“How to Kill Creativity.”
See Creativity
1. Amabile, Teresa M. “How to Kill Creativity.” Harvard Business Review (1998).
“Career Planning the Time for Pinball Has Passed.”
This is an article that covers two years of research conducted by Bersin and Associates on corporate talent management. The research indicated a global talent shortage and claim that 53 percent of organizations have severe talent shortage in middle managers, 48 percent in technical professionals, 44 percent in director-level managers and 39 percent in sales and service personnel. This author claims that the best way to attract and retain talented employees is to keep them interested and engaged in their work. The article talks about the “pinball approach” which is one of two philosophies of career development. With this approach employees have little or no direction and often bounce around like pinballs from job to job. According to the author the alternative to the pinball approach is deterministic career planning. This approach is a more formal approach to employee development and incorporates methods to move employees to appropriate positions.
2. Bersin, Josh. “Career Planning the Time for Pinball Has Passed.” Talent Management Magazine (2007): 46-48.
“The Things They Do for Love.”
Buchanan claims that most organizations would admit that employee engagement matters. However most would be surprised to find out how much it really matters. According to the article companies with engaged employees are enjoying a 20% better employee performance than organizations with employees who are not engaged. Engaged employees are not necessarily being paid more but rather feel like they contribute to the success of their company. With the feeling of success employees are more apt to work harder and turn out better results.
3. Buchanan, Leigh. “The Things They Do for Love.” Harvard Business Review (2004): 1-3
“With This Simple, Three Step Approach You Can Coach Employees in Almost No Time.”
Nancy Chase points out the importance of coaching employees in order for them to reach their fullest career potential. She states that employees today have little tolerance for dead end jobs and therefore need the opportunity to be coached. The article argues that if organizations want to attract and retain quality employees, leaders must take the time to coach. Chase offers a three step process that she claims can make a huge difference in employees/superior relations. The three steps center around these key terms: recognize, mobilize, and verbalize. In closing the article the author presents coaching tips that provide guidance for leading and coaching.
4. Chase, Nancy. “With This Simple, Three Step Approach You Can Coach Employees in Almost No Time.” 1-2.
“Don’t Promote Your Stars.”
The point that this author argues is that organizations should embrace the talents that employees have instead of promoting them to positions that are beyond their competence. Instead of using promotions to reward quality, hard work it is more beneficial to offer a raise and keep employees doing what they are best at. According to the research conducted by the Gallup Organization 58% of Americans would rather stay in a job they enjoy and receive a pay increase than get promoted. The author points out some of the obstacles that are involved in this process but overall Clifton argues that this will be beneficial to organizations.
5. Clifton, Donald O. “Don’t Promote Your Stars.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ): 1-3.
“The Big Impact of Small Interactions.”
This is an excerpt from the book How Full is Your Bucket; the authors of the article summarize some of the key findings in the book along with other research. The main idea in this piece is that positive moments have a large impact on people’s lives, more than negative ones. The article proceeds to take a look at some of the key findings from a marriage study conducted by John Gottman (1992). This study coincides with the article in that it concludes that Gottman can predict with 94% accuracy weather or not a marriage will survive based on how many positive moments a couple has in a conversation. The authors used this study to prove that positive moments can have a larger impact than many may think. They argue that the findings from this study can carry over to the workplace as well based on how many positive interactions work teams have throughout the day. The authors conclude that the positive to negative ratios in the workplace are not good and have plenty of room for improvement.
6. Clifton, Donald O., and Tom Rath. “The Big Impact of Small Interactions.” Excerpted from How Full Is Your Bucket? Gallup Press (2004): 1-3.
“Winning Business in the Emotional Economy.”
In this excerpt author James Clifton suggests that the world’s greatest organizations don’t build on accounting schemes, instead they build on human emotions. The author argues that the success of a company does not depend on the understanding of economics, marketing, or organizational development. It depends on the ability of the employees to connect with the customers and how each individual connects with the company. The extraordinary American economy of the last 50 years has been based on remarkable innovation and entrepreneurship. Clifton argues that in the new world of extreme competition, all organizations are going down the wrong path toward continuous margin decline unless they discover a new way to manage human nature.
7. Clifton, James K. “Winning Business in the Emotional Economy.” Excerpted From Follow This Path (Warner Books.) (2002): 1-3.
“The High Cost of Disengaged Employees.”
According to the article, engaged employees are clearly more valuable to a company than disenchanted ones. Coffman claims that great managers and leaders know and understand this. The Gallup Organization’s latest research on employee engagement levels among the U.S. workforce confirms this. In the Gallups review three distinct types of engagement evolved from the results: engaged employees, not engaged and actively disengaged. According to Gallup’s research results actively disengaged employees cost the American economy up to $350 billion dollars per year.
8. Coffman, Curt. Interview with Barb Sanford “The High Cost of Disengaged Employees.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ): 1-2.
“Emotions are a Terrific Thing to Value.”
According to these authors, businesses that cherish and understand human behavior are more equipped to inspire great performances than those who do not. They argue that great organizations are aware of the power of emotions and therefore set up the conditions that generate and emotional mechanisms among employees and customers. In doing this the organizations and customers see results that are positive which makes for great success in these companies.
9. Coffman, Curt W., and Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina. “Emotions are a Terrific Thing to Value.” Excerpted From Follow This Path (Warner Books.) (2002): 1
“Getting Personal in the Workplace.”
This piece argues that despite efforts to keep the personal and professional relationships separate, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that workplace relationships are personal, and that negative relationships have long-term consequences for organizations. The author uses the results of a survey conducted by the Gallup Management Journal which surveyed 1,003 employees nationwide and examined the differences in responses between engaged, un- engaged and actively un-engaged employees. It was determined that there is a strong correlation between employee engagement and positive workplace relationships. This suggested that fully engaged employees have positive relations in their workplace and are more productive in their jobs.
10. Crabtree, Steve. “Getting Personal in the Workplace.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ) (2004): 1-4.
“Let’s Hear It for the B Players.”
This article suggests that most organizations downplay averages performers because they lack some of the talents that their “A players” have. The authors argue that companies are often blinded by the important roles that average performers play in the success of organizations. They suggest that companies rarely learn to recognize their “B players” who can be the definitive answer to business successes. The fact remains that the leading stars hold an important role in companies; however it is the supporting actors who make their jobs possible. With over twenty years of research these authors have concluded that long term performance and even survival of companies depends on some of their best supporting employees.
11. Delong, Thomas J., and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan. “Let’s Hear It for the B Players.” Harvard Business Review (2003): 1-8.
“Managers: a Key Factor in Employee Retention and Engagement.”
This article claims that mangers play a huge role in employee retention and engagement. The arguments in this piece are a result of a study conducted by Mastery Works Inc. which consisted of 1,000 working professionals. The survey found that one of the top three reasons an employee left an organization was whether the manager developed a trusting relationship with the employee. The author provides some characteristics of great managers such as respectful, supportive, or challenging. This study also concluded that managers have control over what makes employees want to stay besides comparable pay. This gives managers a lot of power to influence employee engagement and retention. The piece closes with situational stories and examples of tough questions that many managers have to face.
12. Farren, Caela Ph.D. “Managers: a Key Factor in Employee Retention and Engagement.” Mastery Works Inc. (2006): 1-7.
“Great Britain’s Work Force Lacks Inspiration.”
Peter Flade takes an in depth look at the problems Great Britain, and other parts of the world, seem to be having with engaging and inspiring their employees. Based on the troubling findings of The Gallup Organization’s Employee Engagement Index survey, Flade discovered that more than 80% of workers in Great Britain are not committed to their jobs and are not actively engaged. According to this piece poor management is to blame for the lack of employee engagement. The effects of employee disengagement are detrimental to the organizations.
13. Flade, Peter. “Great Britain’s Work Force Lacks Inspiration.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ) (2002): 1-3.
“Getting Good People to Stay.”
This is a check list of what to do to get the best employees to stay. It goes over some questions to talk about with work teams and also gives many recommendations on how to make the best workers want to stay.
14. “Getting Good People to Stay.” 1-2 (No author, date, or journal)
“Getting Engaged.”
This piece starts out with an overview of a world wide study on employee engagement. This study was conducted by Cargill incorporated who partnered with Hewitt Associates to conduct the study in four separate business units comprising 7,500 employees. The findings of this study proved employee engagement to have a positive correlation with business results. The article also takes a look at how Cargill uses employee engagement as a business strategy, using employee engagement as an integral part of work everyday. The report also discusses the complicated process of conducting a massive survey such as this and the high performances results.
15. “Getting Engaged.” 1-2 http://was4.hewitt.com/hewitt/resource/rptspubs/hewitt_magazine/vol6_iss2/features/feature4_1.html (No author, date, or journal)
“Statistical Summaries of Retention Data, the Retention and Engagement Drivers Report.”
This piece presents the findings of a study conducted by Career Systems International that looked to find out what engages and retains employees. The study is the result of 7, 665 people out of 15,000 who replied to the survey. There are three key aspects that the survey found keep employees engaged and also keep them with their companies: exciting work and challenge; career growth, learning and development; and working with great people and relationships. The article also lays out reasons why it has and will continue to be important to retain talent in the workplace as it is argued that talent is the new competitive edge in organizations. (Two PowerPoint presentations go along with this article)
16. Jordan-Evans, Sharon, and Beverly Kay. “Statistical Summaries of Retention Data, the Retention and Engagement Drivers Report.” Career Systems International (2004): 1-4.
“Motivating Employees to Go Above and Beyond.”
This piece points out that telling employees what to do only goes so far and suggests that employee engagement is a necessary factor in employee success. The article provides seven steps for engaging and initiating employees. 1. Identify required new behaviors 2. Communicate required behaviors 3. Identify others’ preferred reinforcements 4. Leverage peer pressure 5. Follow up on your directions 6. Use intermittent rewards 7. Help employees relive success. According to the author these seven steps are vital in employee engagement.
17. Keller Johnson, Lauren. “Motivating Employees to Go Above and Beyond.” Harvard Management Update (2006): 1-4.
“What the Big Picture Doesn’t Show.”
With the results of the Gallup Organizations annual survey at hand, the author was able to uncover some of the results on employee engagement that were hidden by the company’s overall results. This article warns organizations that results of overall employee engagement are often too high and do not paint an accurate picture of individual worker satisfaction. It suggests that the results are often skewed and look too positive, therefore it is key that managers look at all elements that may affect the results. The piece also discusses the importance of employee engagement and the positive correlation between company success and workgroup engagement.
18. Phelps, Glenn. “What the Big Picture Doesn’t Show.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ): 1-3.
“Turning Up Your Talent Engine.”
This article identifies the most profitable ways to manage talent and suggests that attacking the turnover rate is the way to do it. It takes a look at SAP Americas, a software company that was experiencing a large decline in revenue. The Gallup Organization worked with this company to establish the reason behind their losses. They concluded that the number of employees who left this company was the main reason there was so much loss. It was estimated that $678,000 were lost every time a business employees left. The company decided that change must happen and therefore found out the reasons that so many people were leaving the organization. Once they were able to figure out the problem they could fix it, retain more employees, and ultimately earn more money. The example of this company is used in this piece to justify the claim that attacking a turnover rate and engaging employees can be more profitable to your business.
19. Rutigliano, Tony. “Turning Up Your Talent Engine.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ).
“Retaining High Potentials.”
This piece takes a look at some of the current statistics on employee turnover rate. It claims employee turnover rate can cost companies up to 40 percent of their annual profit. This is why it is increasingly important for organizations to recognize and retain their highest potential employees. The author suggests that effectively developing current and future leaders and retaining high potentials can produce a competitive advantage. This article also offers two steps to retaining quality employees. Step 1: Tell them they are high potentials Step 2: Develop an innovative development program. According to the author following these two steps will help organizations be successful.
20. Schippers, Norman. “Retaining High Potentials.” Talent Management Magazine. (2007): 38-39
“What is the Ideal Turnover Rate.”
This is an outline of what the ideal turnover rate should be according to the research conducted by Dr. John Sullivan out of San Francisco State University. He suggests that there are many opinions on what the real turnover rate should be and then gives data on how a CEO might look at it. This piece also provides a list of ten other possible retention measures.
21. Sullivan, John Dr. “What is the Ideal Turnover Rate.” (April 1998): 1-2
“Building the Civilized Workplace.”
This author writes on the negative effects of having bullies and jerks in the workplace, highlighting situations where leaders are bullies. The article opens with the story of a successful software company and emphasizes the fact that the organization does not tolerate jerks in the workplace. It then proceeds to assert that companies who put up with jerks do not succeed in recruiting the most talented employees, damage their reputations, and scare off investors. Sutton suggests five practices that enforce the no jerk rule: 1. Make the rule public by what you say, especially, do 2. Weave the rule into hiring and firing practices 3. Teach people how to fight 4. Apply the rule to customers and clients too 5. Manage the little moments. As suggested by the author, the effects organizations and individuals will have by following these rules will be positive.
22. Sutton, Robert. “Building the Civilized Workplace.” Adapted From The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, New York: Warner Business Books (2007): 1-4.
“A Passion for Work.”
In this article Tucker argues how vital it is that employees have passion for their work. He argues that not only does this help the individual thrive but also helps organizations. The lack of engagement and enthusiasm in ones work passion is not only a personal problem; it is a business problem as well. The author uses Southwest Airlines as an example of a business that has passionate employees. He points out that this company had another profitable year when many other airlines did not and directs the company’s success to its engaged employees. Tucker uses statistics from the Gallup Organization and points out that 55% of U.S. employees are not engaged in their work and that 16% are actively disengaged. This leaves a mere 29% of U.S employees who are engaged in their work. The article proceeds to offer some suggestions on how to instill passion in the workplace and also recommends that organizations make passion and strength-based management a requirement.
23. Tucker, Kenneth A. “A Passion for Work.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ): 1-3.
763-545-5997
Employee Engagement
“How to Kill Creativity.”
See Creativity
1. Amabile, Teresa M. “How to Kill Creativity.” Harvard Business Review (1998).
“Career Planning the Time for Pinball Has Passed.”
This is an article that covers two years of research conducted by Bersin and Associates on corporate talent management. The research indicated a global talent shortage and claim that 53 percent of organizations have severe talent shortage in middle managers, 48 percent in technical professionals, 44 percent in director-level managers and 39 percent in sales and service personnel. This author claims that the best way to attract and retain talented employees is to keep them interested and engaged in their work. The article talks about the “pinball approach” which is one of two philosophies of career development. With this approach employees have little or no direction and often bounce around like pinballs from job to job. According to the author the alternative to the pinball approach is deterministic career planning. This approach is a more formal approach to employee development and incorporates methods to move employees to appropriate positions.
2. Bersin, Josh. “Career Planning the Time for Pinball Has Passed.” Talent Management Magazine (2007): 46-48.
“The Things They Do for Love.”
Buchanan claims that most organizations would admit that employee engagement matters. However most would be surprised to find out how much it really matters. According to the article companies with engaged employees are enjoying a 20% better employee performance than organizations with employees who are not engaged. Engaged employees are not necessarily being paid more but rather feel like they contribute to the success of their company. With the feeling of success employees are more apt to work harder and turn out better results.
3. Buchanan, Leigh. “The Things They Do for Love.” Harvard Business Review (2004): 1-3
“With This Simple, Three Step Approach You Can Coach Employees in Almost No Time.”
Nancy Chase points out the importance of coaching employees in order for them to reach their fullest career potential. She states that employees today have little tolerance for dead end jobs and therefore need the opportunity to be coached. The article argues that if organizations want to attract and retain quality employees, leaders must take the time to coach. Chase offers a three step process that she claims can make a huge difference in employees/superior relations. The three steps center around these key terms: recognize, mobilize, and verbalize. In closing the article the author presents coaching tips that provide guidance for leading and coaching.
4. Chase, Nancy. “With This Simple, Three Step Approach You Can Coach Employees in Almost No Time.” 1-2.
“Don’t Promote Your Stars.”
The point that this author argues is that organizations should embrace the talents that employees have instead of promoting them to positions that are beyond their competence. Instead of using promotions to reward quality, hard work it is more beneficial to offer a raise and keep employees doing what they are best at. According to the research conducted by the Gallup Organization 58% of Americans would rather stay in a job they enjoy and receive a pay increase than get promoted. The author points out some of the obstacles that are involved in this process but overall Clifton argues that this will be beneficial to organizations.
5. Clifton, Donald O. “Don’t Promote Your Stars.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ): 1-3.
“The Big Impact of Small Interactions.”
This is an excerpt from the book How Full is Your Bucket; the authors of the article summarize some of the key findings in the book along with other research. The main idea in this piece is that positive moments have a large impact on people’s lives, more than negative ones. The article proceeds to take a look at some of the key findings from a marriage study conducted by John Gottman (1992). This study coincides with the article in that it concludes that Gottman can predict with 94% accuracy weather or not a marriage will survive based on how many positive moments a couple has in a conversation. The authors used this study to prove that positive moments can have a larger impact than many may think. They argue that the findings from this study can carry over to the workplace as well based on how many positive interactions work teams have throughout the day. The authors conclude that the positive to negative ratios in the workplace are not good and have plenty of room for improvement.
6. Clifton, Donald O., and Tom Rath. “The Big Impact of Small Interactions.” Excerpted from How Full Is Your Bucket? Gallup Press (2004): 1-3.
“Winning Business in the Emotional Economy.”
In this excerpt author James Clifton suggests that the world’s greatest organizations don’t build on accounting schemes, instead they build on human emotions. The author argues that the success of a company does not depend on the understanding of economics, marketing, or organizational development. It depends on the ability of the employees to connect with the customers and how each individual connects with the company. The extraordinary American economy of the last 50 years has been based on remarkable innovation and entrepreneurship. Clifton argues that in the new world of extreme competition, all organizations are going down the wrong path toward continuous margin decline unless they discover a new way to manage human nature.
7. Clifton, James K. “Winning Business in the Emotional Economy.” Excerpted From Follow This Path (Warner Books.) (2002): 1-3.
“The High Cost of Disengaged Employees.”
According to the article, engaged employees are clearly more valuable to a company than disenchanted ones. Coffman claims that great managers and leaders know and understand this. The Gallup Organization’s latest research on employee engagement levels among the U.S. workforce confirms this. In the Gallups review three distinct types of engagement evolved from the results: engaged employees, not engaged and actively disengaged. According to Gallup’s research results actively disengaged employees cost the American economy up to $350 billion dollars per year.
8. Coffman, Curt. Interview with Barb Sanford “The High Cost of Disengaged Employees.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ): 1-2.
“Emotions are a Terrific Thing to Value.”
According to these authors, businesses that cherish and understand human behavior are more equipped to inspire great performances than those who do not. They argue that great organizations are aware of the power of emotions and therefore set up the conditions that generate and emotional mechanisms among employees and customers. In doing this the organizations and customers see results that are positive which makes for great success in these companies.
9. Coffman, Curt W., and Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina. “Emotions are a Terrific Thing to Value.” Excerpted From Follow This Path (Warner Books.) (2002): 1
“Getting Personal in the Workplace.”
This piece argues that despite efforts to keep the personal and professional relationships separate, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that workplace relationships are personal, and that negative relationships have long-term consequences for organizations. The author uses the results of a survey conducted by the Gallup Management Journal which surveyed 1,003 employees nationwide and examined the differences in responses between engaged, un- engaged and actively un-engaged employees. It was determined that there is a strong correlation between employee engagement and positive workplace relationships. This suggested that fully engaged employees have positive relations in their workplace and are more productive in their jobs.
10. Crabtree, Steve. “Getting Personal in the Workplace.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ) (2004): 1-4.
“Let’s Hear It for the B Players.”
This article suggests that most organizations downplay averages performers because they lack some of the talents that their “A players” have. The authors argue that companies are often blinded by the important roles that average performers play in the success of organizations. They suggest that companies rarely learn to recognize their “B players” who can be the definitive answer to business successes. The fact remains that the leading stars hold an important role in companies; however it is the supporting actors who make their jobs possible. With over twenty years of research these authors have concluded that long term performance and even survival of companies depends on some of their best supporting employees.
11. Delong, Thomas J., and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan. “Let’s Hear It for the B Players.” Harvard Business Review (2003): 1-8.
“Managers: a Key Factor in Employee Retention and Engagement.”
This article claims that mangers play a huge role in employee retention and engagement. The arguments in this piece are a result of a study conducted by Mastery Works Inc. which consisted of 1,000 working professionals. The survey found that one of the top three reasons an employee left an organization was whether the manager developed a trusting relationship with the employee. The author provides some characteristics of great managers such as respectful, supportive, or challenging. This study also concluded that managers have control over what makes employees want to stay besides comparable pay. This gives managers a lot of power to influence employee engagement and retention. The piece closes with situational stories and examples of tough questions that many managers have to face.
12. Farren, Caela Ph.D. “Managers: a Key Factor in Employee Retention and Engagement.” Mastery Works Inc. (2006): 1-7.
“Great Britain’s Work Force Lacks Inspiration.”
Peter Flade takes an in depth look at the problems Great Britain, and other parts of the world, seem to be having with engaging and inspiring their employees. Based on the troubling findings of The Gallup Organization’s Employee Engagement Index survey, Flade discovered that more than 80% of workers in Great Britain are not committed to their jobs and are not actively engaged. According to this piece poor management is to blame for the lack of employee engagement. The effects of employee disengagement are detrimental to the organizations.
13. Flade, Peter. “Great Britain’s Work Force Lacks Inspiration.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ) (2002): 1-3.
“Getting Good People to Stay.”
This is a check list of what to do to get the best employees to stay. It goes over some questions to talk about with work teams and also gives many recommendations on how to make the best workers want to stay.
14. “Getting Good People to Stay.” 1-2 (No author, date, or journal)
“Getting Engaged.”
This piece starts out with an overview of a world wide study on employee engagement. This study was conducted by Cargill incorporated who partnered with Hewitt Associates to conduct the study in four separate business units comprising 7,500 employees. The findings of this study proved employee engagement to have a positive correlation with business results. The article also takes a look at how Cargill uses employee engagement as a business strategy, using employee engagement as an integral part of work everyday. The report also discusses the complicated process of conducting a massive survey such as this and the high performances results.
15. “Getting Engaged.” 1-2 http://was4.hewitt.com/hewitt/resource/rptspubs/hewitt_magazine/vol6_iss2/features/feature4_1.html (No author, date, or journal)
“Statistical Summaries of Retention Data, the Retention and Engagement Drivers Report.”
This piece presents the findings of a study conducted by Career Systems International that looked to find out what engages and retains employees. The study is the result of 7, 665 people out of 15,000 who replied to the survey. There are three key aspects that the survey found keep employees engaged and also keep them with their companies: exciting work and challenge; career growth, learning and development; and working with great people and relationships. The article also lays out reasons why it has and will continue to be important to retain talent in the workplace as it is argued that talent is the new competitive edge in organizations. (Two PowerPoint presentations go along with this article)
16. Jordan-Evans, Sharon, and Beverly Kay. “Statistical Summaries of Retention Data, the Retention and Engagement Drivers Report.” Career Systems International (2004): 1-4.
“Motivating Employees to Go Above and Beyond.”
This piece points out that telling employees what to do only goes so far and suggests that employee engagement is a necessary factor in employee success. The article provides seven steps for engaging and initiating employees. 1. Identify required new behaviors 2. Communicate required behaviors 3. Identify others’ preferred reinforcements 4. Leverage peer pressure 5. Follow up on your directions 6. Use intermittent rewards 7. Help employees relive success. According to the author these seven steps are vital in employee engagement.
17. Keller Johnson, Lauren. “Motivating Employees to Go Above and Beyond.” Harvard Management Update (2006): 1-4.
“What the Big Picture Doesn’t Show.”
With the results of the Gallup Organizations annual survey at hand, the author was able to uncover some of the results on employee engagement that were hidden by the company’s overall results. This article warns organizations that results of overall employee engagement are often too high and do not paint an accurate picture of individual worker satisfaction. It suggests that the results are often skewed and look too positive, therefore it is key that managers look at all elements that may affect the results. The piece also discusses the importance of employee engagement and the positive correlation between company success and workgroup engagement.
18. Phelps, Glenn. “What the Big Picture Doesn’t Show.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ): 1-3.
“Turning Up Your Talent Engine.”
This article identifies the most profitable ways to manage talent and suggests that attacking the turnover rate is the way to do it. It takes a look at SAP Americas, a software company that was experiencing a large decline in revenue. The Gallup Organization worked with this company to establish the reason behind their losses. They concluded that the number of employees who left this company was the main reason there was so much loss. It was estimated that $678,000 were lost every time a business employees left. The company decided that change must happen and therefore found out the reasons that so many people were leaving the organization. Once they were able to figure out the problem they could fix it, retain more employees, and ultimately earn more money. The example of this company is used in this piece to justify the claim that attacking a turnover rate and engaging employees can be more profitable to your business.
19. Rutigliano, Tony. “Turning Up Your Talent Engine.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ).
“Retaining High Potentials.”
This piece takes a look at some of the current statistics on employee turnover rate. It claims employee turnover rate can cost companies up to 40 percent of their annual profit. This is why it is increasingly important for organizations to recognize and retain their highest potential employees. The author suggests that effectively developing current and future leaders and retaining high potentials can produce a competitive advantage. This article also offers two steps to retaining quality employees. Step 1: Tell them they are high potentials Step 2: Develop an innovative development program. According to the author following these two steps will help organizations be successful.
20. Schippers, Norman. “Retaining High Potentials.” Talent Management Magazine. (2007): 38-39
“What is the Ideal Turnover Rate.”
This is an outline of what the ideal turnover rate should be according to the research conducted by Dr. John Sullivan out of San Francisco State University. He suggests that there are many opinions on what the real turnover rate should be and then gives data on how a CEO might look at it. This piece also provides a list of ten other possible retention measures.
21. Sullivan, John Dr. “What is the Ideal Turnover Rate.” (April 1998): 1-2
“Building the Civilized Workplace.”
This author writes on the negative effects of having bullies and jerks in the workplace, highlighting situations where leaders are bullies. The article opens with the story of a successful software company and emphasizes the fact that the organization does not tolerate jerks in the workplace. It then proceeds to assert that companies who put up with jerks do not succeed in recruiting the most talented employees, damage their reputations, and scare off investors. Sutton suggests five practices that enforce the no jerk rule: 1. Make the rule public by what you say, especially, do 2. Weave the rule into hiring and firing practices 3. Teach people how to fight 4. Apply the rule to customers and clients too 5. Manage the little moments. As suggested by the author, the effects organizations and individuals will have by following these rules will be positive.
22. Sutton, Robert. “Building the Civilized Workplace.” Adapted From The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, New York: Warner Business Books (2007): 1-4.
“A Passion for Work.”
In this article Tucker argues how vital it is that employees have passion for their work. He argues that not only does this help the individual thrive but also helps organizations. The lack of engagement and enthusiasm in ones work passion is not only a personal problem; it is a business problem as well. The author uses Southwest Airlines as an example of a business that has passionate employees. He points out that this company had another profitable year when many other airlines did not and directs the company’s success to its engaged employees. Tucker uses statistics from the Gallup Organization and points out that 55% of U.S. employees are not engaged in their work and that 16% are actively disengaged. This leaves a mere 29% of U.S employees who are engaged in their work. The article proceeds to offer some suggestions on how to instill passion in the workplace and also recommends that organizations make passion and strength-based management a requirement.
23. Tucker, Kenneth A. “A Passion for Work.” The Gallup Organization (GMJ): 1-3.