At a very young age, I saw how employers have a huge impact on the lives of the people who work for them, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not. I started working for my dad at age 12 — sweeping floors, cleaning restrooms, and other janitorial type work. The day I started, my dad pulled all the supervisors together, introduced me, then told them if I did anything wrong, to fire me with the same process as any other employee, not to come talk to him. So, I worked hard and made a lot of friends. During that process, I learned a lot about the lives of the people I worked alongside. They had concerns about transportation, housing, or choosing between clothes or food for their kid. They were hard workers, and their lives were often overwhelming.
Starting at The SOURCE
I was curious: if people had the resources to solve the situations they encountered outside of work, would they be more engagedin the workforce and attentive in their roles as a result?
When I became a CEO, I invested a lot of effort into answering this question. At a time when there were not many conversations happening around holistic support for employees, I managed to convince seven other CEOs to join me in a journey of building an organization called The SOURCE. Our goal was to invest in a truly “people-centric” hub for equipping our employees to address any financial, educational, or network barriers they were facing. In turn, we hoped to see increased engagement and decreased turnover at our companies. This approach was successful. People-centric leadership is a game changer for mid-market CEOs.
The Next Challenge: Talent Fluidity
As I observed the success of this people-centric model, questions and challenges still lingered. What happens when we invest in a people-centric model and employees still leave? I see talent as fluid and respect that people come and go. I value hiring talented, self-motivated individuals and respect their career choices, even when those choices lead them away from our company. This realization led me to consider three critical aspects of talent management: balancing employee and company needs, embracing the inevitability of employee transitions, and developing more effective strategies for succession planning.
The solution to this issue, I believe, is to acknowledge that people-centric leadership (focusing on what our employees need) does not need to be pitted against enterprise-centric leadership (focusing on what our company needs). In fact, I would posit that they go hand-in-hand.
Enter: Talent Pipeline Management
I stumbled across the Talent Pipeline Management ® (TPM) framework while doing research for my second book, “The Retention Trap: Stop Measuring Turnover. Start Measuring Talent Investment” (expected June 2025). TPM uses supply chain theory to identify talent supply partners. It also analyzes risks to the talent system to stabilize and predict talent needs and areas to invest in so that leaders have the best chance of a healthy supply of talent. I was intrigued.
Upon going through the TPM Academy®, I was impressed by the depth and rigor of the content. This seemed to fill the gap I couldn’t quite put my finger on in terms of employee support, talent retention, and workforce continuity. The systems thinking approach embraced the flow of talent acquisition, retention, and transition, and taught how to identify and quantify talent supply as a multi-year approach to planning for talent needs.
TPM: An Essential Guide for Small and Mid-Market Companies
I’ve noticed that within small and mid-market companies, we are not always great at planning out multiple years. We may have strategic plans, but they tend to prioritize revenue or market share goals. Rigorous strategic planning in other areas is not our forte. As entrepreneurs we believe we will be able to navigate any situation we find ourselves in. However, the reality is that there are demographic realities and big system realities that small-and mid-market employers would be smart to think about, and the TPM framework is an extremely helpful guide!
While my work on The SOURCE models a people-centric solution to assist employers in bringing stabilizing resources to their employees, Talent Pipeline Management is an incredible enterprise-centric tool to guide employers through what it takes to understand and develop their pipeline and comprehensive system for talent. A people-centric leadership model married with an enterprise-centric approach to the talent system provides a massive competitive advantage with greater odds for success.
My first job at 12, sweeping floors in my dad's company, taught me that leadership isn't just about business metrics – it's about people's lives. Today, as CEOs, we have the power to transform our companies and communities by embracing both people-centric and enterprise-centric approaches. By investing in our employees' well-being while strategically managing our talent pipelines, we can build resilient organizations that don't just survive change, but drive it. This is the kind of leadership our workforce needs and deserves.
About the authors
Mark Peters
Mark Peters is the CEO of Butterball Farms, Inc. and the author of "The SOURCE."
