From mobility to nobility

We are sure many have heard of upward mobility, the notion that people want to claw their way up the slippery ladder of career success, to get the corner office, the fat salary, the executive perks. However, have you ever heard of 'downward nobility'? Neither had we until very recently. But when we did, it made perfect sense.

Of course we've all heard of 'upward mobility', but surveys show that an increasing minority of managers are no longer interested in the status and rewards of promotion. The 'downwardly noble' take pride in reducing the hours they spend in the office, perhaps willingly taking lateral moves into less prominent roles or even taking pay cuts to reduce the amount of time they spend at work, in order to achieve some of their personal goals outside of work.

Anecdotally, we've, too, noticed this trend. Increasingly, albeit still small in number, we have found many peers and professionals who confidently admitted they were not at all interested in progressing further up the hierarchy.

No, this was not in any state of inebriation or lack of competence. All of them are highly educated and have the capacity to lead and manage organisations, like divisional heads or CEOs are supposed to do. However, they chose not to.

Consequences

So what does this mean for organisations? Well, this has interesting implications for the ways in which an organisation typically incentivises and retains its most talented people.

Traditionally, many employees who are within some of the most desirable industries/ sectors to work in, are appraised in terms of what they need to do in order to progress onto the next rung of the career ladder.

However, the key assumption here is that everyone wants to progress upwards and this may mean that the more downwardly noble, yet still talented employees may not feel comfortable staying in the business.

They may be forced to leave for other, less thrusting organisations, unfortunately taking valuable knowledge and contacts with them.

Retaining employees

To hold on to these talented performers, organisations need to ask employees what they really want. But, more importantly than just ask the question, they need to create a safe environment for employees to admit they may be more interested in their lives outside of work than the prospects of promotion.

And once they have asked the question, organisations need to create opportunities for employees to work more flexibly.

For example, we understand in theory that men have as much right to take paternity leave as women to take maternity leave. But how many men feel that they can actually take all of their paternity leave without jeopardising their careers? Or losing continuity?

The same goes for working part-time, working from home, working compressed weeks; for example three 12-hour days as opposed to five 7-hour days, and so on.

Organisations that can genuinely flex to meet employee needs will hold on to their best people; those merely pay lip service to such arrangements will gradually see their best people depart, it's as simple as that!

- Sanjiv Anand is Managing Director and Rajesh Iyer is Director at Cedar Management Consulting International.