The Navy, in its assignment policies, awards the best available jobs to those with the highest GPA. On the surface, this looks like a sound policy that would give the best opportunities to those with the best capacity to absorb them. However, it means that challenge and learning curve are delivered to the group with the highest tendency to leave!

From here, it looks like a policy that accelerates the attrition rate.

In fact, the approach creates a troublesome gap. Officers who are most likely to stay in the system are not given the broadest, most challenging assignments. The enduring life force of the system, long term career officers, are given lower quality assignments from the beginning. They are permanently penalized for less than stellar academic achievement even though they are the foundation of the service.

Meanwhile, the assignment policy tends to increase the value of the best and brightest pool to potential non-military employers. The Navy's research shows that an officer is likely to leave once the cost of leaving can be recouped in a year or two. By giving high quality assignments to the group most likely to leave, the Navy seems to be encouraging their departures.

We wonder if this same problem isn't occurring around the economy. It seems intuitive to suggest that challenge and high quality assignments be directed towards those most likely to execute them well. We are not aware of any program that gives promotions, raises and flexibility based on the "likelihood of retention". Rather, we see lots of knee jerk emphasis on trying to figure out how to retain those most likely to leave.

We giggle at the thought of a recruiter telling a potential employee "You don't qualify, your grades were too high", or a boss saying "we're giving the promotion to the woman with a 'C' average".

Of late, we've been interacting with several companies that help companies "model their workforce". Based on internal diagnostics, the "best" employee is identified and training is developed to get the rest of the workforce up to the level of that employee. Can you imagine how those conversations might go if the 'consultant' suggested that the best employee was the one most likely to stay? Our bet is that these companies train attrition into the workforce.

Like many things, the composition of an enduring labor pool is a balancing act. Availability, likelihood of attrition, skills and a variety of other factors make an overall great workplace. We find this extremely counterintuitive example to be instructive. Sometimes what seems like exactly the right thing to do is the very thing that creates the problem.

- John Sumser © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.

Over the weekend, we wandered the concourse of a local amphitheater while the teenagers enjoyed a concert. Swirls of people gathered and came apart while overpaying for a hot dog and a coke. It seemed like the crowd segmented into the folks at the concert and the folks on the concourse. Dads, Moms and other older folk sat and watched the people while the kids screamed and danced.

We staked out a position near a video screen to watch, sip and save our worn eardrums. It turned out that our bird's nest was a traditional gathering place for the professional musicians in the crowd. We eavesdropped, with rapt attention, to the conversations about forming a band, adding a drummer, figuring out the next trend, balancing the road with a construction trade, new equipment, drug hazards, building an audience and surviving the career. We'd stumbled into a peer to peer recruiting environment.

The professional musicians were there to polish their craft, find a new gig, reacquaint themselves with old friends and generally stay current. In a business that relies on free agency at its roots, keeping visible is central to the long term viability of a career. Similar scenes take place at a local music store. In some cities, the game is supported by a local weekly newspaper.

In the early days of the web, the buzzword was something called "disintermediation". Disintermediation is the elimination of the middleman or broker. While the early high flying dreamers overestimated the ability with which the web could disintermediate, we're certain that the current state of affairs is best seen as a strong reaction to the idea. The notion the the web will resolve to a few central players is, well, silly.

The roots of the employment marketplace are millions of adjacent networks of people who share interests and livelihoods. They cluster around a barbecue or a swimming pool. They share carpools and buses. They bump into each other at the local Starbucks or grocery store. They talk. They follow. They move. They create. Their jobs are a part of a richer tapestry.

Ultimately, the P2P networks will grow from these cluster. It just takes the right technology. The Napster (or Gnutella) of recruiting easily fits into their current habits and doesn't ask anyone to "go" somewhere or "do" something. P2P recruiting will be an overlay.

- John Sumser © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.

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