical. Do you encourage and promote professional training and education? (Some managers do not for fear that by making their employees more marketable they will increase the chances of losing them. The result is often the opposite.)
  
  
• Provide and solicit feedback on performance. Do you regularly conduct employee performance reviews, and do you encourage comments on your own performance as a manager?

But even if such programs and procedures are in place there are some key leadership characteristics that cannot be institutionalized.

It used to be that the path to the top of an organization was through the accounting, legal or sales departments. But given these marketplace trends, strong human resource management skills are and will be a clear "must" for association managers. If this is not your strongest asset as an aspiring association leader, then you should definitely be nice to the people in HR-one of them might well be your future boss!