Why Coca-Cola is the number one employer of choice in America

How Coca-Cola retains talent, opinions versus facts and questioning the value of degrees when hiring talent.

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How Coca-Cola retains talent

Coca-Cola was recently named the number one company in America for talent by the American Opportunity Index. The ranking takes into account several factors including their hiring, promotion, wage, culture and diversity policies.

With around 80,000 employees globally, this is a serious achievement. The company does many things but here’s two that stood out to me:

1. Coke offers total visibility on internal opportunities through an online portal. An employee from India can easily see and apply for an opportunity in Europe.

2. Coke encourages all employees—from truck drivers to engineers—to take short assignments to build skills, anywhere in the company.

Smart and talented individuals leave companies when there’s nothing left for them to learn and that’s why Coke puts so much emphasis on helping employees easily traverse the universe of opportunities inside the company.

Coke also has the typical benefits around time off, mental health programs, paid benefits and so forth but sometimes, retaining talent boils down to simple things. Give your employees the opportunity to learn new skills and take another step in their career.

Question: What can you do this week to make it easier for employees to find their next opportunity internally?

Start on the wrong foot and you will trip

I was part of a networking lunch recently where the topic was remote work. Most of the attendees were managers or leaders, in charge of teams.

They were all against remote work and wanted their employees back in the office. There’s nothing wrong with taking a stand but my issue was that their opinions were built on faulty evidence.

I heard statements such as:

“I doubt my employees are getting any work done at home”

“One of my employees never returned their computer equipment”

“I’m paying my employees to be in the office and not watching Netflix”

All of these statements are either assumptions or based on one data point (the computer one). 

Where is the evidence?

U.S. Senator Daniel Moyhinan once said “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

If you start thinking about a strategic decision with the wrong facts, you’re bound to trip before getting to the finish line.

Question: What evidence can you collect this week to help you make a difficult decision?

The value of paper in a modern world

The American Opportunity Index from the first idea has a category for how well organizations take employees without degrees into high, paying jobs. 

Companies like Bank of America are making serious strides in hiring people without degrees and ensuring they aren’t hindered in promotional opportunities.

College degrees aren’t going away but leaders should question their use when selecting candidates.

College degrees are a proxy for a list of highly desirable traits: the ability to complete assignments, critical thinking, teamwork and others.

The obvious counterargument is that someone could develop these traits without going to college.

The goal when hiring talent is to find someone who can contribute to the performance of the company. Leaders need to identify the traits needed and look objectively at a person, with or without a degree.

Paper is nice but having the right traits is even better.

Question: How can you tweak your job descriptions to ensure you’re not missing out on talent without college degrees?

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Talk next week,

Ruben