In this episode of Transform Your Workplace, host Brandon Laws talks with David Rizzo, Principal of Talent Strategy and Operations at Deloitte US. The two take a deep dive into talent retention and development strategies. Learn what makes Gen Z and Millennial employees tick, how to retain top talent, and what it means to develop capabilities in your people for an impact far beyond the here and now.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
David Rizzo is the National Managing Principal of Talent Strategy and Operations at Deloitte US. With over 20 years at Deloitte, David is passionate about developing future of work strategy and fostering a culture of belonging.
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🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
OPTIMISM VS. CONCERN
In Deloitte’s 2022 yearly survey of Generation Z and Millennials, a few common themes were uncovered. The first was concern around cost of living. David Rizzo explained, “This is a population that is pretty sensitive to changes in inflation, so they have concerns about living paycheck to paycheck and how inflation will impact them in their daily lives.” He went on to explain that this shows up in the way they experience work and their relationships with employers. In addition to how employers contribute to climate solutions, Gen Z and Millennials have an increased awareness about physical and mental well-being.
Despite the aforementioned concerns, these younger generations are still optimistic about the future. David says that these generations believe “that change is possible,” but this optimism is balanced with “some deep-seated concerns about what the future may hold for them.”
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Investing in Your People
“One of the things your employer can do is invest in you, in your growth and development, and, in particular, invest in the kinds of capabilities that have a strong probability of being needed in the future and […] a level of portability. So sure, they’re beneficial to your employer, but they’re also visible, transparent, in the marketplace. And you can take them with you and help monetize your own capability so that you feel more secure in what you have to offer to the market at large. And I don’t think employers should be fearful. I think they should embrace that both as an opportunity to attract talent, to retain talent, and also see that talent can go on and develop in this organization or in another organization.”
The Employee’s Expectation
“We think a lot about why people choose to join us, why they choose to stay with us, why they choose to talk about us to family members, to friends, to others. We talk a lot about preference. It’s not just about experience. It’s about why people are choosing to be part of your organization. And we know some things about our workforce that really excite us. One thing is that […] they’re curious. They come to us because they believe they have an opportunity to explore a lot of different things and learn from that exploration. And we wanna embrace that and give them those opportunities.”
A Solid Talent Strategy
“We have to have a real clear understanding of the work we’re doing, and that sounds very basic on its face, but it’s really important as an organization. And we’re not unique here. We’re entering new markets and we’re doing different things for our clients and for our customers, and that creates a need for different types of capabilities. As an organization, we need to be at the forefront of that. We need to be leading that. We can’t be lagging the business in our workforce strategy and our talent strategy. So we really need to understand the markets we’re going to be competing in in the future.”
Growing What’s In Demand
“I think it’s an expectation from our clients, from our customers, from our talent, and from society that we’re not just an employer, but we’re a developer. We grow talent in part because some of the capabilities we create are the most in-demand capabilities in the marketplace. And so we have to be an organization that’s growing talent. We simply can’t go out into the market and acquire all of the talent with the capabilities we need. It also creates a meaningful societal benefit. Again, we come back to this point that we’re creating capabilities that are in demand and portable, and that has real benefits for the communities in which we live and work.”
Personalizing Development
“I referenced this idea that people are choosing to come to us because they’re curious. They believe they’re gonna have opportunities to get experiences they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere else. Well, that has to flow through to Project 120. So, absolutely, one of the opportunities is to be able to explore the kind of learning, and it’s not just digital or physical classroom learning. It’s also learning plus experiences. How do you put those things together so that you’re in a position to have the kind of role that you want in the future?”
Looking to the Future
“One of the things that’s really important to us is being able to cast a broader net, being able to, make ourselves available to a broader array of the population, which would include individuals from economic or social backgrounds that haven’t historically had those kinds of opportunities. […] Another gauge of our success through a sort of business-minded lens is having sufficient talent to support what we would call ‘hyper-growth’ parts of our business, which are often in the cutting-edge areas of capabilities. […] Another thing that we look at is preference. We do a lot of work to then actually measure experience. Are we walking the talk? So we look at whether our people are getting the experience they chose to come here for, and learning and development is a big component of that.”
LEARN MORE
To learn more about Project 120 or to connect with David Rizzo and Deloitte, head over to their website here.