Italy’s Employment Minister Touched a Nerve – The Workplace Is Not a Meritocracy

Italy’s Employment Minister Touched a Nerve – The Workplace Is Not a Meritocracy

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 4 minutes

Mr. Poletti is right, the best thing you can do as a job seeker is be connected to people who can help you. But the Guardian article is also correct that simply leaving it up to that has been, and will be, a guaranteed way to leave too many qualified people behind. Somehow we are going to have to find a middle ground, a place where hiring involves a true meritocracy but allows access to the most diverse group of candidates that we can get. This will not happen by accident. It will only happen person by person and company by company.

Let’s normalize having a wide and diverse professional network.

What’s Your Definition of What a Job Should Be?

What’s Your Definition of What a Job Should Be?

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

That’s it. I know there are some who will tell you that they are passionate about their work, and they “never work a day in my life”. Good for them, but we have to start admitting that is a very small, select, group of people in a very small, select number of jobs. There are not billions of jobs out there like that for everyone to just go get. There are not even millions of them. Maybe I’m not going to change the world by doing just interesting work with people I don’t hate. That’s OK because I have the time to change the world in my own little way when I’m not working instead.

Linked: Half of workers say they will only apply for hybrid or working from home jobs
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Linked: Half of workers say they will only apply for hybrid or working from home jobs

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

I think that makes sense, and it might fit for a lot of US workers too. I know in the eDiscovery industry we are seeing more desire for flexibility, and salaries going up pretty significantly. Though we aren’t seeing the same level of disinterest in looking for a new role. Does that suggest that fewer workers in our industry have found what they are looking for in terms of flexibility and money? Or do they see the reality of changing jobs for a 15-25% pay increase versus what they’d get by staying?

That’s an interesting thing to think about. Do you know how your employees feel about that? Do you know what they want to stay? What will entice them to leave?