Page 24 - BusinessWest January 8, 2024

fully than others. Employees want their work-life balance, they want that flexibility, and they expect it.
“They have higher expectations from their employers because they got more during these past three years and they have more negotiating power, and they want to keep that,” she con- tinued. “But employers are saying, ‘we have a business to run here, the econ- omy’s tough, it’s getting more competi- tive, and we’ve got to buckle down.’”
This general difference of opinion is contributing to the uptick in employ- ee-relations matters, said Ebner, add- ing that things have been at a slow boil since last summer, but they’ve been heating up in recent months.
And this is just one of the dynamics creating more challenges in the work- place, adding that relatively new regu- lations, such as family medical leave and changing demographics within the workforce — with Baby Boomers mov- ing into retirement, Gen Xers on the downside, and Gen Y and Gen Z “tak- ing over” — are among the others.
“We have to be mindful of who’s in the workplace today,” she said. “And
if you look at five, 10, 15 years down the road, most companies are doing strategic planning and predicting the future ... and it’s Millennials and Zoom- ers, and that’s a real mindset shift for a lot of the C-suite people we talk to, and they are extremely unhappy about it.”
They’re not happy because what they’ve done for benefits and the larger employee value proposition (EVP) was much different for the work-first, fam- ily-second Baby Boomers than it is for the younger generations, who have dif- ferent priorities and are not shy about communicating them.
“It’s a reality, but it’s also a slap in the face for many,” she said, referring, again, to older, Baby Boom-generation leaders. “But there is no choice; the younger generations are here, they are dominating, and they are the future; we don’t have the robots yet that you can program.”
In this environment, the manag- ers that are thriving (and, yes, that’s a
relative term) are those who can com- municate with their employees and train those that Ebner calls “people leaders.”
“It’s all about expectations, and the employer who sits down with their team and communicates what is expected will fare better in this envi- ronment,” she said.
“They have higher expectations from their employers because they got more during these past three years and they have more
negotiating power, and they want to keep that. But employers are saying, ‘we have a business to run here, the economy’s tough, it’s getting more competitive, and we’ve got to buckle down.’”
“The number-one thing employers can do right now to help themselves is train their people leaders; they’re the ones delivering the message inside the organization regarding expecta- tions and performance metrics,” she added. “They are the conduit; they
are the veins that run through the organization where everything flows through. Good people leaders have good communications skills, and they help set expectations. And it’s a two- way street now; the employee feed- back gets to the leadership of an orga- nization through the people leaders.”
All this points to a need for more professional development in the work- place, she said, adding that employees are asking for it, if not demanding it, and employers should want to provide it.
The Sea Suite
Reflecting on the current scene in the workplace, Ebner said that many of the Baby Boom-aged HR profes- sionals she knows say they can’t wait to retire.
“They’re kind of done; they’re ready,” she told BusinessWest. “They’re not ready for the brave new world we’re in.”
Those sentiments speak to how challenging the workforce has become in recent years, a pattern that will likely only accelerate in the future, a reality that brings still more comparisons to Deadliest Catch.
There is nothing easy about catch- ing king crab in the Bering Sea. And these days, there’s nothing easy about managing a workforce. It all comes down to being ready for whatever might come at you. BW
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