Employee Retention

Employee Retention involves taking measures to encourage employees to remain in the organization for the maximum period of time. Corporate is facing a lot of problems in employee retention these days. Hiring knowledgeable people for the job is essential for an employer. But retention is even more important than hiring. There is no dearth of opportunities for a talented person. There are many organizations which are looking for such employees. If a person is not satisfied by the job hes doing, he may switch over to some other more suitable job. In todays environment it becomes very important for organizations to retain their employees.

The top organizations are on the top because they value their employees and they know how to keep them glued to th organization. Employees stay and leave organizations for some reasons.

The picture states the latest statement that corporate believes in Love them or Lose them

The reason may be personal or professional. These reasons should be understood by the employer and should be taken care of. The organizations are becoming aware of these reasons and adopting many strategies for employee retention.

In this section we are going to study about various topics related to employee retention, why is it needed, basic practices, myths, etc. in detail.

Presidents Day 7 Powerful Leadership Skills That Turn a Manager into a Leader February 17, 2010 by Lois Moncrief A Person Can Be a Manager and Not Be a Leader Think of all the bad examples you have heard of companies that have had disappointing and poor performing management at the top -Enron, etc. A Person Can Be a Great Leader and Not Necessarily a Manager Think of Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, and Mahatma Ghandi.

There Have Been Examples of Managers Who Were Great Leaders

Think of Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of England. Winston Churchills ability to rally Britons in the face of a Hitler attacking England during World War II is an example of his leadership abilities. President Abraham Lincoln led the U.S. during the Civil War over slavery and is considered by many to have been the United States Best President. The Best of All Worlds for a Workplace is to Have a Manager Who Has Good Leadership Skills Managers who have good leadership skills are frequently the visionaries who bring about a better world think of Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple. They inspire their employees with their dreams and their employees help to make it a reality. Most of us will never be a Winston Churchill or an Abraham Lincoln. There are, however, some traits of leadership that we can all adopt to provide good leadership in the workplace which will have a positive impact on employee motivation, retention, productivity, and job satisfaction.

Leadership Skills That Managers Can Develop That Will Have a Positive Impact on Employee Motivation, Performance, Retention, and Job Satisfaction Here are a few. 1. Set a Good Example - this covers so much from honesty, fairness, showing respect and expecting respect to putting in a good days work yourself. Dont just talk the talk walk the walk. Leadership by example is very powerful. 2. Dont Let the Workplace be Ruled by Politics and the Good Old Boys - etc. There are few things more demotivating to the majority of your employees than this. If you do choose to award your buddies, your good people (who can leave) will leave and the others will be demotivated and it will affect their work and productivity. 3. Do Reward Those Who Do Well in Their Jobs very motivating to everyone. 4. Hold Your Employees Accountable - Make Sure There Are Consequences Appropriate to the Situation if you tolerate poor performance and/or poor behavior (without dealing with it in a timely manner) you create a very bad situation that only gets worse with time. Your good employees have no reason to go the extra mile especially if they have to do it to make up for someone who is coasting, getting away with it, and being paid the same amount of money. Others will decide they might as well stop or slow down working as there are no consequences. 5. Performance Standards Have Reasonable Expectations of Your Employees and Communicate Them Clearly and Award Appropriately- Make sure you create a performance evaluation system that gives employees the opportunity to create a win for themselves by working hard and smart to exceed your expectations and a win for you (with increased productivity, etc.). If you have only subjective performance elements that are moving targets and only you know and decide at a whim what is good, ok, or not alright you take away your employees incentive to do well.

6. Keep Your Employees Informed and Share Your Vision With Them have regular meetings to keep them informed and show them what you see for the future of the company.Give them the chance to have input also. You can do this with joint management-labor meetings. If you have built trust and they have confidence in you they will gladly follow you and do all they can to make that future happen.

7. Keep an Open Door Policy, Make It Safe for Your Employees to Come in and Share Whatever They Want in Confidence and Then Listen to Them You will be surprised how much you will learn about your workplace that will help you be a better manager. I am not talking about encouraging gossip. I am talking about an honest exchange of information intended to improve conditions. The input you will receive will show you ways to improve motivation when you understand the problems that may be holding your employees back. Good Leadership is a Powerful Skill for Managers If you are a good leader, in addition to being a manager, everything will go better. You and your organization will reap the benefits employee motivation will be high, employee performance will be high, employee retention will be high and job satisfaction will be high.

Vancouver Olympic Games

Good Question! You are probably scratching your head right now wondering what this is about. Well, actually it is about a couple of thoughts. Managers and Human Resource Managers, as you watch the games for the next couple of weeks, think about the following:

First, the Olympics and World Class Athletes in general remind us that frequently, amateur athletes are not paid but are motivated without money to work hard to achieve great goals of personal accomplishment. Dont you wish you could learn to do that with your employees? Whats Money Got to Do With It? That term motivated without money is very interesting. There are many ways to motivate people without using money but to me this is one of the most intriguing. Athletes spend years training and frequently living spartan lives for many years so they can chase their dreams of achieving noteworthy athletic accomplishments and the recognition that goes with that. Only the very top athletes may realize significant monetary gains for all that work and all those years of dedication. What Drives Them? What drives them? Love of their sport? Maybe. The idea of competition and proving they are the best? Maybe. Is it for the chance to be a hero? Maybe. Is it the chance to claim a spot in history? Maybe. Managers and Human Resource Managers, what if you had employees who could be motivated that strongly without using bonuses, cash awards, promotions, etc.? What if you could find that secret to motivating employees without money that would still drive them to accomplish great tasks for your organization? Can you mimic those circumstances in your organization that would motivate employees to work so hard for very little money? Can you make the award of the task itself and achieving goals rewarding enough so that making money is less important? What About Nurses, Teachers, Firemen, and Policemen to Name a Few Jobs That Arent About Lots of Money?

Besides amateur athletes being motivated without money, there are employment fields that do not offer high paying jobs but still attract many workers. For Example, teachers, nurses, firemen, and policemen are jobs that do not attract workers looking for high paying careers. What is the motivation there? Is it to be admired and respected? Maybe. Is it to Make a Contribution? Maybe. World Class Athletes, Goals, and Employee Development Plans

The second point I would like to make is all about the Olympics and World Class Athletes and goals and employee development plans. Managers and Human Resource Managers, did you see that one coming? Few would argue that it is possible for athletes to just naturally become better without setting goals to work toward. Many athletes also have development plans where they have written down how they are going to improve and what they need to do to reach the next step on their road to success. This same philosophy can work well at work also. Most employees are thinking in the back of their head, Whats in it for me?. They have their long range ideas about bettering their lives and moving up the ladder of success at work. On the other hand, the company has its organizational goals and annual operating goals and plans. The Trick is to Have Synergy Between These Goals 1)The manager needs to sit down with each employee on a yearly basis to create an employee development plan unique to that employee. Another option is an employee proposes a development plan that the manager reviews, make changes and approves.

2) The plan takes into account the employees strengths, interests, long term goals within the company and also takes into account the companys goals, upward pathways for employees, needs for skills, etc. The manager and the employee agree on a development plan which may include training, courses, mentoring, etc. to be accomplished that year. Quarterly they can sit down and check progress and make changes and corrections as needed. The goals they set to be accomplished that year are all part of a multi year plan to develop the employees skills and abilities toward what he would like for his future at the company while also serving the needs of the company. Obviously, these goals have to be realistic and the companys needs trump any disagreement on development goals. The outcome should be a win-win. A win for the employee and a win for the company. So Maybe Employees Are Like World Class Athletes Following a development plan with their manager (coach), employees can improve their skills and eventually create a win for them and a win for their organization (country).

Your employee may never become a World Class Athlete or even the best employee you have at your organization BUT your employee may see whats in it for him in the development plan for what he wants his future to be while also meeting your organizations future needs. Seeing his brighter future being created can be very motivating to perform at his best and also give him a reason to stay with your organization ! For more on Employee Management, Motivation, and Performance, a FREE Special Report on Motivating Employees (includes FREE weekly complimentary copies of my ezine on Management, Motivation and Performance), visit my website: http://www.SmartManagementNow.com Visit Me on Twitter http://twitter.com/LoisMoncrief

copyright (c) 2010 Lois Moncrief Globebic LLC All Rights Reserved To Your Success!

Lois Moncrief Leave a Comment | Employee Management, Employee Motivation, Employee Performance, How to Motivate Employees, Human Resource Management | Tagged: Employee Development, Employee Development Plans, Employee Goals, Employee Management, Employee Motivation, firemen, hero, How to Motivate Employees, Human Resource Managers, Managers, Motivating Employees, nurses, Organization Goals, policemen, teachers, Vancouver Olympics, World Class Athletes | Permalink Posted by loismoncrief

Valentines Day February 9, 2010 Valentines Day, the Relationship Day, is fast approaching. Most of us think of our spouses, sweethearts, and other loved ones such as our mother on Valentines Day but Valentines Day is also about successful relationships in general. It is a good time to assess our relationships with others in our lives. One place frequently overlooked is work Do we have successful working relationships with peers, subordinates, and superiors? What can each of us do to enhance and improve our working relationships with others in our organizations?

Just as marriages work best when both spouses are committed to trust, honesty, kindness, love, cooperation, and many other positive behaviors, work relationships can benefit from many of these also. Trust, honesty, cooperation, and kindness are important traits of any successful working relationship. Successful working relationships can be a major contributing factor to business success. Managers set the tone in organizations by example and what they expect of their employees. Valentines Day is Relationship Day. How are the working relationships at your organization? So how does all of this relationship stuff relate to motivation? Think about it. It is much easier to be motivated, get more done, and be satisfied in your job if you work in a positive situation rather than dreading coming to work because of difficulties dealing with others. Visit my websites for FREE Special Reports on Motivating Employees http://www.howtomotivateemployeesnow.com and http://www.smartmanagementnow.com for more on management, motivation, and performance. copyright (c) 2010 Lois Moncrief Globebic LLC All Rights Reserved To Your Success!

Lois Moncrief Leave a Comment | Employee Management, Employee Motivation, Employee Performance, How to Motivate Employees, Human Resource Management | Tagged: Valentine's Day, Working Relationships | Permalink Posted by loismoncrief

Daniel Pinks New Book Drive January 26, 2010 Dear Readers, I have been very busy. I guess it took reading Richard Eisenbergs article in the Money section of USA Today on January 25, 2010 to get me to sit down and write this blog entry. Mr. Eisenbergs article talks about Daniel Pinks new book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. I have read Daniel Pinks book A Whole New Mind and count myself as one of his admirers. I like many of his ideas especially about right brain economy and his ideas on the future of right brain economy. However, some of his ideas especially those on what does and does not motivate employees do not ring true for me. Here are my concerns about what he says. I have over 29 years of real world experience as a successful manager. I do not agree with many of Daniel Pinks statements about what works and what doesnt work in motivating employees because of my real world experience as a manager motivating employees.

I have not been able to find any information that Daniel Pink has ever been a manager so I do not understand the basis of his opinions on what works and what doesnt work in motivating employees. I have not been able to find any references to some of his statements where he substantiates what he says with facts or his experience or that he has gathered facts from real world experiences. Many of his ideas on motivating employees appear to be just his opinions of what he thinks might work as an outsider looking in to an area that is not part of his experience or understanding.

I do not think I will say too much about Daniel Pinks new book Drive at this point because I have not read it yet so I am not sure how accurately Mr. Eisenbergs article represents the books contents or intent. However, I will make comments on what Mr.. Eisenberg says is in the book. Based on my previous reading of Daniel Pinks articles and the book A Whole New Mind, I believe Mr. Pink paints some situations in a very simplistic and idealist way. To me what motivates employees is much more complicated and one size does not fit all. There are some strong underlying human needs and wants that help form the foundation for employee motivation and there are well proven methods for motivating employees that do not fall into the extremes of carrots or sticks. Mr. Eisenberg says that Daniel Pink favors what he calls Motivation 3.0 which basically says intrinsic rewards play to the inherent satisfaction of the activity. This is good and is possible in some cases. However, there are many jobs that need to be done that are not necessarily inherently satisfying and would be difficult for an employer to make inherently satisfying. Mr. Eisenberg further states that Daniel Pink would put Enrons Jeff Skilling, Donald Trump, and Simon Cowell at Type X (being incentivized mostly be external rewards) and Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, and Bruce Springsteen as Type 1s (preferring autonomy at work and motivated to work on causes larger than themselves). All of this sounds plausible at this point. Mr. Eisenberg also says that Mr. Daniel Pink goes further to stack the deck in favor of Type 1s saying that Type 1s almost always outperform Type Xs in the long run. Mr. Eisenberg states that Daniel Pink doesnt say how he knows this. Mr. Pink has accomplished one thing. Some TV Commentators, Pundits, and Talk Show Hosts rely on controversy to assure listeners will tune in and advertisers will continue to buy ads for their show because of the numbers of listeners. Some book authors rely on controversial ideas to sell their books. This may be true of Daniel Pink also. Mr. Pink has succeeded with me. I am going to buy his book because after reading it, I will be in a better position to comment on the contents of it in regards to motivating employees. While I think intrinsic rewards can provide an inherent satisfaction in an activity and can be motivating, I know there is a lot more to motivation than that based on my real world experience of 29 years as a manager motivating employees. I am sure Daniel Pink will be Surprised about the Truth of What Motivates Employees that goes way beyond what Mr. Eisenberg says is in his book Drive. Copyright (c) 2010 Lois Moncrief All Rights Reserved. Visit My Website for a Free Special Report on Motivating Employees http://www.HowtoMotivateEmployeesNow.com To Your Success!

Lois Leave a Comment | How to Motivate Employees | Tagged: Bruce Springsteen, carrots, Daniel Pink, Daniel Pink's ideas on Motivating Employees, Daniel Pink's New Book Drive, Donald Trump, Drive, Drive:

The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Enron, Jeff Skilling, Money Bookshelf, Motivating Employees, Motivation 3.0, Oprah WInfrey, Richard Eisenberg, Simon Cowell, sticks, Type 1 Behavior, Type X behavior, USA Today, USA Today Newspaper, Warren Buffet | Permalink Posted by loismoncrief

Top Ten Employee Complaints By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide See More About: employee complaints employee retention management effectiveness

Are you interested in discovering your employees most serious complaints? Knowing what makes employees unhappy is half the battle when you think about employee work satisfaction, morale, positive motivation, and retention. Listen to employees and provide opportunities for them to communicate with company managers. If employees feel safe, they will tell you whats on their minds. Your work culture must foster trust for successful two-way communication. HR Solutions, Inc., a Chicago-based management consulting firm specializing in employee engagement surveys, analyzed recurring themes in employee surveys and compiled the following top ten list. These are the items employees consistently complain about on surveys and in interviews. How many are true in your workplace? Higher salaries: pay is the number one area in which employees seek change. You can foster a work environment in which employees feel comfortable asking for a raise. Internal pay equity: employees are concerned particularly with pay compression, the differential in pay between new and longer term employees. In organizations, with the average annual pay increase for employees around 4%, employees perceive that newcomers are better paid and, often, they are. Benefits programs, particularly health and dental insurance, retirement, and Paid Time Off / vacation days: specifically, many employees feel that their health insurance costs too much, especially prescription drug programs, when employers pass part of their rising costs to employees. Over-management: Employees often defined by interviewees as: Too many chiefs, not enough Indians. Workplaces that foster employee empowerment, employee enablement, and broader spans of control by managers, will see fewer complaints. A popular word, micromanaging, expresses this sentiment, too. Pay increase guidelines for merit: Employees believe the compensation system should place greater emphasis on merit and contribution. Employees find pay systems in which all employees receive the same pay increase annually, demoralizing. Such pay systems hit the motivation and commitment of your best employees hardest as they may begin asking whats in this for me? As you adopt a merit pay system, one component is education so that employees know what behaviors and contributions merit additional compensation. Employees who did not must be informed by their manager about how their performance needs to change to merit a larger pay increase. Human Resources department response to employees: The Human Resource department needs to be more responsive to employee questions and concerns. In many companies, the HR department is perceived as the policy making, policing arm of management. In fact, in forward thinking HR departments, responsiveness to employee needs is one of the cornerstones. Favoritism: Employees want the perception that each employee is treated equivalently with other employees. If there are policies, behavioral guidelines, methods for requesting time off, valued assignments, opportunities for development, frequent communication, and just about any other work related decisions you can think of, employees want fair treatment.

Communication and availability: Lets face it. Employees want face-to-face communication time with both their supervisors and executive management. This communication helps them feel recognized and important. And, yes, your time is full because you have a job, too. But, a managers main job is to support the success of all his or her reporting employees. Thats how the manager magnifies their own success. Workloads are too heavy: Departments are understaffed and employees feel as if their workloads are too heavy and their time is spread too thinly. I see this complaint becoming worse as layoffs; the economy; your ability to find educated, skilled, experienced staff; and your business demands grow. To combat this, each company should help employees participate in continuous improvement activities. Facility cleanliness: Employees want a clean, organized work environment in which they have the necessary equipment to perform well.

The job satisfaction study included over 2.2 million respondents with 2,100 organizations representing various industries, all surveyed by HR Solutions, Inc.

Employee Retention: Tips and Tools for Employee Retention Employee retention, especially of your best, most desirable employees, is a key challenge in organizations today. Use these tips, articles, tools and ideas to learn employee retention strategies that will help you retain your best staff. Learn loyalty strategies for employee retention. Top Ten Employee Complaints Are you interested in discovering your employees most serious complaints? Knowing what makes employees unhappy is half the battle when you think about employee work satisfaction, morale, positive motivation, and retention. Listen to employees and provide opportunities for them to communicate with company managers. If employees feel safe, they will tell you whats on their minds. Your work culture must foster trust for successful two-way communication. More Tips to Reduce Employee Turnover Competitive salary, competitive vacation and holidays, and tuition reimbursement are three basics in employee retention. Especially for millennial employees, these are the holy grail for recruitment and retention. But, employers can reduce employee turnover in many other ways. (If you think these read like the Golden Rule, you're right, they do.) Reducing employee turnover is dependant on the total work environment you offer for employees. Learn more. Top Ten Ways to Retain Your Great Employees Key employee retention is critical to the long term health and success of your business. Managers readily agree that their role is key in retaining your best employees to ensure business success. If managers can cite this fact so well, why do many behave in ways that so frequently encourage great employees to quit their job? Here are ten more tips for employee retention. The Bottom Line for Employee Retention Want the bottom line when it comes to employee retention? The quality of the supervision an employee receives is critical to employee retention. People leave managers and supervisors more often than they leave companies or jobs. Learn how to help your managers address employee retention. How to Retain Your Best Employees Interested in keeping your best employees when the job market rebounds? Retention will be a challenge, according to a recent study. Retention requires a competitive salary and great benefits. However, retention of your best requires a whole lot more. Employee involvement, recognition, advancement, development and pay based on performance just get you started in your quest to retain your best. Keeping the People You Really Need in the Outsourced Economy The outsourced economy is here to stay. As a leader, you may not relish the idea of outsourcing. However, the reality is that you may soon need to. When that happens, you will want a workforce that is nimble, adaptable, and prepared to participate in your organization at a new level of competitiveness. Organizations that partner with their employees will retain those employees when they have the opportunity to become free agents.

What People Want From Work: Employee Motivation and Positive Morale Some people work for personal fulfillment; others work for love of what they do. Others work to accomplish goals and to feel as if they are contributing to something larger than themselves. The bottom line is that we all work for money and for reasons too individual to assign similarities to all workers. Learn more. Nine Recruiting and Selection Tips to Ensure Successful Hiring These nine tips will help you in recruiting and hiring a candidate who will become a successful, contributing superior employee. Learn how job analysis helps you in recruiting and hiring a superior staff. Employee Recognition Rocks: Kick Employee Recognition Up a Notch Employee recognition is limited in most organizations. Employees complain about the lack of recognition regularly. Managers ask, Why should I recognize or thank him? Hes just doing his job. And, life at work is busy, busy, busy. These factors combine to create work places that fail to provide recognition for employees. Managers who prioritize employee recognition understand the power of recognition. Magnify the Retention Value of Your 401k Plan Tired of feeling as if your 401k plan doesn't get the appreciation and participation it deserves? You can maximize the impact of your 401k retirement plan to benefit the people you employ. These necessary and recommended actions will help you create an appreciated, valued benefit that helps you achieve your business goals. Use Your Team for Recruitment: A Retention Strategy Selecting and retaining great staff is key for business success. Talented people who continue to develop skills and increase their value to your organization and to your customers are your most important resource. Here's how to select and retain these people and create an environment in which they continue to thrive. Fun and the Bottom Line: Using Humor to Retain Employees In today's uncertain work environment, humor isn't an option, it's necessary. When employees clown around, they're not wasting valuable time, they're making use of one of the few tools available to increase and maintain their group spirit. Laughter may not change reality, but it can certainly help people survive it. Here's how to use humor to retain employees. Employee Orientation: Keeping New Employees on Board You want your new employee to experience his new job as a major turn on. Here are tips, tools, and examples for new employee orientation processes that promote longevity and loyalty. Poll: Why Do You Stick With Your Employer? Recruiting and Retention Special Finding the best possible people who can fit within your culture and contribute within your organization is a challenge and an opportunity. Keeping the best people, once you find them, is easy if you do the right things right. Take a look at the helpful features in the Industry and Business Recruiting and Retention Special. Keeping Great Employees Pay people reasonably and treat them great. Don Grimme recommends these top two ways to retain employees. He presents the findings of the Families and Work Institute. Loyalty Complex Are you doing enough to hold on to your young staff members? This article, although geared to IT staff, offers ideas for retaining all staff you want to keep. Retaining Talent in a Competitive Market In a competitive market, best practices for retaining top talent include offering a stimulating work environment, flexible career options, an excellent benefit package, and a culture that values staff contributions.

Retention Research Yields Answers Read Kevin Wheeler's review of research by Professors Peter Hom and Rodger Griffeth. He presents three factors which must be present for people to stay with an organization. Check out the four ways companies can impact and increase retention. Retain Top Talent Employees may enjoy moving around laterally in different jobs. Flexible career options and knowledge sharing opportunities help to retain your talented employees. See Best Practices, LLC for more good ideas. Grimme's Top Ten for Retention Don Grimme lists his top ten recommended strategies for retaining good employees. No big surprises here, but this is an excellent reminder worth reading. Job Stickiness Core values that are understood and rewarded and feeling a part of a sense of purpose at work are reasons organizations retain staff. Read more ideas for entrepreneurs at More.Business.com.

Your resource for creating a retention-rich organization culture that attracts, engages and builds lasting loyalty among todays most talented employees. What sets Employee Retention Strategies apart is a steadfast philosophy that: Uses only research-based, theory-supported approaches to improving employee engagement. Avoided are gimmicks such as employee of the month, suggestion boxes, prizes or other carrots. While commonly used, these short-term fixes fail to produce genuine employee loyalty (more than 60 years of research tells us so!). Employs an easy-to-understand systems approach to ensure the root causes of turnover are addressed and the potential for lasting change unleashed. Customizes all activities to your organizations unique history, current practices and strategic objectives. Also considered are challenges unique to your industry sector, competitive marketplace issues and talent shortages. Involves those responsible for implementing change in actually creating the change, ensuring input and improved shared understanding and support of all initiatives. Integrates hands-on, action-oriented approaches that enable organizations to move forward quickly and effectively Recognizes the research-proven role of no-cost strategies in developing the glue that builds employee loyalty and commitment. Brings to your organization leading-edge organization-development best practices to effectively and quickly build a retention-rich culture.

The Employee Retention Strategies newsletter, which gained this website the No. 1 positions on Google and Yahoo during its publication in the early part of this decade, was a nationally noted source for researchbased, fact-driven guidance on enhancing employee retention. (Back issues still are available). From that research come approaches built on a solid foundation of what works (and what doesnt) to gain the commitment of employees in all industries and economic sectors. Added to this base are leading-edge organization-development methodologies to bring your organizations strengths to the fore, to rekindle the dynamic potential of your company to meet todays challenges and to rebuild workforce commitment to the heart of your organizations mission. Spend time reading the topics on this site. Understand more about what truly contributes to employee engagement and retention. Then, call for an individual discussion of your organizations unique retention agenda.

Managing for Retention Research shows that managers and supervisors have a huge impact on retention, and the relationship an employee has with his or her direct supervisor can, at times, be the deciding factor on whether to stay or go. Smart organizations avoid blaming managers and look first to whether sufficient supports are in place and expectations clear to help managers and supervisors succeed as retention advocates. To learn more, review the two articles posted here: Supporting Managers in Turbulent Times The Manager's Retention Checklist

Providing Managers with Support Becomes Greater Priority in Turbulent Times Theres no shortage of chaos these days. While the economy currently is stable, customers continue to become more aware and are expecting better service and products than ever before. Companies must respond faster to market shifts. Despite low labor demand in some industries, labor shortages continue in healthcare, education and other key skill areas. Large numbers of workers are nearing retirement age than ever before. Managers now face intense multiple challenges from leadership, staff and customers. Organizations that seek to excel will concentrate efforts in supporting middle and line managers during these times of greater demand on managers abilities to provide excellent leadership in the midst of an ever-faster pace. Consider these factors impacting todays managers and supervisors: Managers today typically have more direct reports than in the past. Customers have become accustomed to higher service levels established in the boom years. Employees still seek meaning, learning, growth and job satisfaction. Some are changing their priorities, wanting more time for family and personal enjoyment outside of work. Leaders are stressed and concerned about the organizations future amidst an era in which history only offers partial lessons. Its harder to find time to meet with managers. Purchases of technology upgrades and equipment that would improve workers satisfaction and productivity remain at a slow, cautious pace in many companies. Everyones jumpy about the future, still insecure because of layoffs and rapid change over the past two decades.

The list of challenges is not only long, its different than in past eras. Managers can easily become overwhelmed trying to balance all that comes their way. Three Basic Responses Three fundamental concepts can improve managers effectiveness in this uncertain environment: 1. Ensure managers have the time to manage well. Addressing todays staff and customer issues requires time. A typical, and valid, concern of many managers is that they are so busy theres no time to invest in key areas that would offer a big payoff. Brainstorm with managers how to find time for these essential activities: Understanding customers requirements; working with staff individually and in groups to build skills; providing good starts for

new hires; holding problem-solving sessions; coaching and mentoring staff; and meeting with other managers to improve process issues and customer responses. Some of these tasks can be delegated to staff with the side effect of improving their job satisfaction. Develop a buddy system for new hires so they can be introduced to the company and the department by one of their peer superstars. Implement a knowledge-transfer process in which the best staffers coach others. 2. Help managers improve their own skills. Managers want to learn and grow, too. While training budgets may be limited in some organizations, creative alternatives have proved successful. Many in-house experts are often eager to share their knowledge. Your best managers can coach newer managers. Trade and professional associations may provide classes or will send an expert. Improving managers soft or people skills is essential to making the best use of staff during lean times. Create a networking process for managers. Past turf wars negatively impacted customers who demand seamless service. Building camaraderie among managers and supervisors helps them share best practices, solve interdepartmental inefficiencies and develop improved service models. The mentoring and sharing is cost-free and benefits the company, employees and customers. 3. Provide greater levels of company information and more open communication among managers and senior leadership. Managers and employees want to be in the know even more during times of change. Adjusting department or functional-area strategies to address market shifts requires a quicker response; therefore, sharing corporate objectives and proposed tactics is critical. Regular meetings with senior leaders to openly share information helps managers and supervisors select the best approaches for their work area, set timely priorities and improve customer responses. Passing this information on to staff helps engage their creativity and problem-solving skills to keep the company on track despite weak and shifting markets. Retention Agenda Begin by asking managers what they need in order to be more effective. Youll save huge amounts of time and effort by beginning the dialogue with the managers rather than assuming their needs. Encourage managers to maintain new sharing and mentoring processes. Providing some initial organizing help (such as scheduling space and time) helps the efforts get under way. From then on, its best that the managers own the new venues. Senior leaders can increase their availability in a number of ways: Regularly scheduled office hours, forums and dialogue sessions and weekly e-mail summaries of marketplace news are ways to begin providing greater support of managers and supervisors. The Managers Retention Checklist Builds Retention-Rich Workplaces Managers and supervisors who possess excellent track records for retaining high-performing staff have attained a healthy balance of helping staff achieve both organizational and personal, professional goals The checklist below is a guide for incorporating into daily management and supervisory practices the best of current research for retaining top talent. For My Staff: I work collaboratively with each staff member to develop a personal growth plan, and I support their acquiring new skills and provide opportunities for them to use their newly acquired knowledge and talents. I look for each persons strengths and guide individuals toward fully using their best talents. I leave as many choices as possible in how work gets done to those who perform the tasks. I promote meaningful work by allowing employees to work on whole tasks whenever possible. My staff gains a sense of accomplishment greater than when they only repeatedly perform a single function. I ensure all staff has the training they need to produce excellence. I recognize and acknowledge personal achievement of each staff member at least weekly. I provide performance feedback regularly and promptly; at regular reviews, there are no surprises to my staff. I take a personal interest in each staff member, their professional and personal growth, their interests and

passions. I assist with their being able to do more of what they love as often as possible. I continually clarify and update job-performance requirements and expectations. I am aware of the resources required by my staff to produce top-quality work. I ensure adequate resources by using my influence in the organization to obtain whats needed. I share company information regularly, and I demonstrate that I value employees desire to be in the know. I regularly report results of our departments work, its impact on the customer and the company, keeping staff apprised of how our work fits into the big picture of serving customers and achieving corporate goals. I remain open to employee ideas and fully consider all, even if they appear at first to be impractical. I get back to the employee in a timely manner with an honest reply about whether the idea can be implemented. I encourage my employees to learn from other departments and managers who are willing mentors. I provide coaching to under-performing staff members. I appropriately reassign or terminate employees when their skills, personal deficits or behavior have a negative impact on customer service, company objectives or the morale of their coworkers. I recognize these can be times of great uncertainty because of global economic shifts that may impact our organization and industry. I allow dialogue about concerns, and provide honest input. I seek answers when possible. Im not afraid to say I dont know when questioned about the future. For Myself: I am the monitor of my own behavior, providing a role model of integrity, compassion, passion and encouragement. I never discuss one employees issues with another staff member. I keep confidences, except when there is potential harm to the company or other staff members. I partner with other managers for the benefit of the company, customers and our employees. I make good use of my own coaches and mentors and their advice. When Im unsure how to handle a problem, I seek counsel from others before making crucial decisions. When under pressure, I make efforts not to pass on my own doubts to my staff. I use my coaches and mentors to learn how to better manage my own stress. I take care of personal issues by seeking help for myself, knowing that when I am doing well I can be the best resource to my staff members. I am the advocate for my staff to my management, raising important issues that affect staff morale, customer service and the companys strategic objectives. I have my own personal growth plan that includes continuously improving my managerial skills. I keep current on professional/technical issues and marketplace changes and learn from and pass on knowledge of my industrys technical experts. When approached by staff with a problem, I work hard to avoid being defensive. I listen fully and respond honestly. I realize that problems provide an opportunity to improve the department, my employees worklife and our response to customers. I demonstrate to my staff that I am learning to balance work and home life. I set appropriate boundaries between my company obligations and my desire to spend time and energy with my family and friends.

The Essential Retention Bookshelf Authentic, effective and lasting organizational improvement only can occur when change happens at the systems level. Fundamental systemic change can alter the culture to bring forth the key motivators of: Meaningful work Learning and development opportunities Choice in how work gets done Feeling competent and a sense of contributing to important results Respectful and appreciative workplace

You wont see most of these on typical reading lists. Employee Retention Strategies goal is to help leaders see the underlying contributors to retention and make the essential changes to build lasting, sustainable retention-rich cultures. No quick fixes here; yet reading rich in research and theory-based practices. Recommended reading for the journey focuses on new and older classics for transforming organizational cultures: The Stuff Americans Are Made Of by Josh Hammond and James Morrison (New York: Macmillan (1996). Sadly out of print, but available used on Amazon.com. Our most-recommended book for gaining true insight into what Americans want at work. Based on archetype research, a true eye-opener into what drives us to excel, develop commitment and build our loyalty to our organizations. This book is a follow-up to Incredibly American by Marilyn Zuckerman and Lewis Hatala (Milwaukee: ASQC Quality Press, 1992). The Unshackled Organization by Jeffrey Goldstein (Portland, Ore.: Productivity Press, 1994). Dr. Goldstein elegantly and simply translates the New Science of emerging organizational theory into understandable, actionable concepts. A delightful book that connects the dots of the new theoretical applications into language and ideas we can easily grasp. First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999). Uses 25 years of Gallup research to delineate 12 essential components of employee satisfaction and engagement. Work 2.0: Rewriting the Contract by Bill Jensen (Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2002). Also visit www.work2.com. Short, to-the-point on what people expect from todays employers and were not talking about money and benefits here. How leaders can help people accomplish more, create more and serve customers better. The Empowered Manager by Peter Block (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987). Peter Block is the standard-bearer of principles to create organizations in which everyone takes responsibility for results and how management can (unintentionally or otherwise) get in their way. Essential for cultural change. And, Blocks thoughts align with what younger generations are seeking at work long before the research emerged. One more time: How do you motivate employees? by Frederick Herzberg (Harvard Business Review, January-February 1968. One of the most-requested HBR reprints of the classic discussion that distinguishes attempt to improve surface issues from creating authentically inspired work environments. Important reading for organizational leaders puzzled by failed attempts to improve morale and retention.

About Employee Retention Strategies: Philosophy and Approach Linda R. Schwartz, M.Ed., established Employee Retention Strategies in 1998 with a specific vision of helping to create healthy workplaces in which everyone is presented with opportunities for growth, learning and to make contributions to important corporate goals. Lindas work helping organizations fully engage, develop and enhance the productivity of their employees is notable because of her leading-edge approaches that address the systems and processes that fuel workforce commitment. Using a strong research and theoretical base of what truly motivates todays employees, Linda works with organizations to find the strongest leverage, in large or incremental steps, for greater employee involvement, trust, leadership quality and genuine support of company objectives. Her workshops provide participants with an understanding of theory and research and then provide individual guidance in creating specific strategies for their own workplaces that align with research findings and proven best practices. Linda formerly published the international Employee Retention Strategies newsletter and continues to present the Employee Retention Working Workshop, guiding leaders in creating specific, theory-tested tactics to effectively shift employee morale and dedication. An accomplished coach and mentor to leaders at all organizational levels, Linda uses strengths-based approaches to help managers achieve faster personal and employee growth and to teach managers how to decrease resistance to change among staff groups. As a facilitator, Linda is a skilled practitioner of the innovative, whole-systems methodologies of Appreciative Inquiry and Open Space Technology. These approaches provide participants with maximum ownership of results to participants and produce faster and more far-reaching change than traditional group-process methods. Participants leave with new confidence in their organization and its capabilities, renewed alignment with its mission and a shared understanding of members deep commitment to the enterprises values. Linda has presented seven times at the Arizona Governors Conference on Quality on building a culture that supports quality initiatives. She initiated a city-wide event, Reclaiming Heart, Soul & Spirit at Work, held in Phoenix in 1999. Other presentations include Arizona State University national Conference on Quality and Management, 1998 with best paper award in category; and the American Society for Quality, Tucson, 1998. Linda has been an active participant and past steering committee member of the Arizona Regional Organization Development Network. Linda holds a masters in education in counseling from Northern Arizona University and is a Licensed Professional Counselor by the State of Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners.

Graceful Aging of the US Workforce? Companies that Prepare Now Will Find Far Smoother Sailing Imagine coming to your workplace and finding one out of five employees did not show up. Theyre not coming back, either. If youre in the public sector, by the way, 40% of your workforce has left. Imagine, too, an available pool of younger talent, yet their skills, education and language abilities have not been developed, so they struggle to communicate with customers and co-workers. In the coming decade, organizations that did not begin now to address coming wave of Baby Boomer retirees will be unable to sustain their missions and marketplace positions due to too many empty desks, workstations, customer-service specialists and other essential posts. Thank goodness for the past recession and bear stock market. Well, sort of. The rapid decline in workers retirement savings may keep a greater number of older workers in the workforce longer, either fullor part-time. However, research still shows that many Baby Boomers will be beginning to retire in the next few years

 leaving unprepared companies, industries and professions scrambling to make the best of a tidal wave never before experienced in history. Here are the statistics: By the year 2030 the US population over age 65 will be 20%, up from the current 12%. Now there are 4.7 working-age people for every retired person. In 30 years, the ratio changes to 2.7 to 1. The generation following the Baby Boom is a little over half its size: 80 million Boomers are followed by only 46 million Gen-Xers (born from 1965 to 1980) The saving grace may be immigration, which brings younger people to the United States. However, still unknown are now new immigration laws may impact workforce shortages. How Systems Change In a word, most change occurs slowly. Environmentalists have been cautioning us for decades about global warming, yet only recently have governments and individuals begun to take action. Climatic shifts are slow; people generally fail to react to subtle change, only to dramatic forces. Other examples: People who smoke can develop emphysema long after ceasing to use cigarettes. Changes in the lungs occur gradually, yet the disease is irreversible once it actually sets in. Urban sprawl doesnt happen overnight, yet hour-long traffic jams result. Systems theorists will tell you that cause and effect are rarely close in time. We may see delays in retirement because people are healthier and want to continue to work to stay vital and because they want to recover financial losses from the past bear market. But the shift will come, and the current healthy economy may actually spur greater numbers of people to then retire. Smart Strategies The smartest overall strategy? Now. Each of the following are longer-term approaches that need to begin, well, yesterday. Knowledge transfer. Dont wait to establish mentoring programs between older and younger workers, among professional and technical staff as well as higher-skilled positions such as security and facilities management. Formalize the process to ensure that both technical knowledge and learned techniques (such as how to get work done faster, how to most effectively work with key customers and how to establish patient-family rapport) are passed on. Getting an early start on instituting a knowledge-transfer process makes mentoring of younger workers an essential part of the culture long before the need becomes severe. Include retention efforts tailored to senior, experienced workers. Baby boomers are the healthiest generation to date and also, studies show, still want to make their mark on the world. Organizations that include opportunities to be creative, express initiative and make a difference will succeed in retaining workers longer. More flexible working relationships already are in place in many organizations. Job sharing has kept more professional women in the workforce during child-rearing years, and flextime has allowed greater ability to customize work hours to enhance personal time and family activities. Shortages of health-care workers have led to more companies providing full benefits to part-time workers. Now, its time to listen to what older workers would like to make it possible and attractive for them to continue working. Too, companies may have to prepare for higher benefit costs as actuarial rates reflect an older workforce. Get serious about diversity. Efforts to increase how welcome diverse people feel in organizations have mostly had step-child status: Many companies undertake diversity because theyre federal contractors and are subject to audits or as a result of lawsuits. Our nations population is becoming increasingly diverse, yet barriers to full, meaningful employment still exist. The majority of housekeeping and a large proportion of nursing aide employees in hospitals are minorities; at the same time, nursing is struggling now with how to attract more diverse people into the profession. Many past diversity programs have been poorly constructed and implemented. However, successful processes are emerging. Organizations that aim to fully bring diverse people into their ranks will more likely thrive when the Baby Boomers retire in larger numbers.

Incorporate generational differences. Baby Boomers never were comfortable with feedback. Millenials thrive on knowing how theyre doing. Some older traditional workers tended to be more resistant to change. Gen Y-ers want change for breakfast. Using generational research to tailor hiring and employment practices will help retention efforts as the labor market shrinks. How generation-friendly are your current work rules, management styles and company benefits? How are older workers and younger workers encouraged to work successfully together?

Environmental scanning is not an option. As the huge cohort of Baby Boomers downsizes to smaller housing and uses more health-care resources, how will your organization be affected? As environmental concerns heighten, how will your organizations activities be affected? As global insecurity mounts, what are the unanticipated costs to your company? More than ever, keeping an eye on small, but powerful changes in our national and global societies will make a difference between organizations that struggle and those that are successful. Predicting how the retirement wave will impact your companys strategies becomes easier when a keen eye is kept on research, trends and expert forecasts. Every organization should have an Office of the Future, where trends are studied, impacts analyzed and strategies in action long before change arrives.

Retention Agenda Believing that the worker shortage is far off will catch your company in a non-competitive position in only a few years. There are no quick fixes here. Given the changing demographics, every organization should have a task force charged with ensuring competitiveness for more-scarce workers. Lessons from the nursing shortage include: Hospitals that have established on-campus nursing schools; providing greater tuition assistance; changing the cultures to create the best-possible work environment; developing career ladders; and adjusting pay to be competitive and to align with job requirements.

Human Resources Management Employee Retention

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People Leave Managers, Not Companies: How To Increase Employee Retention by: Thomas McKee The cost of employee turnover is from 40--100% of an employees annual salary, when you consider lost productivity, recruiting costs, training costs, reduced efficiency in transition and time. Employee attrition is running wild in todays tight labor market; however, the companies that keep their employees have found that what matters most is not the pay, benefits, or perks, but the quality of the relationship between employees and their direct supervisors. The bottom line is that people leave managers, not companies. Gift One: Control and Ownership Ford Motor Company revolutionized the assembly line in the Edison, New Jersey plant when they made a gutsy move and gave the assembly line employees a button they could push to stop the line. And people did push the buttons. To be precise, they shut the facility down 20-30 times a day, but each shutdown was only about 10 seconds. Quality improved as employees took ownership of the production and the number of cars requiring rework after they had come off the line fell by 97%. The backlog of union grievances in the facility plummeted from an average of well over 200 to an average of less than 12. Tom Peters, in A Passion for Excellence, claims that the change in attitudes was as extreme as the numbers. One old pro onthe-line commented, "Its like they opened the window and we can breathe." Another described the foremen under the new team-based approach, "Theyre no longer policemen, but advisers." Gift Two: The Value of Recognition Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, from the Gallup Organization, interviewed more than 1 million workers with 12 questions such as . . . In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work? Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important? Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care aboutme as a person?

The results of their research, and all 12 questions can be found in their book, First, Break All the Rules: What the Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently--Simon & Schuster, 1999. One of their research projects was 300 Best Buy stores. In the stores in which the employees answered these questions positively, they retained 1000 more employees. Gift Three: Trust Your Crew When Captain Michael Abrashoff took command of the USS Benfold the retention rate in the Navy was 18%. In two years it climbed to over 99%. How did he change the culture on that ship? Michael says, "Soon after arriving at this command I realized that the young folk on this ship are smart and talented. And I realized that my job was to listen aggressivelyto pick up all the ideas that they had for improving how we operate. The most important thing a captain can do is to see the ship from the eyes of the crew." Gift Four: Feedback Have you ever coached little league or soccer? When do you give feedback? Do you wait for the award banquet to tell people how they did, or how they could improve or their value to the team? I hope not. Yet managers often wait until performance review time to give feedback. Some years ago my secretary, Lori, quit her previous job to stay at home with her young children. She worked for a boss who did not give much feedback. When she handed in her resignation, he went on and on about how much she had contributed to their work team and how much he would miss her. She commented to us how much she would have loved to have

heard those words more than once or twice a year at performance review. I hired Lori to work part time for me. She is gracious, accurate, organized, dependable, and my staff and customers love her. Employee Retention-Talent Management Mythri Isukapally Jr. Alliance Business Academy November 2006 Abstract: Talent is the critical success factor to any organization. Talent pool management is the most challenging area to any organization. The challenge of finding, attracting, developing and retaining the right talent is taking up a major part of management and once the right talent is found the next demanding job is to retain that talent. Retaining employees involves understanding the intrinsic motivators of them which many organizations unable to identify. The reason is Individuals differ greatly in this regard. A company should exert some effort and undertake some analyses to determine the non-monetary interests and preferences of its key employees, and then attempt to meet these preferences in action. In this context organizations need to dig novel approaches to retain the most effective manpower. Looking carefully into many organizations - retention strategies are very competitive. Companies try to provide their best to retain the employees of their competitors. In this conceptual paper the author has attempted to bring out employee retention approaches, strategies for knowledge workforce, for achieving competitive advantage. Keywords: Employee Retention, Talent Management JEL Classifications: Human Resources
How long do you think good, talented people stick around at places that treat them like draftees? Not long. David Russo explains why employees are your most valuable asset -- by far. Check the calendar. The epoch of indentured servitude is long gone (as much as some executives I know want to bring it back!). Today, even in the midst of a historic economic downturn, your employees are not conscripts or servants. They are most likely volunteers. As much as you think your employees need you, that they are dependent on you, let's face it; the reverse is true. You are highly dependent on them for your success, your life style, and your livingnow and into the future. Oh, sure you can replace them, one after another, over a period of time, but you'll go broke. Your organization will be in ruins. Why? Well, some studies have shown that the cost to replace, retrain, and reintegrate a worker is more than one and a half times that lost worker's salary. Even then, as new employees come onboard, there are the hidden costs and intangible losses to your company from the rupture in cultural continuity and the transfer of institutional knowledge. (I beg you to keep this in mind, even as the national unemployment figure flutters near or into double digits.) Is the picture starting to come into focus? Let me put it another way. Your organization has assets, correct? Computers, source codes, real estate, equipment, customer lists, a valuable brand, and maybe even some cash. But do you know what the cumulative value of all those items is? Around 10 percent of your company's value. Max. That's because every day, at closing time, 90 percent of your assets walk out the door. Every day. And with luck, every morning, they volunteer to come back to work. Oh sure, in a short-term analysis, a few of your employees may say they are bound to you. They live paycheck to paycheck. They have mortgage payments due; they need the medical insurance; and they know they'd have a hard time finding other work. But how long do you think good, talented people stick around at places that treat them like draftees? Not long.

How do you keep them coming back? How do you keep good people from leaving, costing you one and a half times their salaries, and volunteering for your competitor's team? Well, what I am about to say may sound too simple to be important, too common to be common sense: You engage them. You engage them with a culture that boldly, publicly recognizes their value and binds their spirit to your company. And you have to work just as hard in bad times as in good times. Let me take that up a notch, at the risk of sounding high-minded or theoretical. A culture of engagement inculcates and socializes your employees with a sense ofand reason forgenuine commitment to the organization. A culture of engagement also inspires individuals with a bias for action on the organization's behalf and pride. Yes, pride. I hope it is not news to you that a culture of engagement is important to the bottom line (and top line) of your company, because it is increasingly obvious that this is true, and authoritative surveys and studies affirm this again and again. Frankly, the stumbling block is to not recognize the importance of a caring, committed workforce to current and future success and competitive advantage. And the challenge is to determine the best ways to put the leadership behaviors and corporate infrastructure in place that enable that people-focused culture to emerge. Note that I use the word emerge, because a culture of engagement cannot be imposed or implemented by edict or force of executive will. It is not a policy you write down on company handouts, like a vacation policy or instructions on how to fill out an expense report. But when it is place, and properly supported by the organization's leadership, it can and will bring forth the elusive quality called employee discretionary effort. Employees will offer that discretionary effort only when the aspirations of the organization and those of the employee are so in sync, aligned, that the employeeof his or her own initiativetakes great pride in going the extra mile and adding that extra dash of creativity and professionalism to achieve a professional goal that, lo and behold, builds the organization's wealth or dramatically advances its goals, as the employee learns, grows, and prospers. Later in this chapter, I cite an example that highlights the beneficial economics of a culture of engagement. But for now, let's look at some steps you can take to establish a culture of engagement. The first step is for the executive leadership in the managers and leaders to recognize why their employees come to work. (Hint: Contrary to popular belief, it's not just about the money.) If you don't understand why people show up, why they volunteer at your workplace day after day, you miss an opportunity to attract people for why they really show up. It's no mystery. Here, too, research and valid polling data give us the same answer over and over again. First, people have a natural and inherent desire to make a contribution; to be a part of something larger than themselves, something of significance. Second, they want to do something that is worthwhile and notable; something they can be proud ofattach their names to. Third, they want to be recognized for their efforts and for the results. And fourth, they want all this to happen in an environment worthy of their effortsa place that is respected and respectable. See money on that list? No, it's not there. Surprised? Well, money is on the full list, but it's slotted into a subordinate position a little farther down. Make no mistake, people want to be compensated fairly for their work. But money is by no means the leading motivator for most of the talented, good people in today's workforce. So, what brings people to work and keeps them there? It is a chance to do what they have been educated and trained to do at the highest level of success possible. Where they can grow and achieve, produce exemplary results, be recognized as worthy and special, and do it with others with similar talent, spirit, and professionalism for an entity that respects them and is worthy of high regard.

From Indentured Servants to Labor Unions: A History of EmployerEmployee Relations

I know what you may be asking at this point: If research shows that the benefits of a culture of engagement are so beneficial to the top line, the bottom line, and the employees' well-being, then why haven't most companies implemented these policies? And why is it that in difficult business environments, nefarious companies use the economic downturn as an excuse to treat their employees worse? Good questions, but they can be asked more productively at the causal level in this way: How have employers' relationships with their employees drifted into adversarial, and at time distrustful, circumstances? And how have those poor relations and lack of trust been embedded into policies and organizational design counter to

the proper way to run a business? To answer that, take a brief look at the history of employer-employee relations. It wasn't that long ago that the labor force migrated from an agrarian setting, in which most people worked outside of the cities in smaller groups, to an industrial urban setting. In industrial settings, jobs were centralized in factories, which were often situated in cities. At the risk of over oversimplifying a movement that took decades, even centuries, to act out, the golden rule that dictated employer employee relations was this: He who had the gold made the rules. Typically in agrarian settings, people treated each other with a modicum of humanity, in which they shared risk, reward, responsibility and accountability. The industrial era disrupted that person-to-person dynamic. The main reasons were that employers had more than an ample supply of workers, and the tacit agreement to share between workers and employers wasn't actually very tacit after all, because employers dictated who worked, when they worked, and even if they worked. The employees had no power largely because they were interchangeable and could be summarily dismissed and replaced, at no actual cost to the employer. Workers were not necessarily viewed or appreciated as persons and instead were valued largely for the capability of their production output. With replacement workers abundant, the workers needed, and deserved, no nurturing. They were de facto servants, bound by their need for work and by professional immobility. This historical context brings to mind Douglas McGregor's Theory X Management principle, which says people need to be controlled, pushed, and supervised by some management entity because unless that happens, workers won't produce. You need to threaten or entice workers to achieve production goals. As adversarial, counterproductive, and confrontational as the practice sounds today, it was a management style accepted as logical and brilliant for many years and still finds proponents in today's workplace. Some cultural remnants of this type of employer-employee relationship were still in vogue as the way to succeed in business in the U.S. as late as the 1970s and 1980s. That's when organizations began to downsize, or "right size," as they reengineered themselves in response to activist shareholders' demands for higher levels of productivity, the push to maximize stakeholders' returns, and the scramble to conserve capital. Accompanying these changes in corporate structure was a change in the employer's perspective on people in the workplace. Until that time, organizational leadership often managed, pushed, and supervised the workers using Theory X Management. But as shortsighted as that was, it wasn't as harsh as it at first sounds, because along with the Theory X style came an implied social contract between employers and workers. It "promised" that if employees joined an organization, supported it with their labor, showed enduring loyalty, and parroted the company's mission as their own, the company promised virtual lifelong employment, a living wage with periodic increases, welfare benefits, time off for leisure, advancement opportunities, and a guaranteed postretirement benefit. Baby boomers in the workplace bought wholesale into this arrangement. They were the children of the Depression and knew full well the value of long-term employment, supportive healthcare benefits, and guaranteed retirement income. But in the 1970s and 1980s, organizations began to discover that this social contract was expensive. They realized that organizations could be consolidated, divested, and joined with others through acquisition that could deliver more bang for the buck and higher shareholder value. The ultimate result of this realization was that the social contract didn't just weaken, it disintegrated. Highly visible layoffs occurred. What looked like cold-hearted directors of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity swept in andwithout regard for loyalty or employees' work recordswiped out thousands of jobs and a great deal of good will. If you can sympathize with the shock and humiliation suffered by many of these workers, you can imagine the effect this treatment had on the families and especially the children of these workers who saw their parents golden years turned to brass. What were the children of these workers doing? Well, these children of the baby boomers (many of them baby boomers themselves if they were born before 1964) were in the process of entering the workforce. If they were paying any attention to what happened to their parents, these children were sorely affected by these corporate decisions, and they were disillusioned. Moreover, many of them were determined to engage their future employers with a different kind of social contract, one that would give the worker more freedom and mobility. The new social contract that came into being was much more circumspect, from both sides of the equation. Employers would never again offer the promise of lifelong work, nor incur the costs of that promise, but the "new breed" employees demanded access to resources, learning, and skillsacquired at the employer's expensethat were ultimately portable, in case the employees were even scuttled by the company or just decided to move on. This new breed of employees learned the lesson of the abandoned social contract very well. Although the decreasing numbers of available skilled workers gave employers an incentive to train and keep employees (because they recognized the approaching struggle and costs to find and hire replacements), the employees' incentives to stay became more personal. Knowing that their employers were fully capable of

cutting them loose at any time, in the interests of a few cents a share, these workers ran away from their part of the old social contract. They eschewed loyalty and dependence and readily replaced those with skills resting somewhere between feeling captured on one hand and blind loyalty on the other. They no longer felt captured because they were acquiring portable skills, and with a few job options in their back pockets, so to speak, they could take or leave a job. They were no longer capable of blind loyalty because they saw how their loyal parents had been treated poorly. Perhaps the most important employer-employee dynamic to emerge as a result of this tectonic shift in perspectives was that employees started examining exactly why they should stay anywhere, and employers started to examine what they could do to keep them. Let's look at an analogy to understand this better because I recognize that it seems counter-intuitive. After all, I seem to be saying that employers should be training their employees for better jobs elsewhere. So, here goes. Do you know the difference between a defined-benefit pension and a defined-contribution pension? The defined-benefit pension promises what the pension will pay out, whereas the defined-contribution pension promises only what the employer will put in. A defined-contribution pension shifts the long-term onus from the employer to the employee because they are responsible for managing that pension for their own benefit. Now, with that concept in mind, think of a new social contract between employers and their employees, one that has shifted the responsibility of lifelong employment from the employer to the employee, by simply defining what the organization is contributing to that employee in terms of training, tools, skills, and opportunity. The organization says that it is preparing the employee for lifelong employment but there are no guaranteesno defined payoutsfor that employment. It's the employees' responsibility to nurture their own educational advancement and careers. Still, the employer has the onus of making the workplace a place where employees can make a contribution, do something worthwhile, work in an environment worthy of their efforts, and be recognized for what they do. There is no doubt that this has shifted the power from the employer to the employee in many respects. but both sides of the equation have seen benefits. Employers have a heightened sense of how valuable employees are, and they see more clearly the benefit of investing in them, as they optimize the employee's productivity and create more profitable companies. Employees may have a little less trepidation about being laid off, because they have mobility with their skills and training, butselfish as this may seem at firstthey are always looking to the employer to help them get better at their jobs. If the employer can provide that training, and provide an engaged workforce that keeps employees happy, then everyone benefits, as the goals of the employer and employees are aligned. The employees' goals of wealth-building are in sync with the organization's, and with their goals in alignment, and the employees are naturally motivated to contribute their discretionary effort, creativity, and professionalism to advancement these shared goals. A second piece of this employer-employee dynamic has to do with demographics. Baby boomers, the people born between 1946 and 1964, were the largest single group of people to enter into the workforce in American history. As they leave the workforce in the next 15 to 20 years, fewer people will replace them. In the harsh light of supply and demandunderstanding that the situation won't last forever, and is actually just a blip employers will have no choice but to engage employees, if they want to draw good people. Whereas baby boomers didn't have many choices, the children of baby boomers will. They are less likely to "drink the Kool-Aid," so to speak, and they will be averse to working for a company that won't train them, give them tools to success, provide a great workplace, and recognize them for what they do.
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