University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Finding and Keeping Great Employees
Book

Finding and Keeping Great Employees

Jim Harris and Joan Brannick
AMACOM, 1999
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Job seekers and job holders alike tend to think they’re National Football League free-agents when it comes to getting and keeping jobs in this low unemployment era. Thus, corporations can find it very tempting to act like football teams - throw money at recruits, throw money at employees with wanderlust - and then throw up their hands when people leave. No need for all that, say authors Jim Harris and Joan Brannick. Finding and keeping great employees isn’t about winning the bidding, it’s about getting to the source of employee alienation and rebuilding connections among people, their jobs, their lives and your company. getAbstract recommends this book to employees, especially unhappy ones, and to human resources professionals of all stripes, from recruiters to compensation analysts to development specialists, and even football coaches.

Summary

Disconnection and Alignment

Push someone hard through a revolving door, and they are likely to end up where they started - on the outside looking in. Despite lavish recruiting programs and gargantuan signing bonuses, companies are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain outstanding employees. However, this is not an inevitable consequence of a tight labor market. Many companies achieve low turnover, even in this competitive employment climate. They succeed because they really understand why employees’ eyes tend to wander: disconnection and lack of alignment.

During the 1980s and 1990s, a time called "the most turbulent in business history," corporate success became dramatically unhinged from employee well being. Three realms of employee disconnection developed. "Company disconnection" arose in the wake of downsizing programs that reshaped the once traditional long-term connection between company and employee. Believing their jobs could disappear at any moment, employees became sanguine about disappearing themselves. "Job disconnection" resulted from greater strategic flexibility and dizzying technological advancement. Employees who did not get continual...

About the Authors

Jim Harris, Ph.D., is president of the James Harris Group. He is author of Getting Employees to Fall in Love With Your Company. Joan Brannick , Ph.D., is president of Brannick Human Resources Connections.

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