It’s safe to say we’ve long outgrown the traditional employer-employee relationship in which the job interview was likened to a first date, followed by a blind promise of lifelong loyalty neither party is likely to uphold. Today, there are no pensions, wages are underwhelming, and many companies are perfectly comfortable laying off staff as soon as their profits dip below a certain margin. The old social contract is no longer valid and today’s workforce is not willing to stake their futures on an organization that fails to offer them the security, fair treatment, and adequate wages enjoyed by previous generations. As I discuss in my book, we need to redefine the social contract between employers and employees by emphasizing transparency, fostering new avenues for mutual value creation, and nurturing a continuous courtship that transcends traditional employment boundaries.
Revisiting the Terms and Conditions
Savvy organizations recognize that today’s employee might be tomorrow’s client, investor, brand ambassador, talent referrer, or even a boomerang employee. This perspective transforms every interaction into an opportunity to forge lasting, mutually beneficial relationships. To achieve this, companies need to adopt a long-term outlook, lead with generosity, and be deliberate in their approach to onboarding and offboarding talent.
Rather than subjecting employees to unpredictable layoffs or retaining underperforming individuals until the annual review cycle, this model fosters an agile, mature partnership between equals continuously choosing to opt in based on evolving needs, performance, and circumstances. It prioritizes meaningful outcomes and impact over tracking arbitrary signals such as where or how long people are working. Replacing the outdated annual performance review with real-time feedback and regular, two-way assessment sessions ensures that both employees and leaders are heard. This approach enables timely adjustments, fostering ongoing alignment with each other's evolving needs and goals.
It demands intentionality from both parties, with a focus on optimizing time, resources, and purpose to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes and maintain relationships beyond formal engagement. For example, LinkedIn enriches the onboarding experience by asking employees to articulate what they hope to accomplish by the end of their tenure. This allows the company to reverse-engineer the role, tailoring it to align with the individual's aspirations and career objectives. To sustain connections after employment, companies can implement comprehensive offboarding programs, including exit interviews and alumni networks. This approach keeps relationships active, offers project opportunities, and boosts engagement, as exemplified by firms like McKinsey, PwC, and Booz Allen Hamilton.
New Sources of Value
In my experience, I have identified several untapped sources of value that both organizations and their employees can mutually leverage. This shift requires organizations to develop systems that enable rapid value creation. Let’s delve into some of these:
Organizations Differentiate Themselves by Adding Intrinsic Value Beyond Pay and Benefits:
Make Employees More Valuable in the Marketplace: Contrary to career models of the past where people completed formal education, secured a job, and coasted along indefinitely, today’s longer lifespans and evolving business landscape require ongoing upskilling, learning, and adaptability throughout our careers. Millennials and Gen Z are acutely aware of this and are hyper-focused on ensuring their time with your organization is worthwhile. The moment they feel under-leveraged or detect a lack of growth or progression, they're quick to move on. As workplace expert Heather E. McGowan aptly puts it, "Learning is the new pension." Investing in employee development not only enables people to add more value to the organization today but makes them more valuable in the marketplace in the future as well. Check out my recent article on the Development Dividend for various ways to do this.
Provide Interesting Problems to Solve: People do not decide to stay with a company for free lunch and dry cleaning. They stay for the opportunity to solve important problems and be part of something exciting. When employees are given the chance to tackle important challenges in collaborative, co-creative ways, they experience greater satisfaction, engagement, and productivity. Organizations, in turn, benefit from increased innovation, better customer experience, and reduced turnover. There are various ways to implement this, such as forming cross-functional Tiger Teams to address challenging business problems or running Tour of Duty programs, where employees can join specific projects for a set period. It can even be as straightforward as how a leader frames the work for their team—connecting the dots, articulating the problem to be solved, and inviting the team to devise the path forward. These approaches enable employees to leverage their current skills, acquire new ones, collaborate across functions, and make meaningful contributions to the business.
Meet Their Human Needs: As humans, we all have deep-seated needs for meaning, purpose, esteem, connection, inclusion, and growth. But, with today’s workforce increasingly disconnected from traditional community structures like religious groups or familial institutions—and often delaying or forgoing marriage and family—work has become a central pillar of personal identity. As a result, employees are now looking to fulfill these needs through their work environment. Unfortunately, many workplaces unintentionally suppress these fundamental human needs, which can stifle motivation, engagement, and performance. However, organizations that not only acknowledge but actively meet these needs can offer a transformative experience that employees won’t find elsewhere. I go into a plethora of easy, low/no cost ways you can do this in my newsletters and book.
Understand What Job They Hired Their Job to Do: Clayton Christensen’s Jobs-to-be-Done theory emphasizes that people use products or services to fulfill specific needs rather than for their features alone. Applying this concept to the workplace, Google’s Dart Linsley asked employees what "job" they hired their job to do, uncovering diverse motivations beyond pay, such as problem-solving, status, and feeling useful. By understanding what employees seek from their roles, organizations can create more meaningful value propositions aligned with their personal goals, enhancing motivation and engagement. This approach can easily be integrated into onboarding, one-on-ones, surveys, and performance reviews, shifting the focus from organizational assumptions to individual employee desires.
Untapped Sources of Value Employees Bring to Their Organizations:
Brand Ambassadorship: In today’s interconnected world, the boundaries between employees, customers, and investors are increasingly blurred. This presents a unique opportunity for organizations to harness the power of their people as brand ambassadors. However, this can only be effective if employees genuinely feel a sense of loyalty and affinity towards the company, as authentic enthusiasm is essential for them to truly represent and advocate for the brand. Many companies miss this chance by relying on costly, inauthentic marketing and advertising instead of tapping into employees' personal brands and social media influence. However, in today’s world authenticity is what truly resonates; customers and candidates prefer real insights into workplace experiences over polished marketing narratives. For instance, during my tenure at PwC, I also served as an adjunct professor at Columbia University, which allowed me to promote PwC’s brand and generate interest among potential employees and clients. My positive experience at PwC has led me to continue advocating for the company through my writing, speaking engagements, and social media. Similarly, empowering employees to share organic, day-in-the-life content can turn them into credible, organice recruiters, especially for younger audiences. Gen Z expert Hannah Grady Williams suggests creating platforms, like a Slack channel, for quickly approving employee-generated content to boost social sharing and brand authenticity. A prime example of what not to do is Sherwin-Williams' decision to fire Tony Piloseno, a TikTok influencer with over 2 million followers. Although his immediate supervisor supported his passion for posting videos of himself having a blast mixing paint at work, Sherwin-Williams’ marketing team dismissed his efforts, and he was eventually fired. Instead of leveraging Piloseno's influence to attract younger customers, Sherwin-Williams lost him, his followers, and potential future customers and employees
Innovation: Innovation flourishes when employees are actively engaged in co-designing and co-developing solutions that tackle challenges, optimize processes, or create new products and services. Advisory boards and staff councils serve as valuable platforms for gathering feedback and refining ideas across the organization. I encourage clients to involve employees, especially those who may initially resist changes, early in the process to share insights and influence outcomes—building a sense of community, commitment, and ownership. One client successfully scaled this approach by creating an innovation hub where employees could propose ideas for product and process enhancements, which leadership would review, recognize, and act upon—resulting in several successful new market offerings.
Intel: In today’s fast-paced world, leaders are increasingly out of touch due to limited digital fluency and differing lived experiences from customers and employees. Gartner reports only 16% of leaders possess the agility needed for the future. To counter this, leverage employee insights to stay current with digital trends, employee and customer sentiment, and the broader cultural landscape. One impactful strategy is reverse mentoring, where Digital Natives are paired with senior leaders to share their technology expertise, keep them informed of the latest trends, and help them adopt new digital platforms. Another is to appoint a Digital Native and leaders of employee resource groups to the leadership team, allowing them to address blind spots and provide fresh perspectives.
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