Recent research has shown that a job and a competitive remuneration package are not sufficient for attracting competent professionals to an organisational position. Other benefits that a professional may look for include opportunities to learn and to enhance their skills through structured training in a job. Professionals are also attracted by on-the-job opportunities to acquire certification credentials.
Assume that you have been hired as a CEO of a medium-sized company. The only product line of the company is gas meters. The company has been developing these meters for over 45 years with only minor improvements from year to year. Many of the employees have been with the company for over 30 years. The environment of the company is fairly business-as-usual. A significant number of employees (over 40%) are going to retire in the next five years. In addition, the utility companies are considering adopting systems which transmit gas consumption readings over wireless networks without the need for meter readers to perform door-to-door meter reading every billing cycle. Your company does not have any plans or any expertise in this modern technology. Some of the employees nearing retirement are not interested in new products as they do not see any problems with the company in the near future or through the remaining duration of their employment.
Answer the following questions to indicate what you would do in this situation:
- How would you motivate employees, who have been working with the company for a long time, to take interest in the long-term future of the company?
- How would you make sure that the new hires with expertise in new technologies work collectively as a team with the rest of the team members who do not have exposure to the new technologies?
- What would you offer to the new hires to attract and retain them? Clearly, you are not doing much cutting-edge technological work. Developing wireless gas meters may be considered high-technology within the gas-meter industry. What will be your approach?