Capital One Human Resources Challenge

Introduction
Capital One wants to become the employer of choice for talented young knowledge workers. This report will outline some of the elements that go into attracting and retaining that sort of worker. The young knowledge worker is characterized as under the age of 35, either highly educated (master’s degree or above) or highly skilled (i.e. programming), depending on their field of expertise. As a financial institution Capital One needs talent in both finance (MBA, M.Sc), programming and development, as well as in fields like marketing (i.e. creative talent). These workers have their choice of companies with which to work. They demand great spaces, living in the best cities, and the opportunity to do challenging work with other highly talented, motivated people.
Physical Space
The best workers call their own shots with respect to where the live and work. While quality of life means different things to different people, the target market is a specific demographic that is multicultural, liberal, and well-educated. At younger ages, they prefer to live and work in large, dynamic cities alongside people who share their values. Thus, Capital One needs to establish its main offices in those types of cities with a very high quality of life. This is universal across the world – talented young people prefer this environment (SCMP, 2015). Capital One, located in suburban DC, offers a good quality of life, but the wrong one to attract the people it is now trying to attract. This might lead to an HQ2 sort of concept, where it sets up in another location with a higher quality of life appeal to the under 35 demographic.
Virtual Environments & Technology
Remote work is another potential solution to the issue of suboptimal headquarters location. Virtual environments are important in the sense that talented people like to have the freedom to do their work when it suits them best. There are risks associated with working remotely, such as loafing, but talented workers are driven by intrinsic motivation, and thus are more likely to be among the remote workers reporting longer hours and higher productivity (Beauchamp, 2015). The remote work environment will need to be built around the best tech stack – tools like Asana, MS Teams, Office 365 or Google Docs, Slack, and videoconferencing software can reduce the friction associated with remote work. These tools also provide visibility for management to ensure that people are working as hard as they say they are.
Business Processes and Procedures
The best workers, in general, manage their own affairs well. Give them tasks and a set of SOPs that they can follow, and they will thrive. Remember, though, that this only applies to the top talent Capital One is trying to recruit; lesser talent needs a lot more supervision. Regardless of where the work takes place, the best workers should be given guidance, not instructions, in order that they can apply their creativity to solving problems. Without these opportunities to flex their intellectual muscle, top talent will not come to work for Capital One, and as a bank the company will probably have to work hard to overcome the stigma that industry has for conservative business practices. Top talent needs the freedom to learn, grow and tackle challenges head-on, with minimal interference from management.
Culture
One of the biggest draws for top talent is organizational culture. Culture is top down, which is why the current employers of choice tend to be tech firms, started by people of similar mindset to the top talent – and why a bank has a lot to overcome with respect to changing its employer brand. The culture has to be fast-paced, innovative, and open to rapid, jarring shifts in direction; in other words, comfort with uncertainty, lateral thinking, agility and emotional intelligence (Greenbaum, 2017). The best talent thrives in such an environment. If this does not align with Capital One’s strategy, then the company should rethink its plan to become the number one employer of choice in the world – it will get people who will only grow frustrated and leave.
Compensation, Health & Well-Being
The top fields for talent these days are highly competitive. They are emerging skill areas that every company wants, and there is not enough of this talent to go around. In order to attract this talent, pay and benefits are actually just the starting point; they will get paid wherever they go. So start with a leading strategy on pay. If you define “global leadership” as your strategy, be prepared to back that up with dollars (HRM Guide, 2017).
To get in this game, Capital One has to be prepared to be a leader on things like health and well-being, too. The best people expect a lot of perks, amenities and benefits for their labor, so everything from gyms to daycares to healthy snacks and other perks are necessary. There are a lot of benefits to such programs in general (Klick, 2017). As noted, these are just a starting point, and will not go far unless the company ties the desire to bring in top talent with strategy in such a way that the talent will be given challenging projects and the opportunity to work with great people – if they aren’t being challenged daily then all the ping pong tables and yoga rooms in the world won’t keep them.
Conclusions
There’s more to this of course, but Capital One has to recognize that it will need to build a better employer brand to get in the game for top talent. First, it needs to ask itself why it needs that talent in the first place. If the company is in a slow-growth business where most employees do repeated tasks, then it will never be able to attract the best talent in the world, much less retain it. Wanting to be the employer of choice seems like an a priori conclusion driven by someone in the C-suite that doesn’t actually know much about human resources – don’t forget to question the underlying assumptions of this strategy, before throwing the salary bands out of whack for workers Capital One doesn’t even need.
References
Beauchamp, P. (2015). Telecommuting: The pros, cons and risks of working from home. InGuard. Retrieved December 27, 2017 from http://www.inguard.com/blog/telecommuting-pros-cons-risks-working-from-home
Greenbaum, K. (2017). The five top talent challenges of today’s c-level executives. Forbes. Retrieved December 27, 2017 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2017/07/03/the-five-top-talent-challenges-of-todays-c-level-executives/#650e7ab15f18
HRM Guide (2017). Compensation strategy. Simple HR Guide. Retrieved December 27, 2017 from http://www.simplehrguide.com/compensation-strategy.html
Klick (2017). 94% of CEOs: Wellness programs = talent acquisition. Klick. Retrieved December 27, 2017 from https://www.klick.com/health/news/blog/insights/94-of-ceos-wellness-programs-talent-acquisition/
SCMP (2015) Quality of life is key to attracting global talent. South China Morning Post. Retrieved December 27, 2017 from http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1784331/quality-life-key-attracting-global-tt