Friday, April 12, 2013
My thoughts after reading a blog on Employee Recognition Programs
Nice to see CEO's acknowledging that the leading challenge is how to best to develop, engage, motivate, manage, and retain Human Capital. (See blog - CEOs and Employee Recognition Programs, finally hand in hand?). Also agree employees need an environment to thrive and a recognition program to feel appreciated and secure.
I doubt there is any organization out there that would either acknowledge not having an Employee Recognition Program or, possibly even worse, admitting having one that is not working. If these programs were working, employers would not have to resort to offering a retention bonus to at-risk employees. If you leave aside growth companies like Google and Apple aside, companies are focused on meeting quarterly numbers than real and meaningful long term investment in Human Capital - we are after all in a 7.5+% unemployment economy.
If these programs were really working, there would be no need to put in place retention bonuses for at-risk employees - specially when you realize a valued hard to replace employee is about to quit. I have been in such situations and have often wondered if a retention bonus really made a difference. An employee has nothing to loose by agreeing to a retention agreement and quitting anyway when a nice opportunity comes along. I once tried to convince the organization to turn the retention bonus agreement on its head and to make the payout now rather than the end of the retention period. Lets acknowledge the retention bonus as last ditch effort and increase the incentive to stick around. An employee that breaks such an agreement would have to pay the retention bonus back and even though there may be a small risk that the organization may not recover the money, I believe it is worth taking and using the time to work on how to increase employee retention.
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Think of a retention bonus as an offer to go to a nice restaurant and have a great meal. It then becomes a question of which is better, "Stay around and you'll get a nice meal" or "You'll get a nice meal now but you've got to stay around after you eat." The allure of dining is always greater than the heavy feel we get after we eat and I think money is very similar. The allure of money we don't have and the things we'll acquire is always greater than how we feel after we've spent the money we didn't expect.
ReplyDeleteSamir, I think the whole employee retention is all about people who you work with, your career prospects and the prospects of the business. If you like all 3, you will never quit.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, an employee needs to think of why in the first place did he or she join this company. Often times, the answer to this question is because I wanted to quit my previous place. So a person will do anything to just quit his/her current job for another one, and if one comes along, does not think of how good of a fit it is for him/her, but would just jump in, because it gives them a way to get rid of the previous one.
I strongly feel that the incentive for people to stay at a place is all about the people, prospects of the business and their own growth prospects. The biggest factor that affects people to quit is other people or their boss. In such cases, even if the business is doing great, or the growth prospects are good, the employee would want to quit. But if you flip that around and say that the people are great, but the growth prospects (of the employee and business) are not that great, there is a very good chance that the employee will still stick around.
Monetary incentives are great, but not the only thing that makes people stick around.