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Some reports conclude that the average worker will work for upwards of a dozen employers before they are 50! Competitive forces are squeezing our bottom line and challenging our workforce more than ever. The Society of Human Resource Management estimates the cost to replace an employee at two to three times their annual salary (or more), meaning that we must not only hire the best, but keep the best, and train employees to serve our clients to the best of their ability. What’s a business to do?

Consider this: our grandparents often grew up working for a family farm or business. They learned their work ethic directly from their parents and other extended family members. They were loyal for a lifetime. In our parents’ generation, most individuals worked in the same profession for the same company for most of their career. From the 1960s through the 1980s, working the same profession for multiple companies throughout a career was the norm.

Yet today’s top professionals and those in the generations to come are predicted to have an “independent agent” attitude about their careers. I don’t use the term in the legal form of independent contractor but rather to demonstrate that we are hiring sharp young adults who recognize that they must take charge of their own career development and view themselves as their own agent, controlling their career destiny.

A 2006 American Staffing Association study by Steve Bertram, Vice President, estimates that growth in the contract and temporary sector has grown more than 70 percent in the past decade. This number is expected to grow exponentially during the next decade, due in part to changing attitudes towards work. Contract workers mention their own desire for skill development as a key reason for working on a contract basis. It has become apparent that our generation will not only have multiple employers, but must prepare for multiple careers in their lifetime.

This trend from a paternalistic employer-employee model to an agent model will continue to vastly change how we recruit, motivate, coach, and distribute the actual work to be accomplished. A May 2009 study completed by Thomas Britt, an industrial-organizational psychology professor at Clemson University, outlines his research in “Amplifying the Relationships Between Organizational Constraints and Outcomes,” currently under review at the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. “Engaged workers are more likely to place importance on being able to perform well because their performance matters to them ahead of corporate loyalty,” Britt said.

In other words, engagement is only effective at retention to the extent that the engaged worker feels that they have the organizational support necessary to be successful and rewarded in their role.

We must, then, ask ourselves the following:

1. Does our company tailor its recruiting methods to attract today’s best and brightest? (Hint: your current employees want to work for a positive “brand” as well.)

2. How can we cost effectively train employees who may not be lifetime employees?

3. Have we reviewed and revised our benefit plans and policies to improve our ability to attract and retain the employees we need today?

4. Does our organization understand the full cost of turnover in a knowledge-based business environment? When we experience turnover, how do we ensure that intellectual capital does not walk out the door?

5. How do we coordinate the distribution of work so that employees are continually engaged and learning?

6. Do we have a formal or informal mentor program that provides support to high potential employees?

7. Is career development a priority or is it an afterthought?

8. Are we asking for and providing a comfortable means for feedback from our employees?

9. Do we appropriately acknowledge and reward our most valued employees?

10. Do we analyze why we lose valued employees?

Employers of choice know that keeping employees engaged, learning, supported, rewarded and growing is key to retaining valuable employees. Regardless of the economic climate, demand for top talent is always high, so to keep top performers providing value to our organizations, we must capitalize on our understanding of the evolving workforce.