The Remedy for Talent Shortages? Culture.

In 1999, a company began to revolutionize the way companies approached culture by offering a suite of seemingly outrageous amenities to their employees. They hired onsite chefs, masseuses, dry-cleaning, nap pods, and other luxurious perks to create a desirable workplace atmosphere. Most CEOs at that time might had written this culture off as a fad that couldn’t possibly be maintained, but today that company is known as Google, and is worth $527 billion.

What is it that drove such rapid growth? Why was Google able to scale at such an unbelievable pace?

The answer is simple: they invested in a culture that was entirely based on attracting the best employees available. With these lifestyle investments, they were able to attract the best talent available, talent that in turn, built the best product in their industry.

In terms of the numbers game, all of those investments to Google cost a negligible amount in terms of dollars, but paid off in the hundreds of millions in innovation and new ideas that drove the 21^st century forward.

Organizations of all shapes and sizes are developing services and software to enrich the lives of their consumers and business partners, and they need talented people to help them build their enterprises into something bigger. The more brilliant people companies can get, the faster they can build better products for their customers.

This is the main reason why many large companies have upped the ante in order to get top talent: the best culture + the best talent = the best product or service. It’s a different environment out there … talented people have lucrative options that convince them to either stay put or pursue new opportunities. Talented people hitting the market are being offered competitive compensation packages to woo them into new opportunities. The lesson to be learned here is that modern employees—especially young millennials—want to work somewhere they feel valued. Companies should take note.