The Pomegranate Principle

CHAPTER ELEVENPRINCIPLE 4: Recruiting the Whole Person

Recruiting the whole person is not the most significant Pomegranate Principle, since all the strategies of the framework need to work together seamlessly, but it is the one principle that is often overlooked by companies or is dismissed as not important. The issue that many companies find themselves in is this: if it is true that people typically quit their jobs because of a bad boss, they also leave companies because they do not like the overall environment of the organization and its physical geography. They can't bring their whole lives to that organization. They can't authentically live the life they want in a particular city or the overall setting—the company plus the geography. I had a client that lost a candidate of color because that person said, “I can't live in this city. I love the role. I love working at this organization. I love my team, but I haven't been able to bring my social life from Atlanta to Seattle.” And this candidate left and there was nothing the company could do. They can't pay him enough. They can't promote him enough. They can't give him a senior enough role. If this person cannot find a social, cultural, spiritual, or educational environment that sticks with him and his lifestyle and his family, he is not going to stay at the company. And if he can't work remotely, he will take another job in a geography more amenable to his quality of life. It is why I am a big advocate for remote work to ...