Rockwell Collins is a major supplier of aviation electronics to defence and civilian markets. But company executives acknowledge that its headquarters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is not the most glamorous or attractive destination for new graduates. “If you’re single and you say, ‘Wait a minute. I want nightlife and mountains to ski in and a larger city, or I want a coast to go to,’ we’re not offering a lot of that,” admits Ron Kirchenbauer, the firm’s senior vice-president of human resources (HR).

As a response to this challenge of attracting new workers, the firm’s HR department has instilled in senior leadership the need to see the workforce not as one monolithic entity, but rather as one comprising several generations. “We think there are huge differences in the way people create an affinity to an organisation or to a leader. And we want our leaders to understand those differences and that one size fits all from the generational perspective is not sufficient in today’s world to attract and retain the kind of talent that we need,” says Mr
Kirchenbauer.

The company is not as successful in retaining the younger workers as it is the family-oriented mid-level managers who can appreciate good
schools and commutes that last less than ten minutes. “Having said that, most organisations would kill to have my turnover rate,” adds Mr Kirchenbauer. On day one, the company assigns a “new hire sponsor” who is specifically tasked with showing a new employee the ropes.

Rockwell Collins has also had positive results with specialist software that is designed to match mentors and mentees. It closely resembles online dating websites. The company asks its leaders once a year to fill out a profile with their field at work, hobbies and other interests. New employees fi ll out a similar form. The programme’s algorithm calls up a list of potential mentors for the new hires. The mentees then select which of the upper management personnel they are interested in meeting. All this happens without the mentors knowing who is looking at their profiles.

Potential mentors are notified by e-mail that they have been selected. They then contact the new hire to set up a meeting. Having a system that appeals to the so-called Generation Ys or millennials is an important part of the programme’s success, notes Mr Kirchenbauer. “That next generation of talent, they really like this, and they use it a lot. It’s very much just like the online world they grew up in outside of Rockwell Collins,” he adds.