In an interview with MWorld, author and speaker John Izzo talked about the important issues leaders must face to retain and inspire the people they will need to achieve corporate competitive advantage.

Izzo: Over the last two decades much has been written about how work has changed -- less security, more competition, faster pace, and so on. While work has changed, our values about work have also changed significantly. In fact, a new work ethic has emerged, one that cuts across all three of the major generations in todayÿs workforce -- baby boomers, generation X, and the net generation. Any company wanting to win the best people or keep the ones they have needs to be aware of how expectations about work and companies have shifted. Keep in mind that our research shows these are not �young person” shifts, the whole workforce has changed.

MWORLD: What will be the repercussions of this new workforce?

Izzo: What we have now is a more confident workforce, expecting far more from work than security and making a living, people who are far more willing to leave or make sacrifices to align their values and their work. If we marry this new confidence and higher expectations with the demographics, the talent crisis is going to deepen significantly over the next decade. When the first baby boomers start to retire early (60% say they will), companies are going to be in for a �talent shock.” The pool of prospective employees will turn into a puddle.

MWORLD: You mention six expectations within the workforce. Could you briefly describe these and their importance to the different segments of the workforce?

Izzo: In Values Shifts, we describe each of the six shifts, the factors that influenced that shift, and how real companies are and can respond to those shifts.

The first shift is the expectation for balance and synergy. We have gone from a time when people expected to have to organize their life around work to the expectation that the workplace help them with their personal life. Balance is now the #1 issue for working women and in the top five for working men. In fact, 26% of us say we would gladly give up 20% of our salary for more time off. A survey of union members in Canada found 71% of them saying their top priority now for negotiations is not more hours but less with more flexibility. There is a revolution happening. We want flex hours, part-time work, sabbaticals, help with day care, a personal trainer on site. And companies that respond to this shift in innovative ways -- especially for working women -- will achieve amazing increases in retention. This first expectation cuts across all generations but is felt differently. But the bottom line is an awful lot of us now want to get out of the rat race.

The second shift is the expectation for community. In our book we show that as little as 25 years ago very few of us found friendships at work. In fact, many baby boomers were taught not to mix work and play. Now the workplace has become a major source for friendship and community. For example, there are a growing number of studies showing that employees are far more loyal and productive when they perceive that their manager takes an interest in their personal lives and when they have personal friends at work. We even suggest that many innovative companies are creating what we refer to as �new company towns” where the workplace becomes the hub of friendship, fun, and community. We have less leisure time and we are more mobile so work now has to meet needs that used to get met after work. This shift is most pronounced among younger workers, generations x and y.

The third shift is the expectation for work to serve a noble cause. I consider this to be one of the more fascinating shifts we discovered. In fact, a survey of graduating college students in the US found 86% of them saying theyÿd rather make enough money and make a �difference” in their careers than make lots of money and not make a �difference.” In our own retention assessments with companies, we hear this consistently. Software programmers say the technology they are working on is �not changing the world” and salespeople say �I donÿt believe in our products or the company.” This desire for noble cause gets translated in various ways -- the desire to volunteer on company time, to hear about how the products a company makes impact real people, and to work at a place where values are real and lived up to. In fact, over the last decade the factors employees use to judge an enterprise have changed. Size and stability used to be the top factors and social responsibility was not even on the list. Now in a short ten years it is #4 and size is losing ground.

MWORLD: What is the fourth?

Izzo: Itÿs the expectation for growth and development. Our research found that thirty years ago even the most highly paid professionals in our society saw work as primarily a way to make a living. If the work was also interesting and challenging, it was a nice bonus. Now two out of three of us say work is more a form of our self-identity; the first question we are asked when we meet someone is, �What do you do?” Exciting and interesting work is now the #1 reason why professionals say they turned down a new job and one of the best predictors of a committed employee is that they feel they are learning and growing. The interesting thing is that this shift is not just about being employable, it is about wanting and expecting work to be interesting.

The fifth shift is the expectation for partnership. Todayÿs workforce has moved way beyond empowerment in terms of what they expect from an employer. Over 50% of women and over 70% of men have actively thought about starting their own business in the last three years, and the #1 career net generation workers want to pursue is that of entrepreneur. As a result of far flung factors such as the Internet, more permissive parenting, the falling of the Berlin wall, and smaller sibling groups, todayÿs workers want a workplace with little hierarchy, few rules (especially ones that make no sense to them), and a leadership that listens to them in a profoundly new way. In the book, we give a great many examples of how companies are responding to this desire for partnership. My favorite is AES, a worldwide power company with 48,000 employees, that set a goal to eliminate every formal approval process within five years. In other words, letÿs make it so that no one has to ask permission for anything beyond their own team. This is the kind of radical thinking that will be required. This shift is also most pronounced among the youngest employees who feel if you can tell the president of Russia he is crazy now and not be arrested you certainly ought to be able to challenge your boss, or your managerÿs boss without fear.

MWORLD: And the final expectation isž.

Izzo: Trust. Trust in organizations and institutions, especially large ones, has been steadily declining over the last decade. In one survey 64% of employees said that management routinely fails to tell the truth and 43% believe their managers cheat and lie. A survey of executives showed that only 15% believed that �trust” was improving in their firms, and 75% said it was declining. But amidst all this skepticism, people have a deep desire for an organization where truth is told, where a set of values are more than a piece of paper, where straight talk about whatÿs happening is the norm. Any company or managers who can demonstrate this trustworthiness will have a big leg up on other employers.

MWORLD: Of the six expectations, is there one more important than the rest? If so, which is it?

Izzo: All of the shifts are critical. Together, they form a tapestry of how we have come to define a great place to work. But if I had to choose only one it would be the desire for partnership. The four most powerful words for engaging todayÿs workforce are: What do you think? People want to be consulted and have a say. The expectation for balance is also very pervasive. Time and flexibility are now more valuable to many of us than money. So companies that help people go in and out of work to focus on other things that are important to them will achieve significant levels of loyalty.

MWORLD: Let's talk about the new work ethic. How does that tie into the six expectations you have identified?

Izzo: The new work ethic goes something like this: We expect more from work than we ever have. We expect it to be interesting, we expect to be treated like partners, we expect it to be about more than profits, and meet our need for community. Most of all, we want greater flexibility so that we can work in bursts of time and then take time off from it. I think in the future you will see a lot more 35 year olds retiring and then coming back to work many times after that. MWORLD: All right. We -- meaning the workforce -- want more from work. What aspects of the business will this impact?

Izzo: Now that work is as much about who we are as a way to make a living, there will be significant pressure on organizations to create meaning for people. So companies will find it harder to keep people for a long time. To keep them, given that work has become a psychic part of peopleÿs lives, companies will have to hold people with looser reigns. I suggest that my clients think about their employees now like universities think about alumni. Keep in touch with former employees, ask them to refer other people, and understand that rather than work with you for a lifetime they may work for you several times in their life but do other things in between.

MWORLD: So there will be greater retention issues to address?

Izzo: Employee retention will become one of the major issues for a long time and these shifting values will raise the bar on what it will take to attract and keep people. Even more fundamentally, these shifts will mean more part-time work, more people going in and out of workplaces, and a growing focus for managers at creating a deep sense of community for people.

MWORLD: Do you have a corporate case that you can share with us that reflects the value shift?

Izzo: My favorite example is AES, one of the worldÿs largest power companies. They set a goal of creating �the most fun work environment since the beginning of the industrial revolution.” They have focused on creating a place focused on social responsibility, where people are treated like partners, with no set amount of vacation time, and where hierarchy is a distant memory. Companies like them are at the forefront of where the world of work is going. At a more micro level, there is Dawson Personnel Systems that worked out a deal with their sales and back office people to have more time off for more productivity. Sales and productivity soared and people got more time off. Then there is TD Industries, a mechanical engineering and construction firm in Dallas with a turnover rate of 15% with an industry average of 100%. They have made listening a religion and have regular time devoted simply to hear what is on employeesÿ minds. They treat their former employees like alumni, and by keeping in touch with them have won many of them back. I could go on, but here is the point: There is an A-team out there emerging and when the pool of potential workers turns into a puddle, your organization better be on the A-team.

MWORLD: You researched a considerable number of companies to identify the changes in values. Would you describe that research?

Izzo: I first suspected that there was a new work ethic when I would present to leaders about how �net” generation workers were different. To my surprise the baby boomers would come up to me and tell me that they wanted the same things the �young” workers wanted. So we put together a team of researchers and said, �Get us everything you can find on our desires and values towards work over the last thirty years.” When we put all of that research together, the six shifts, what we call the new work ethic, was apparent. Then we sent that same team out and said, �Find us examples of how companies are responding to those shifts and changing practices.” What we discovered were hundreds of great examples of what people were doing. At the same time we had worked with over 300 companies ourselves and could access examples from our clients. Finally, we chose six companies that we felt exemplified some of these shifts and did features on them. Readers have said the examples are very helpful.

MWORLD: To our readers, if there was one major thing that they could do to change their company's ability to compete for talent in the workplace, what would you propose?

Izzo: First and foremost, become better students of what people want from work. The old lexicon is becoming obsolete. Study the shifts and be honest about how you are doing as a leader and as an organization. In terms of practical ideas, here is my a-list:

• Ask people what they think a lot more often then you do now;
• Find as many ways as you can to accommodate peopleÿs personal lives and needs;
• Get to know people in more personal ways;
• Meet with people more often to ask if they are finding the work interesting and challenging and find lots of ways to give people new challenges;
• Practice continuous recruiting by building relationships with talent even if you have no job to fill;
• And one old fashioned idea, talk to people and simply ask what it would take to make them want to stay at your company for a long time? And when they leave, treat them like alumni by keeping in touch and letting them know you would love to have them back.