Hot off the presses in an AP story this week: “Minutes after his team won the Big East tournament championship, UConn coach Dan Hurley was worrying aloud about one of his freshmen being lured toward the transfer portal with name, image and likeness compensation offers from other schools.” Hurley had just seen his highly-recruited, and bench-warming freshman, Jaylin Stewart, make three important 3-point shots that helped the Huskies win over the formidable Marquette Golden Eagles.
Line after line of this article had me connecting the dots between the NIL/Transfer Portal transformation of college sports and seismic shifts in the American workforce related to the demand for talent.
NIL Deals and Hiring Bonuses
Say what you will about the animated Coach Hurley (I have thoughts as a Creighton Bluejays fan), but leaders looking to retain key talent can relate to his fears. The opportunity for a young player to make tens of thousands of dollars by showing up at a car dealership to sign autographs, or feign delight in an insurance company, is becoming a bigger draw than even the fanciest locker room or practice facility in the days of yore. Coaches are no longer able to sway a player by hosting a hot prospect for a weekend; now there are donors to engage and fuzzy NIL rules to navigate.
Similarly, employer attempts at connecting with a new generation of employees missed the boat. Businesses that invested more in ping-pong tables than manager development see their highly-recruited employees staying only long enough to collect their hiring bonuses and then leaving for bigger bonuses. It isn’t the beer fridge that keeps an employee engaged. Gallup released data stating, “The manager or team leader alone accounts for 70% of the variance in team engagement” (Gallup, It’s the Manager, 2019, p. 105). Read that again. 70%.
If businesses want to reap the rewards of a highly engaged workforce, then the investment needs to be with those most responsible for that engagement: the managers. And what does team engagement lead to? 70% fewer safety incidents, 59% less turnover (in low turnover organizations), 40% fewer defects, and 41% lower absenteeism (Gallup, p. 103).
The Expedient Transfer Portal and Woes of the Mid-Majors
The 2022 rule change that allows athletes to switch schools one time without sitting out for a year reminds me of the contrast between my father’s commitment to his employer with a pension versus my view managing a 401K. My dad worked for Northern Natural Gas Company for 30 years. In his mind, if you worked hard and helped your employer succeed, you would be taken care of in retirement. But Northern Natural Gas Company became InterNorth, which merged with Houston Natural Gas to become…Enron. Enron ended in one of the largest bankruptcies to date. The tragedy was compounded with a company ethos of keeping your retirement savings in corporate stock. Over 20,000 retirees suffered.
So how does the demise of Enron connect to the changes in the Transfer Portal? Because schools can’t rely on the commitment of high school students to maintain their rosters. Adia Barnes, Arizona women’s basketball coach, shared “I think the hard thing is you have to recruit your own team, and you have to maintain your players and go in the portal.” UConn’s Hurley commented, “We’ve just pleaded with (Stewart) on a daily basis” to stay. Comments like these come from large- and small-program coaches across the country. Retaining players is as important as recruiting them.
And we hear this from corporations as well. At an average cost of $4700 to replace each employee, companies cannot afford to churn. Yet how often do managers focus more on filling the seat than developing the player? It was so hard to find that great new hire…and now LinkedIn is the transfer portal of corporate America. Even internally, managers resist sharing their A-players with other departments for fear they will be “poached.”
Recruiters actively search for mid-level employees who have paid their dues, and yet feel underappreciated. The employee you develop to take on more responsibility “some day” discovers there are places where their talents are needed today.
These are the children and grandchildren of Enron.
Lessons from the Past for the Future
While college sports are still adjusting to the new reality of athlete engagement and retention, the American workforce may have a lesson or two to share.
1. Define a culture that will engage the spirit, not just the wallet.
2. Engage the player/employee early, with minutes off the bench, so they can see their future.
3. Recruitment is a never-ending process.
4. Train your leaders to embrace their critical role.
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