Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership
The goal – To reveal the many talent impacts and their costs from the upcoming deportation effort (A 4-minute read).
It’s Better To Be Prepared… Than To Be Surprised
Whether you agree or not with the new administration’s planned mass deportation of 12 million undocumented immigrants. It’s important for corporate executives and talent leaders to understand whether the program is ever fully implemented or not (due to court challenges). The fear, anxiety, and turmoil that this threat alone will create among the immigrant community will, by itself, have a direct impact on many areas of corporate talent management. So, rather than being surprised by it, I urge smart leaders to prepare for it and develop a plan for handling each of its major impacts and costs.
The Talent Management Areas That Will Be Directly Impacted
It’s becoming clear that the new mass deportation effort will have costly impacts on corporations, so start planning before the program is fully implemented. Begin by identifying both the obvious and the subtle talent impacts and costs. The impacts that corporations will most likely face are listed below.
Deportation anxiety will reduce employee productivity – it’s important to note that even when your corporation doesn’t have a single undocumented employee. It may be a good idea to assume that many of your minority employees have work authorizations. They will have family members who may be at risk of deportation. Unfortunately, your employees’ concerns about their relatives and friends will reduce their productivity and output. At the same time, this increases their error, accident, and absenteeism rates. In addition, if your corporation has employees who are undocumented immigrants (perhaps acquired through a merger or lax I-9 processing), you must assume that their anxiety level will be through the roof.
Your hiring pool will be reduced – even though the 12 million potential deportees are a small percentage of the overall US labor force. Their fear and panic of just being hassled by immigration authorities will prevent a significant percentage of migrants (both documented and undocumented) from applying for new jobs. And that reduced applicant flow will, of course, negatively impact corporate recruiting. However, that fear of being caught during your hiring process will be especially high in industries where many immigrants have traditionally worked, including agriculture, construction, retail, and hospitality. That higher level of fear is also likely to be justified because the feds are most likely to target employees in these industries. Finally, realize that this fear of going through your I-9 process will likely cause an increase in the dropout rate among both legal and undocumented immigrant finalists.
In addition, US-based corporations likely face a measurable reduction in their international applicants, who may now have a reduced interest in working for corporations based in a country that no longer appears to welcome foreign workers. It’s also important to note that corporations hire workers in the so-called sanctuFary states (i.e., California, Oregon, and Illinois). Because of their stance, they won’t face as large of a reduction in the number of immigrant-related applicants. In direct contrast, the negative immigrant attitude and the local police support in some states (i.e., Texas, Arizona, and Florida) may cause a reduction in the number of applicants (from both migrants and their sympathizers).
Immigrant employee retention may actually improve – even when all of your employees are legally authorized to work. Many of your employees will be worried about going through another corporate immigration screening. So many will decide to stay in order to avoid that screening. And that real or imagined concern will increase your migrant retention rates, at least in the short term. However, if any of your migrant employees are experiencing a bad job situation at your corporation, keeping them will not make you better off.
The required almost perfect work authorization screening process will cost you – under this new focus. There may, of course, be increased penalties for employers that hire those who are not authorized to work. But even without those increased costs, the countrywide enforcement effort and the public pressure associated with it will put all major corporations under increased pressure to make their I-9 employment verification process foolproof. This will be especially true in industries that have historically been suspected of being lax with immigrants. This need for perfection will likely require expensive reengineering in both your initial applicant and new hire employment verification processes.
Discrimination issues will increase – because this controversial deportation effort will also cause many of your employees to take sides. You will need a plan for handling the inevitable increase in conflicts and, yes, discrimination issues based on race and nationality. These emotional conflicts will likely wreak havoc on team cohesion. This increase in conflict will require that your managers and HR representatives be better trained on discrimination and conflict resolution. The increase in potential discrimination may also mean that recruiting will need to re-examine its resume screening and interviewing processes to ensure that they are fair (and perceived to be fair) to all immigrants. In some cases, HR will need to develop a single point of contact for employees, managers, and applicants. So that all immigration issues can be resolved quickly. Finally, corporate DEI efforts will likely face reduced budgets in the future. You won’t be able to expect much help from your DEI staff.
Legal costs will skyrocket – it is clear that the new administration expects to spend billions on enforcing this deportation effort. That will likely mean that corporations will face an increasing number of regulatory and legal challenges to be prepared, and corporations will have to strengthen their well-trained legal staff, which will mean a dramatic increase in corporate legal costs. Especially if your corporate leadership chooses to get involved in the immigration cases of some of these individual employees.
How you handle this issue may also impact your customers and product sales – because this immigration issue is likely to also impact your customers and where they purchase products. It’s also important that your employer branding campaign makes it abundantly clear to the public that your corporation continually acts in a fair and objective manner in immigration-related hiring and employment areas.
Another significant impact will be on your business partners and vendors – creating a ripple effect on productivity throughout your supply chain. This includes your primary contacts, support staff, developers, and other key personnel who must shift their focus to address these challenges.
| If you only do one thing – explore hiring an outside expert on federal employment eligibility assessment. And have them identify the risks and the strengths of your current employment verification process. Then, follow their recommendations on changes. |
Final Thoughts
Because this immigration and deportation issue is obviously a highly emotional one. Your corporate response to it cannot be based on intuition. Instead, your response needs to be precise and data-driven. That response should begin with a compelling business case that effectively convinces executives and managers to focus on identifying its most likely problems alongside the most effective solutions. So that your corporation can develop a competitive advantage over others who will choose a more emotion-driven response. Finally, performance metrics need to be developed to ensure that all of your talent management processes are perceived as fair to all, but especially to documented immigrants.
Note for the reader
This is the latest post from Dr. John Sullivan, who was labeled “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company Magazine.
Please help to spread his ideas by sharing this with your team/network and by posting it on your favorite social media.
