员工年龄跨度大，该怎么办？

现在已经不是爷爷辈当家的时代了。以前员工队伍经常都是一代人（而且大部分是男性），如今则是跨越多代人，有些员工甚至能够工作到八九十岁。除了传统员工，还有经常连轴转的合同工和临时工。（不会用公司的智能手机打卡下班。）现在是千禧一代挑大梁，员工在某些事情上倾向于更加直言不讳，要求也更高——尤其在公司价值观方面更是如此。

面对新情况，雇主与雇员之间的老式合同是否还好用？管理层应该怎么做才可以吸引并留住人才，打造积极的员工队伍？不久前，商界顶级高管在《财富》首席执行官倡议论坛上齐聚一堂，讨论在新的现实情况下，企业如何才能有效地调动员工。

近几年来，商界领袖一致认为，企业宗旨和价值观在员工眼中日益重要——这也是吸引人才的关键因素。很多人指出，不管对企业还是企业领导来说，坚持贯彻和塑造价值观都很重要；专家认为，如果企业对外宣扬的价值观和内部践行的价值观并不一致，就会让员工有极大的幻灭感。许多首席执行官还谈到，让各级员工都参与创建和讨论企业价值观很有益处，比简单地自上而下传达指令更有效。

与会的首席执行官一致认为，还有一条原则必须遵循，从公司方面的人接触潜在雇员第一时间起，就要在员工期望和企业文化方面保持透明和“残酷的诚实”。他们指出，许多公司招聘过程中往往会“粉饰”实际情况以争取人才，如此以来员工投入实际工作后会产生不信任感。

首席执行官们主张，由于当今员工队伍总会跨越几代人，公司应该为员工提供更加个性化的福利计划，以更好地满足需求。千禧一代员工的需求往往与从业数十年的人大不相同。举例来说，有一家公司注意到，千禧一代员工没有使用401K match养老金计划（即员工存一笔钱到401K账户，公司存入等量资金——译注）。后来发现，原因是不少人需要钱偿还学生贷款。该公司后来用员工存钱公司补贴的方式帮助员工偿还学生贷款。

商界领袖还认为，公司应该接受多元化的员工队伍，不断打造并鼓励涉及多代人、多种族的团队。有证据表明，如此一来便能够融合各种不同观点，鼓励创新并实现更好的业绩。

与会专家还指出，如今的员工不只需要免费零食和桌上足球等时兴福利，还渴望获得发展机会，学习新技能，接受新挑战，内部换岗还是外派海外都行。一位与会专家表示，正因如此，轮岗计划才会重新流行起来。

一切的关键在于良好的管理。与会高管和专家一致认为，公司在培训中层管理人员发展和培养人才方面往往做得太少，而且至关重要的是，公司往往不让中层管理人员承担该部分重要职责。与会者还认为，首席执行官应该示范此类导师关系，并认为如果想要打造优秀的员工队伍，非常需要一批自身能体现企业价值观，又肯花时间开发手下员工潜力的中层管理人员。（财富中文网）

译者：艾伦

审校：夏林

This isn’t your grandfather’s workforce. Once dominated by a single generation (not to mention gender), today’s spans many, with employees working away sometimes into their eighties and nineties. Beyond old-fashioned employees, there are contractors and gig workers, and they tend to be tethered to work at all times. (There’s no punching out on your company’s smartphone). With millennials leading the charge, workers today tend to be more outspoken and demanding about certain things—particularly when it comes to the values of the companies they work for.

Given the new status quo, does the old-fashioned employer-employee contract hold? What can management do to attract and retain the talent, and build a thriving workforce? Top executives gathered at the Fortune CEO Initiative rencently to discuss how companies can best to engage employees given these new realities.

The business leaders agreed purpose and values have become increasingly important to workers in recent years—and that they’re a key factor in attracting talent. Many noted the importance for companies and corporate leaders to consistently apply and model these values; few things can be as disillusioning to employees as seeing gaps between the values preached externally and values practiced internally, said experts. Many of the CEOs also spoke of the benefits of engaging employees at all levels in the creation and discussion of corporate values, which they noted was more effective than simply dictating those values top down.

Also essential, the CEO participants agreed, is being transparent and “brutally honest” about employee expectations and corporate culture from the first moment a company representative makes contact with a prospective hire. They noted many firms try to win talent through the rosier lens of the recruitment process—which leads to distrust once those employees start working in the actual environment.

Given the multi-generational nature of the workforce, the CEOs advocated for more personally tailored benefit plans that better serve the needs of individual workers. The needs of a millennial employee are often very different than from individuals who are many decades into their career. One firm, for example, had noticed that millennial employees weren’t taking advantage of their 401K match; it turned out that was because those employees were using the money to pay off their student loans. The company offered to extend the same match to student loan repayment.

The leaders also argued that workplaces need to embrace the broad demographics of their employee bases by developing and encouraging multi-generational and multi-ethnic teams. There is evidence that bringing together diverse perspectives in this way leads to greater innovation and performance.

Experts at the session also noted that employees today crave—more than trendy perks like free snacks and foosball tables—development opportunities, in which they’re given a chance to learn new skills and be exposed to new challenges, whether that be a job in a different part of the world or company. For that reason, rotational programs are coming back in fashion, said one expert attending the session.

Key to all of this is good management. The participant executives and experts agreed that companies often do too little to train their middle managers to develop and nurture talent, and critically, they often don’t hold them accountable for this important element of the business. The group agreed that CEOs need to model such mentoring relationships and that much of the success of the workforce depends on a a group of middle managers that embody the values of the company and dedicate time to developing their employees.