There is something seriously wrong with the way we hire and fire people in America. And we do way too much of both in a situation where high employee turnover rates cripple our ability to best be competitive in the global marketplace. Companies need to promote an entrepreneurial mindset throughout their organizations in which every challenge is framed as a problem waiting for a solution. Everyone needs the opportunity to come up with solutions, not just the few people at the top of the org chart. Employees and job seekers need to use an entrepreneurial mindset too.  

Only 29 percent of employees in the typical American company are actively engaged, that is actively working with purpose for the betterment of the company. Of the others, 45percent are not engaged while 29 percent are actively disengaged. (These dismal figures resulted from a survey of 1,500 employees by Dale Carnegie Training and MSW Research.) 

A good analogy is that of a company with 100 employees all in a big row boat working together to cross a river. The other side of the river represents success for the company. The flow of the river represents the relentless pressure of global competition on companies to always innovate and stay competitive. 

In the boat, you have 29 people rowing like crazy, 45 that are slapping their paddles against the water and 26 that are actually paddling backwards. Companies obsessed with the “bottom line” work really hard to keep employee wages low while the 26 percent of their employees paddling backwards are much, much more devastating than would be a $0.50 or $1.00 per hour raise to their production workers. 

Some companies have begun to realize that success in the future will require that 100 percent of their employees be actively engaged and rowing in the right direction. They are working to value their employees and include them in the innovation processes toward increasing customer service and lowering the cost of doing business. These companies make much more fulfilling places to work but how do you find them? 

To find the best places to work, job seekers have to change the way they think about presenting themselves to prospective employers. Using an entrepreneurial mindset helps us understand that every time they seek to hire someone they have a problem they need to solve. If a company advertises for an accountant, they have a problem in that they need their financial data organized in a way that allows them to fulfill their financial obligations and use the data to make better financial and management decisions. But the companies, i.e. prospective employers, have bigger problems they are trying to solve with each new hire, regardless of the job description. 

Companies are looking for people that can solve not only the specific problem of the position description, but also people that will show up consistently, when they are expected and to be actively engaged in moving the company forward. 

Using your cover letter to describe how you can provide the best solution not only for the job being filled, but also for the problems of “not engaged” and “disengaged” employees is what will get you in the door of the best companies for the interview where you can further reinforce your ability to provide the best solution. 

On June 7 from 6:30PM to 7:30, we’ll be hosting at Fab Lab ICC, a free Cover Letter workshop to help people craft a cover letter that will get them in the door of the best employers.