SNP Communications

Trying to capitalize on good old American Talent?

By Stephanie Trinh — USF Senior, SNP Intern

So it’s common sense that top companies want top talent. While some IT companies are going abroad to find that talent – in the form of Indian engineers, what do you do when it’s not just engineers that you need? What if you need talent for your marketing, sales, or finance department?

Not to worry, there’s still plenty of talent here in America – specifically in the newest wave of them … the Millennials. And strategic companies are going right to the source — Facebook and Myspace.

What? You say that you don’t need to spend money on that networking stuff?! I’m sorry, but if you’re not Google, Ernest & Young, or Genentech, you need to join your competitors or you’ll be left with second pickings. Okay, so you get on the bandwagon, and you get the top of his/her class employee, but how do you keep them? If the rumors are true – which the most recent surveys confirm, the main goal of most of these workers is not to climb your corporate ladder, but to own their own business.

You say not to worry, because reality will hit them and they will rather be able to afford the nice car than be their own boss – again, if the research is accurate, your newest workforce would rather take the self-empowerment over a high salary. So managers, now what do you do?

I say, motivate by letting them be the CEO’s. What? Silly girl, what are you talking about? Before you stop reading, take for example, good old Google who is notorious for creating value by nabbing the best from Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. As if that’s not enough, they snagged the number one spot for Fortune 500’s 2007 best company to work for. Besides for the cool scooters, Google seems to really understand how to motivate their fresh-out-of-college employees. They have this system called APM – Account Project Manager – which gives a Googler CEO like responsibilities with their own team of marketing and finance people. They fall in line with the corporate strategy, but have complete ownership in how they create value.

So back to the common sense and bottom line. Basically, if it’s self-empowerment they want, give them that. And as managers, you reap the benefits — that is how I think you can capitalize from the Good-Old American talent.

Filed under All, Digital Natives.

Leave your comments