In 2005 we wondered what our biggest problem would be.
We were surprised that it turned out to be:
how do we find people we need to efficiently realize our mission?
But we, the management, all baby boomers,
should not have been surprised.
We ourselves have created the problem.
Everyone thinks that our generation
was all about 'Make love, not war'.
But in reality we practiced 'Make love, not children'.
(Laughter)
Our parents had 2.2 children.
We produced only 1.2.
It takes 2.1 children to replace the people who retire.
Our children are doing better.
But their children enter the labour market around 2030. Too late.
Against all intuition the number of people at work keeps expanding.
The situation in Belgium will become problematic
already in 2014, when as many people leave the labour market
as the number of people entering the labour market.
It looks like 2020 is going to be the most difficult year
with a replacement ratio just around 60%.
In the meantime, the war on talent will burst
in all its intensity.
Therefore, the nature of the labour market
will change dramatically.
In the old days, labour supply exceeded demand.
The employer chose the employee
and he could make high demands.
In the near future labour demand will exceed supply.
The employee will be scarce.
In the future the employee chooses the employer.
Every company, everyone who employs people
will have to compete with anyone who employs people.
The challenge is: who gets these people?
For every company the key question of the future is:
how do I become and stay a sexy employer?
I am convinced the answer is:
change your corporate culture.
Customize your culture to the culture of the millennials,
because those are the people you need.
Key question: which corporate culture lures the millennials?
Millennials want a high degree of self-determination.
They are no salary slaves.
They don't want their boss to decide where to work.
Our motto is: work at home, home at work.
Work at home.
Then the next logical question is:
who can work from home?
Don't go there. I know what the result is going to be.
The top is allowed to work at home,
the graduates also, the rest you can't trust.
The real question is:
which functions are not eligible for work from home?
You will be surprised.
92% of our people are perfectly able to work from home.
And 69% does.
This requires a total change of all processes and workflows.
Until now, the employee had to follow the file
because the file was a paper file.
Today's technology makes it possible
to make files follow the employee.
Digital is the new normal.
The employee expects to work with technology which is state-of-the-art.
At least the kind of edge technology he is working and playing with at home.
It's natural for him to work any place, any time and with any device.
Bring-your-own-device will be standard in years to come.
If state-of-the-art technology is like having breakfast,
using social media is like breathing.
If you save on technology at the expense of employees
and you don't trust your employees on social media,
they feel like a prisoner in your organization.
If you really want millennials to leave,
keep working with the old versions of Microsoft Office and ban social media.
Let your employees work wherever they want,
but make sure they feel at home at work as well.
The workplace is not a place for solitary concentration.
It is the place where you meet people.
As an employer, think about [what] the workplace
where you want to meet other people should look like.
The setting in which people work should not depend on hierarchy.
It should depend on the activity you are executing at that specific moment.
So you can read email here, but also at home
or at Starbucks, wherever there's an internet connection.
You can have a meeting here,
but of course we have videoconferencing as well.
And coffee?
Coffee you can drink anywhere.
Mostly it is drunk at home.
Which is very cheap for the employer.
In such an environment, creativity seems to come naturally.
But to create a truly creative organization,
you need to do a lot more.
Everything must be designed for the employees
to participate in the continuous design of the future organization.
When you enter an organization,
you smell the boss and his culture.
What kind of bosses do we need
to create a creative environment?
Not this one, because he is like this.
We need bosses that are like this.
How do we know if they are the new good bosses?
How do we know if the team manager is a team builder?
How do we know if she is a real coach for you?
Well, we ask the team.
Every year, we organize a bottom-up evaluation of all the bosses in our organization.
You wouldn't find much creativity in an organization that is based on this model.
You will have to work hard to ensure that you have this kind organization.
How to get there?
Easy, ask your employees.
Give them time.
Encourage them.
And certainly don't fill up their agendas
with 100 percent operational assignments.
Make them proud.
Think and do authentic branding.
Ask all employees to use social media.
Beg them to talk about their organization, not your organization.
Become a conversation company.
It's hard work, but it brings magnificent results,
including financial ones, although that's only the side-effect.
It's collateral profit.
First and foremost you have to make your people feel at home at work.
And don't tell them when to work.
Only bad bosses and bad employees are happy with the time clock.
Bad bosses think that you're a good employee
when you get there on time and don't leave early.
Bad employees think it's okay just being there.
In the end it's all about results.
Each team must know what results they should achieve.
And the entire team decides who does what, not the boss.
A boss should never tell people how to work.
He's to decide what the results should be.
That's what an authentic boss does.
He doesn't lie. He walks the talk,
not because he read it in a management guru's book,
but because he believes in it, he is convinced,
he is enthusiastic about it.
For the old style boss, employee equals function.
An organization has financial resources,
it has logistical resources,
but you don't have human resources.
People are no resources.
Your recruitment policy should reflect that rule.
Be like the Rolling Stones.
What would happen if Charlie Watts had enough
of the follies of Keith and Mick and Ron?
Would they place and ad for a drummer who can keep pace?
No. They would leave no stone unturned
until they found a new Stone.
If your people are really important,
then you feel about their future.
Not only their professional future,
because that's only about the company's future,
but their future, their life's future.
Certainly not every millennial is a card carrying member of the green party,
but be sure, they hate filth, they hate waste.
The world is their world.
For them, global warming is no theoretical problem.
They feel it. It destroys their world.
So don't expect them to work for a company
that is part of the problem.
Their friends would have a lot of criticism
if you work for a polluting company.
Make no mistake, in making choices
they rather listen to their friends than to their employer.
Even if your business has nothing to do with ecology,
then you should be part of the environmental solution.
That's why we buy products that are cradle-to-cradle.
That's why we drive small hybrid cars.
In a few years, we will produce all the energy we need.
The paper purchases are reduced by 72%,
the printers by 84%.
And everyone in the organization knows this strategy
and is convinced that management makes good choices.
Strategy and branding are key tasks of management,
but their task ends there.
Management determines where to go.
The people decide how and what to do to get there.
Sometimes you need to completely break with the past.
We chose a totally new environment also:
less space, no walls.
So many changes, and do we get our results?
The first year after the change, we realized a two digit productivity rise.
But again, that's collateral profit.
It's people that matter.
Benchmarks indicate that our people are the most satisfied federal employees
because they can choose when to work.
That's what they love.
People choose to work from home
because they are fed up with traffic jams
and trains that are always too crowded, too late, too hot or too cold,
but they continue to work from home
because in doing so, they have become director of their own lives.
On Saturday, everyone is fighting for a parking lot at IKEA or at the shopping mall.
Not our people. They shop on Monday or Tuesday.
Our people work when they are concentrated.
When you are concentrated, you only need 6 hours to get all your work done.
Anna is correct.
And thereby, everybody wins 4-5 hours a day.
Time is really the new money.
Also our organization is gender-balanced.
At all levels, there are as many women as men.
And strangely enough, we don't have a gender program.
What's the secret?
Our young mothers don't need to take a part-time job
to pick up their children at the daycare or at school.
Part-time employees get no promotion.
Full-time employees do.
Sometimes, things are easier than you imagine.
We are very happy with these results
because it makes us more attractive as an employer.
Because we know family is the first priority for millennials,
not the organization they work for.
Important, yes, but not a priority.
Accept it. Family is parents, grandparents, children.
But family isn't just family. It's also their friends
and anyone with the same values.
The employees have to experience those family values
in the organization.
That means: remove hierarchy and status symbols.
It means creating a physical environment that promotes
the meeting between all employees.
No walls.
These are the eight motors of change.
Employers have no choice.
Companies in a coma, get serious.
Change or disappear.
Shift or shrink.
And change is like breathing:
You stop, you die.
Thank you.
(Applause)