Comments on: Checklist of 53 Employer-of-Choice Engagement Practices

By: Keith Halperin

Keith Halperin — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 18:14:26 +0000

Thanks again, Leigh.

-kh

By: Leigh Branham

Leigh Branham — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 01:26:12 +0000

Virg, that is very gratifying to hear. Thanks so much for your interest. Have you taken the Decision-to-Leave survey?
All the best for a great class this semester.

Keith, I couldn’t agree more with everything you say. Your points 1-3 are also forcefully made in 7 Reasons (see chapters on Reasons 3, 5, and 7).

By: Virg Setzer

Virg Setzer — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 01:04:54 +0000

Leigh – I am an Adjunct Instructor in the Business School at the University of Colorado Denver – in the fall of each year I teach a combined Graduate/undergrad Staffing & Talent Management class – about 4 years ago when I was asked to teach it I decided to use you text – 7 Hidden Reasons 2005 edition as one of my primary texts – it has been just excellent – I start the class again tomorrow for this fall semester – I am now using your newest edition of the book — It is just a wonderful resource – I could not be more pleased with the value it has added to my class and to my students. Thanks much – keep up your great work!

Virg

By: Keith Halperin

Keith Halperin — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:51:50 +0000

Thanks, Leigh. You clearly have done a great deal of work here. IMHO, the companies that would truly value these the most need them the least (they already implement them, either explicitly or implicitly), and the ones needing them the most are the least likely to use them. These latter companies (who often make positive and affirming statements like these to their employees and then do the opposite) would be well-served by at least three additional practices:

1) Don’t have your executives and managers lie to, consciously mislead, or betray the trust of your employees.

2) Don’t hire arrogant jerks or budding empire-builders however productive they are, unless they don’t interact with others.

3) Listen to the people who actually do the work, and whenever possible: implement what they suggest.

Cheers,

Keith

By: Leigh Branham

Leigh Branham — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 21:41:06 +0000

Thanks for your interest, Keith.
I organized these practices over the past 17 years of researching what the best employers do to select, engage, manage, and retain talent. In addition, many of them were self-reported in employee verbatim comments captured either in 21,000 post-exit third-party from The Saratoga Institute or my own website–www.keepingthepeople.com. Many others came from analyzing 200,000 comments from the Best Place to Work surveys–2.1 million collected since 2004.
I’m not sure how to answer your question about being formally tested. I would prefer to simply say they have proven their effectiveness in hundreds of organizations over the years. Many are just common sense, but, as we know, common sense is not always common practice because many managers and employers won’t make the commitment, which is mostly about time and energy, not money. Regarding the “devil in the details,” the list looks too general and simplistic without reading the detailed guidelines in the book for each of the practices. That’s where I tell stories and give examples from specific companies.
The key thing for most companies to do is look at the list of 54 practices (not 53, by the way, as shown in the heading) as a menu from which they can choose the ones they most need to implement to meet their particular business practices at any given time.
I invite readers and visitors to my website to take the Decision-to-Leave survey (with a previous past employer in mind) which allows me to continue my research into the REAL reasons employees leave. Thanks again,
Leigh

By: Keith Halperin

Keith Halperin — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 16:51:30 +0000

Thanks, Leigh. These sound good. A few things:
1) Where did you get these from?
2) Have they all been formally tested for their effectiveness?
3) Finally, it seems that they are the kind of policies that many/most could agree with in general, but perhaps not in the specific- “the devils’s in the details”.

Best of luck with your book sales,

Keith