Category Archives: Benefits

The Propinquity Effect

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Ok, kids – it’s Readers Digest Word Power time!

I’m constantly trying to get my HR and Talent peers to spend more time with those they serve.  Shared time – face-to-face – lunch, coffee, cigarette breaks, drinks after work, Thursday night bowling league – it doesn’t matter.  The time and space is the important thing.  More time. Closer together.

There’s a name for this, it’s called the Propinquity Effect:

The propinquity effect is the tendency for people to form friendships or romantic relationships with those whom they encounter often, forming a bond between subject and friend. Occupational propinquity based on a person’s career, is also commonly seen as a factor in marriage selection. Workplace interactions are frequent and this frequent interaction is often a key indicator as to why close relationships can readily form in this type of environment.[1] In other words, relationships tend to form between those who have a high propinquity.

It’s hard to get most HR Pros to believe this.  It’s science that has real personal value to your overall HR effectiveness within your organization.  Spend more time, building a relationship with another individual outside of HR in your organization, and you’ve just added to your organizational influence.

I’m not saying you have to become close friends and go on vacation with each other.  What I’m saying is you need to find value in building personal relationships at work – if – and this is a big ‘if’ – you have a goal to be more effective in HR.  That might sound slightly facetious – but it’s not.  Some of you are fine with where your role in HR is in your organization.  Others of you are not satisfied with how your role is seen in HR.   Propinquity is easiest way to change that.

 

Do you allow smoke breaks?

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Let’s break down the anatomy of a Smoke Break:

Step 1: Gathering of smoke related materials to go on break (20-30 seconds)

Step 2: Decision to go on break commando, or alert smoke friend you’re going on break (10-45 seconds)

Step 3: Travel time to proper Smoke Break destination (1-2 minutes)

Step 4: Consuming cancer stick (3-4 minutes) – which includes conversation with cancer buddies

Step 5: Travel time back to work area (1-2 minutes)

Step 6: Settling back in to get on task (1 -2 minutes)

Total estimated Smoke Break time: 10 minutes

Multiply Smoke Break time by 6 = 1 hour per day for Smoking, that you’re paying for. 5 hours per week. Let’s say 49 weeks per year.  Average wage $20/hr = $4,900 you are paying someone in your environment to Smoke.  (FYI – this does not include the cost of your insurance going up as well for poor health)

Just so we are clear – I add this into our Total Compensation Statements for our Smokers!   It’s a great benefit – I list it under “Recess”.

So, not to make my non-smoking employees upset by this total disregard for company resources – I let each non-smoking employee have an hour of ‘recess’ each day!  What is ‘recess’ – it’s when you see Janie over by someones cube talking about Dancing with Stars for 20 minutes – that’s 20 minutes of ‘recess’!  Now, if Janie is a smoker – and she’s taking ‘recess’ on top of her smoking break – Janie gets fired.  Janie is using her ‘recess’ to smoke – she doesn’t get additional ‘recess’.

Sounds crazy right?

Here’s what I know – every single one of your non-smoking employees – looks at this situation, exactly like I describe it above – but maybe in less colorful terms.  “Why does Janie get to take an hour of her day off to smoke, and get paid, while I continue to sit here an work?”  Why do we as leaders and HR Pros allow this to happen?  We don’t legally have to allow people to take a smoking break – heck – we can fire them for taking a smoking break. Would you allow an employee to take an hour out of their day to play with a loaded gun in the parking lot?  Why not?  What’s the difference?

As a leader and HR Pro I know smoking is bad.  I know it costs me the health of my employees, increases in health insurances and that my non-smoking employees hate that I allow this.  So, why do I allow it?  You’re going to love this answer!  Because – ‘we always have’.  That’s why.  And it’s stupid.

So, do you allow Smoke Breaks? Why? (and please don’t comment about ‘life choices’)

 

Don’t Ask Me To Take Less Money!

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I love pro sports – football, basketball, baseball – it doesn’t matter, I love watching the best athletes in the world compete against each other.  I also love watching college sports – but for a different reason.  Pro sports and college sports are different.  One is a business of entertainment and one is competition.  While their is an element of competition in pro sports – the bottom line business proposition is still to entertain.  99% of college sport athletes will never go on to become pro sport athletes and get paid for playing the game they love.  They play for a number of reasons, the biggest one is that they love playing the game and they love the competition.  Some pro sports athletes also do this – but if they weren’t being paid, most would not be putting their bodies through the punishment they do. Still, there talent is awesome and it’s why we pay big bucks to see them ‘perform’.

That is why I love the Tom Brady story.  An all-pro NFL quarterback who takes less money then he could get on the open market, so his ‘team’ can go out and get better talent for him to play with and possibly compete for future Super Bowls.  Great pro athlete story.  Here’s the breakdown from the NY Times:

“Brady took a deal that will pay him well below the market rate for a quarterback of his caliber at a time when the Patriots and every other team are struggling to manage against a salary cap that is expected to remain nearly flat for several years.

Brady is now under contract through the 2017 season, when he will be 40. But the contract will pay him just $27 million, far below the annual $20 million that is the current average for the game’s top quarterbacks. The terms of the contract were first reported by Sports Illustrated.

Brady also took a below-market deal in 2005, with the thought that he wanted to give the Patriots the chance to sign and keep other players. That is what drove his decision-making this time, too.”

I love when guys from the teams I root for do this because of all the reasons Brady is doing this.  When anyone turns down millions of dollars to make your organization better – that means something! But, this doesn’t make it right for everyone!

Let’s face some facts.  Brady has more money then he’ll ever need, a super-rich wife and incredible earning power after sports in the broadcast booth.  He can take the pay cut and not flinch.  The problem with these kinds of stories is that companies believe you should be willing to do the same thing.  “Hey Tim, we need you to take a $10K cut to help us out through this rough patch we’re facing.”  Um, No!  I’m not Tom Brady – and I’m guessing you aren’t either – pay cuts in ‘real’ life, don’t work.  Yet, we see organizations, even our own government, trying to do this.  It’s a disaster.   Don’t get me wrong – I understand why organizations do this.  If the alternative is to go out of business – I’m going to offer up some pay cuts.  The reality, though, is this a downward spiral of doom – 99.9% of organizations that force pay cuts don’t make it.

They don’t make it because the good people, the real talent, bail as fast as possible.  Leaving you less talented, under paid, desperate employees – that is not a recipe for success.  So, what can you do?  Do more with less.  Don’t cut everyone – just eliminate the lowest performers and keep the pay at where it should be.  People are willing to pick up more if they feel like it truly is going to make a difference. Cutting pay, across the board, only demotivates the entire staff, further compounding your problem of survival.  As an HR Pro don’t allow yourself to be pulled into this leadership trap – it won’t work.

The ‘F’ Word’s Final, Shallow Breath

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By Cali Ressler

The memo from Yahoo!’s CEO Marissa Mayer has put telework, flexible work schedules, and other work/life balance programs into the spotlight in recent days. It’s perplexing, laughable, and almost unfathomable that we’re still debating whether or not people should be able to work outside of the office.

The evidence is clear that every important metric goes up when you give people freedom to work where and when they want: employee engagement and satisfaction, productivity, customer satisfaction, to name a few. But with autonomy comes accountability. Are employees accountable for results or just accountable for ‘showing up’? Is everyone aware of how their results are being measured? If people aren’t delivering, why do they still have a job? Just pulling people back into an office does not, in any way, shape or form set a better foundation for collaboration, communication, or innovation.

We know that communication and collaboration can (and does) happen between and among people anywhere at any time. So what’s the real problem? We’re still following a very deeply rooted formula of time + presence = results. If I can see you in the office, I believe you’re working! When I see you talking with your colleagues, I get all warm and fuzzy because I think you’re solving our business challenges or coming up with the next big idea. When I hear everyone talking about working 80 hours a week, I feel like they’re earning their keep.  When I see them complaining about missing out on important aspects of their lives, I feel good because I’m in the same boat…and really, we’re all in this together.

We need to stop using this formula. We need to stop using the F word. Flexibility and these other terms are not worth of our energy. Yahoo! has organizations all over the country asking if they should do a rigorous study of their telework programs. Um, no. Instead, do a rigorous study of whether your people know what they’re supposed to be doing…regardless of where they are. And so…death to the following words:

1. Telework

Back in the days when dinosaurs walked the earth, someone came up with the brilliant idea to allow some people to telework. Now there are a million different flexible work programs to make people excited about flexibility–like My Work, iWork, My Mobile Workplace, Mobility ‘R’ Us, Mobile Me, and Teleriffic.  No matter how you market it, it’s the same thing: a program that manages people’s time because we know they can’t be trusted to manage it themselves. A program that says “I’m inept at managing what you need to achieve, so I’m going to manage how you spend your time.”  We need to go beyond telework. Its time is so over.

2. Flexible Schedule

Flexible schedule is an oxymoron. Think about the poor manager who is managing their employees’ flexible schedules. We’ve seen it time and again: “Bob, you’re telling me you want to switch your flex days from Tuesday and Thursday to Monday and Friday.  Hmmm…I’ll have to think about that and get back to you next week.” Is Bob incapable of knowing when he needs to be in the office and when he doesn’t need to be?  The manager might think so.  But in the end, if the results aren’t achieved, it’s a performance issue that must be dealt with, not an attendance issue.

3. Remote workers/virtual workers/teleworkers

Telework implies that you’re not a real worker, just a teleworker. It is the label we put on people who are just not where they should be: the office! Everyone back at the office is talking about the people who get to work outside the office. “I wish I could work from home!” “Those of us in the office do all the work!” Sound familiar?  Telework programs foster a sense of entitlement – not consciously, but because they cause people to think in a backwards manner: “I want to work from home…so my work better fit into that.” Without a telework program in place – when you have an environment that determines measurable results, and fosters and accountability, you have people instead thinking “These are my results, this is how I’m being measured, so now I can figure out the most productive, efficient ways to do that.”

4. Permission

With discussions of flexibility and telework, the end result is the employee asking managers for what amounts to a hall pass.

You have my permission to work from home on Fridays. You have my permission to leave work at 4:30 to pick up your child. We allow employees to telework twice a week – aren’t you happy about that?!  I let my employees go to the dentist. 

If you want to work from a different place or at a different time than the socially accepted standard office hours, you have to ask permission. And at that moment, the manager is in the position of managing your work location and time … not the work itself. It makes you feel like you’re back in high school asking your parents’ permission to stay out an extra hour on Friday night.

5. Flexibility

The more we talk about flexibility, the further we remove ourselves from talking about the one thing that’s important: the work.  Change the conversation. Get crystal clear about the measurable results each person is accountable for, and get out of the managed flexibility game. People can manage their own time. [“But what if they can’t?”  Then they most likely aren’t getting to their results and need to head into the land of consequences.]

Let’s face it. The world is changing. Fifty years from now nobody will be talking about flextime, compressed workweek, telework, reduced hours, remote working, virtual working or home-officing.

We will not be segmenting people who do work by labeling them. LIFE will happen. Work will happen. Wherever. Whenever.

 

Cali’s Bio

cali

Cali Ressler, along with her partner Jody Thompson, is the Founder of CultureRx and co-creator of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE). Cali is a nationally recognized keynote speaker and author of bestselling business book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It. Her second book, Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It is the field guide for how to manage work in the 21st century.

 

I Love Work From Home

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Now that everyone has calmed down about Yahoo pulling their ‘Work From Home’ program and making those Yahoos working from home come back to the barn – I wanted to comment.

“I LOVE Work From Home.”

You can quote me on this.  I know, I know – all you big business, strategic HR types have come out and given us WFHers a real ear full.  Good for you strategic HR pros!  It only took you the last 10 years and a Great Recession to figure out you better get on the business side of things and jump off the sinking employee boat!  Well played.  Screw work-life balance – nobody wants to support those kinds of crazy programs!  We’re HR Business partners – not HR Employee partners.

I love WFH – my wife works from home.  And what they say about WFH employees is exactly correct – she faces communications challenges every single day.  She doesn’t get the respect or appreciation that non-WFH employees get.  Getting people to understand the amount of work you do, is almost impossible.  Everyone wants to change positions with her, believing It is easy.  Everyday is a struggle, but at the same time a blessing.

You see – my wife is a stay at home mother.  She is raising 3 smart and well adjusted boys to go out into the world.  Boys don’t communicate very well – it’s a challenge she faces everyday. Children have a hard appreciating all that their mother does for them, and her husband doesn’t appreciate her enough.  It’s hard – financially.  We don’t have brand new cars.  We don’t have a 2nd lake house. We don’t go on Disney Cruise vacations.  We are saving for 3 college educations, while at the same time attempting to give our kids all ‘those things we never had’.   Our WFH arrangement is the best decision we have ever made.

I’m envious many days of my wife’s WFH job.  While it’s a job I could not do successfully – she gets to see some of the most wonderful moments of my kids lives. Things I will never get to see.  She has a relationship with my children, I’ll never have.  She has sacrificed most of her career and professionalism to raise 3 young men.   We are winning.

I hear you – a Stay At Home Mom is not the same as the WFH Yahoos.  You’re right – instead of Yahoo paying for my wife to “WFH”, I’m paying her.  I’m not asking a corporation to pay my wife a full-time salary to raise my family.  The fact of the matter is organizations who are failing, like Yahoo, can’t sustain paying employees to work at home and raise their family. Raising your family isn’t a part-time job, so who’s getting the short end of the stick – Yahoo or your kids?  “Well, I don’t have a family and I was a WFH Yahoo Employee.”  Good for you – but it begs the question – if you didn’t have to be at home to raise a family or take care of a loved one, etc. why were you working from home to begin with?

Regardless – I love my Work From Home arrangement – I wish more people would find a way to do it.

Why Hasn’t Paying Employees To Leave Caught On?

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Remember a few years back when Zappos, the darling of the HR world, announced it was offering new employees $1000 on their 90 day anniversary to Leave the company?  At the time that’s all HR people talked about – it was revolutionary – pretty soon every company would be paying their employees to leave.  What happened to that?  Zappos is still offering to pay employees to leave.  Is your company? Why not?

It hasn’t caught on because your leadership is afraid your good hires would actually take you up on your offer!

Of all the HR gimmicks Zappos does, offering employees at bonus at 90 days is the best one – because it puts everything on the table.  It’s the one thing they did that other companies are too afraid to steal!   When you go to an employee and say we need you to be all in – so – if you can’t be all in, here’s $1000 bill, all you have to do is leave.  That’s having true faith in your organization, your culture.  We only want people to work here – that really want to be here.  Many of say it, but 99.9% aren’t willing to back it up with an offer.

It hasn’t caught on, because your HR team is too weak!

Think about the HR person who takes that idea to the executive conference room.  They’re either really good at what they do, or crazy.  Because most leadership teams are not going to buy in on the initial idea.  To get an idea like that approved, you have to have executive buy in, in a major way.  You have to be able to sell it.  That person is not your average HR person. That’s an HR person willing to do thing different, willing to put their beliefs on the line.  Those kind of HR folks are the ones who get the corporate logo tattooed on their ass – and don’t even tell you about it.

It hasn’t caught on because the recession put people 2nd and business 1st. (Remember when your employees were 1st!)

In a down economy the importance of your workforce has taken a back seat.  It has.  Leadership and management training was almost non-existent, retention programs disappeared and work-life balance turned into get-your-ass-back-to-work balance.  That’s simple economics.  When your pool of labor far outreaches your needs, the employer holds more of the power.  This makes the exercise of giving people money to leave, seem a little silly.  First, people aren’t leaving because they have no where else to go. Second, if someone sucks, I’m getting rid of them because I have 100 others waiting to take their spot.

HR Pros discount this policy.  They say it’s meaningless. It wouldn’t make a difference in their environment.  They have a performance management process that gets rid of ‘those’ kinds of employees. The fact is, we are scared.  We are scared to go and do this because we know the truth.  That it would cause turnover, that would cause our systems and processes to be taxed.  We don’t have the resources to handle it.  We don’t have the leadership to handle it.  We don’t have the guts to try it.

It’s the single most brilliant thing that Zappos has done in the HR space, and you’re not doing it.

 

HR – An Autopsy

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HR is Dead. I got called yesterday to come down and ID the body.

They ran an Autopsy to discover the cause of death and to know one’s surprise they found a number of issues, including:

–Deficient creativity – apparently HR bored itself to death.  So caught up in ‘creating’ process, it forgot what ‘creating’ actually meant.

–Lack of Soul – Organizations need that immortal essence that is given by it’s people.

–Formality Glutinous –  To be stuffed so much with formality that you explode from the inside that people can’t stand being around you.

–Analysis Paralysis – Stuck in indecision unable to move forward surrounded by so many metrics.

–Feline Rabies – Yep, in the end, having 4+ cats on average, did in HR.

HR wont’ be missed by many.  The fact is not many really knew HR.  For years locked behind a department door that had not only a keycode to gain entry, but a palm and retinal scanner as well – security of your employee files being of the utmost importance to the organization.  Where we once knew them from the annual company picnic, alas, it has been years since HR was willing to plan that employee event.  Even our annual open enrollment meetings were cancelled for online, interaction-less, enrollment – efficiency over relationship.  Survey Monkey engagement surveys, email follow-up, phone screen interviews – some have questioned was HR really ever a person at all.  One time, through the sliding window, I once spoke to someone, “Here” I said, as I handed in an exchange of address form, “Thanks” she said.  HR seemed friendly enough.

I don’t mean this to be an anthem to a dead profession, but let’s face it – HR as we have known it, thankfully, is almost there.  I’m asked frequently – “What’s the future of HR?” and I say, “HR will change organizations more than any other single functional area in business.  We have ways to hire a more talented workforce.  We have ways to increase engagement of our workforce. We can increase performance and productivity that has a direct bottom-line impact.  We can make the workers we have better, faster, stronger.  The future of HR – won’t be like ‘HR’ at all.”  But let’s forget the future.  Let’s focus on the present. Let’s make HR not HR.  Let’s make HR everything we want it to be.

Let HR be technology leaders. Let HR be financial leaders. Let HR be Performance leaders.  Let HR be operational leaders.  Let’s plan the picnic and at the same time drive the highest productivity our organizations have ever seen.  Let’s flawlessly administer benefits and simultaneously attract complete freaking studs and studettes to our organizations.  Let HR not be HR.  Let HR be a driver of every part of our business – not a functional area – but an integration into what we do best.

And if we don’t, then yes, HR, as we know it, will be completely dead.

How Does HR Think?

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I’m not sure how HR thinks.  I know how I think, and from what people tell me, I don’t think like a ‘normal’ HR person.  One thing I really like, though, is to see how other pros think.  I learn a lot from how maybe an engineer addresses an issue versus say how a Designer would address the same issue.  I like to take aspects of how other professionals think and incorporate those thought processes into how I think about HR.  I think this helps me solve HR issues in ways that the business can grasp onto better.

I found a cool article recently on how Designers think.  Here are some of the ways Designers think:

– “Design is not about solving problems.  It’s about making people happy. And there are always so many personalities and ideas to consider. So you’re trying to simplify it to its fundamental structure.” 

– “You have to understand when the timing is right for dialogue, and when its time to move the limits. Designers arrive at a company to move its limits.”

– “Try to pare things down. Very few moves do a lot.”

– “Unoriginal, ugly and cheap. Revolutionary, gorgeous and luxurious. These do not have to be contradictions.”

– “The idea of innovation as a structured process has been taken to the extreme, where it is no longer a really useful or robust concept. You’ve got to go about letting people take sensible risks.”

– “…Pain is temporary. Suck is forever.”

In HR, I tend to believe that most HR pros don’t believe they work in a creative function.  In reality what you create in HR speaks volumes about the culture you’re shaping in your work environment.  If HR lacks creativity – your work environment is going to lack creativity.  The rule setters need to show the organization that from time to time, we need to break the rules to get us to the next level.  Sensibly, but rule breaking nonetheless.  Breaking the rules is like ‘kryptonite’ to HR Pros.  It goes against our very being.  Most HR Pros pride themselves on being ‘the one’ part of the organization that actually follows the rules. “If we don’t do it, Tim, who will?”

I don’t know.  What I know is I like how designers think.  It seems like a thought process that opens my mind and gets me thinking about how I can make things better.  It’s a thought process that challenges me to rethink what I’m doing and why.  That seems like a good thing. I don’t want to suck.  I hear suck is forever.

 

 

Paul Hebert Day Celebration!

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A year ago today, my friends in the HR Community, made up a holiday just for me!  On January 23, 2012 Tim Sackett Day was born! The holiday was created as a tongue in cheek, sorta F you to all of the ‘most influential‘ Top 100, Top 25, etc. lists that were being created.  I was against most of these lists, primarily because I was being left off most of these lists! I was surprised by this gesture!  I was flattered and it was really funny!  January 23rd became my day.

For the 2nd Annual Tim Sackett Day – we (those same HR friends – Laurie Ruettimann, Lance Haun, Kris Dunn, Matt Stollack, Steve Boese, etc.) decided it would be best to keep the spirit of the day (recognizing a Great HR Pro like myself – who is under-appreciated!) and make January 23, 2013 – Paul Hebert Day!

Don’t know Paul – well you should!  He’s a Pros – Pro.

Paul Hebert is a fellow Fistful of Talent Contributor – Badge #03 – Paul is one of the originals at FOT!

From his FOT Bio:

“Paul Hebert is the Vice President of Solution Design at Symbolist.  Paul’s mission is to humanize the business relationships needed to drive greater employee, channel and customer loyalty.  His is dedicated to creating true emotional connections often overlooked in our automated, tech-enabled world.  He is currently working to combine 1,000 posts on influencing behavior at his old site: http://www.i2i-align.com with his new team at Symbolist: http://symbolist.com.”

What does Paul specialize in?  Incentives and Performance Motivation – and he really knows his stuff!   I’m fortunate to have him in my circle of trust being on the FOT team together and I’ve frequently gone to Paul with incentive questions/issues I have, and he always comes back with some very straightforward, slap me across the face, advice.  In HR many times we know what we should be doing – but we do other stupid stuff instead – because the other stuff is too hard or too uncomfortable – Paul doesn’t let you do that!

What else is there to know about Paul – the dude is a fighter!  He’s fighting Bladder Cancer right now and started a site – PeeStrong.com – which gives you a little insight to his personality!  Check it out – Paul writes over there about his fight in the same frank matter that he writes about incentive and employee motivation.  It’s refreshing and needed.

Look, I know many of you are probably a little shocked right now.  You had major Tim Sackett Day parties planned and your mind is racing on what is happening.  It’s O.K. – relax – the nice thing about today turning into Paul Hebert Day is Paul and I would both want you to celebrate in a very similar matter.  Sit down with friends and family, select your favorite beverage, light up an expensive cigar and enjoy the conversation – that’s what Paul Hebert Day/Tim Sackett Day is all about!

Have a wonderful holiday!

Employee Retention is Easy

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What is the one thing that employees hate more than anything else?

Change.

Bar none – ‘change’ would rank as the most disliked thing that a company can do to employees.  I know, I know – all of you reading this are really progressive – you ‘love’ change, you embrace ‘change’, you’re ‘change’ advocates.  Yeah, right.  The people who say they ’embrace’ change are the same folks who go into a deep depression when their favorite TV show is cancelled.  Change for most people sucks.  People like what they know.  They like knowing that they’ll stop at the same place each morning to pick up their morning coffee and Joe behind the counter will know they like it with low fat milk and one sugar.  They like knowing that the doctor they’ve gone to since they started with you right out of college, is in your insurance plan, and they can keep going to that doctor.  They like knowing that their check will always be deposited into their bank account on the first and third Friday of each month. No. Matter. What.

That is the secret of Employee Retention.

People – your employees – don’t actually want to leave your employment.  Starting a new job, in a new location, working a new boss, etc. – Sucks!  It’s major change!  Your employees actually want to stay with you – they just don’t want their job and the company to suck.  So – you Change!  And change causes them to what?  Ugh…this is hard.

So, how do you keep your employees, without changing?

Most change fails because of the communication.  This is especially true in so many HR shops – we tend to over communicate and over complicate minor changes, with major communications!   We are implementing a new payroll system that will save us time and money, but in doing so checks will now be deposited on the second and fourth Friday of each month.  OMG!  Our employees are going to freak out – they are use to the first and third Friday!  This. Is. A. Major. Change.  We need a committee.  We need posters and wallet cards.  We need changes to our policies.  We need to have a six month transition period – where we will communicate this over and over.  We need…Stop.

What you need is a simple message out to the troops.  Hey all – payroll is getting a great new system.  We’ll have less errors, save the company a bunch of money.  We’re happy we could get them some really good technology for their function.  Checks will now come out on the second and fourth Friday of each month. Plan accordingly.  Let your supervisor know if you need some help in this transition. This will go live next pay period.  Bam!

People don’t like change.  So, don’t maximize change that doesn’t need to be maximized!   If you only communicated truly “Big” change and it “Big” change happens rarely – it doesn’t seem like change is happening all the time.  Your employees WANT to stay with you.  They HATE change.  Stop making them feel like change is happening all the time – just so you feel like you have some IMPORTANT to do.

Employee Retention is Easy, simply because deep down, your employees really don’t want to leave.