Retention Reflections from Doug’s Dad, and others

 

  I’ve had some great comments on my last couple of posts about retention.

Andrew Marritt provides just about the most comprehensive comment I’ve had on this blog in his response to my post on ‘Exit as the Keystone’ and I agree with most of his points:

1. Yes, some organisations are doing something like this.  In fact, the original idea came from an organisation I spoke to about being a case study in my book, and which then decided they did not want to be featured in it, as they saw the approach as part of their competitive advantage.  But I still don’t think any organisation does quite what I’m proposing.  Which is why I’ve suggested it as a ‘hack’.
2. Yes, there is a risk that the career partner (individual) won’t come back.  They key, I think, would be identifying the right individual whose own interests and motivations fit the organisation’s mojo and strategy.  Then there’d be a really good chance that they would come back.
3. Yes, relationships are important (see my other blog, Social Advantage!), and part of this approach would need to focus on maintaining these relationships during the ‘out of employment’ phase.  I do write about this at the MIX.  And I’m not suggesting allowing an company’s best people to go to its competitors – companies want to limit the other organisations involved in these relationships – and perhaps set up some form of syndicate to support this.
4. Yes, loaning is definitely an option.  Actually, I’m not that fussed about the form of employment contract used to support this.  The key point is that an employee would spend a considerable amount of time over a number of different periods working for one ‘owning’ organisation and other times for other organisations.  There are a number of ways in which this could be accomplished.

 

I also recommend Andrew’s blog which I’ve not come across before, although I’m not a big fan of data mining, and plan to come back again shortly and discuss why.

 

Commenting on my previous post on this, Euan Semple thinks back to his days at the BBC, and in this separate post on his own blog, Doug Shaw reflects on his experience at BT – and his dad’s in the civil service.  I love this post.

I also love the fact that we’ve now got to career partnership from three separate angles – from a visioning / intuitive perspective (what would am HCM approach to retention look like?), from a business process design one (what would a true retention process look like?), and from an introspective one (how would I have liked to have been treated?).

Put all of these together and I think you’ve got something much more solid than you’d ever get from an ROI calculation, or from mining your data!

 

Technorati Tags: Employee,retention,career,partnership,MIX,hack,Andrew Marritt,Organization View,Euan Semple,BBC,Doug Shaw,BT

 

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