Finding & Keeping Great Employees (1999)
Finding & Keeping Great Employees (1999)
Finding & Keeping Great Employees (1999)
K E E P I N G
G R E A T
E M P L O Y E E S
FINDING &
KEEPING
G R E AT
EMPLOYEES
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xvii
vii
viii Contents
Index 215
PREFACE
xi
xii Preface
results in hiring someone who can do the job. It does not, how-
ever, guarantee that the person wants to do the job or do it well.
Fourth, we believe in a strategic, more than tactical, ap-
proach to finding and keeping great employees. In this book, we
demonstrate this approach in two ways. First, we outline a stra-
tegic framework that fits businesses of any type, industry, or
size. We do not present tactical lists (such as ten ways to improve
a classified recruitment ad for sales managers). Our approach is
to uncover best-practice strategies to help you find and keep
excellent employees. We provide examples of how various com-
panies have implemented those best practices. You can then
determine how best to apply those strategies to your own com-
pany.
Our target audience for this book therefore goes beyond
human resources managers to include CEOs, COOs, CIOs,
presidents, and operations managers. Further, this book is writ-
ten for organizations that view the staffing and retention func-
tion as a strategic management function, not just a function
whose job slots are shoved into the personnel area.
Fifth, we believe in (and have attempted to provide) simple,
doable concepts and guidance, rather than rambling, esoteric
prose. We believe this book not only provides the strategy and
tools to help you focus your organization’s efforts but also
makes it easier for you to get started in finding and keeping
culturally aligned employees of excellence.
Sixth, we believe that any attempt to find and keep great
employees must be flexible. Although we describe four basic
core cultures, we realize that within those cultures some staffing
and retention practices are more effective than others. We do not
believe that one size fits all. For our approach to be successful in
your company, you need to customize it to your culture.
Finally, we believe that this book can make a significant
difference in organizations—a difference in performance, in pro-
ductivity, and in profitability.
We hope it works for you.
Acknowledgments
i
xvii
xviii
ii Acknowledgments
THE POWER OF
FOCUS
CHAPTER 1. THE GREAT CHALLENGE
CHAPTER 2. THE CULTURE
CONNECTION
CHAPTER 1
3
4 The Power of Focus
The decades of the 1980s and 1990s have been the most turbulent
in business history. Large-scale downsizings, mergers, and ac-
quisitions have reshaped the once traditional long-term connec-
tion between company and employee. Radical technological
advances in combination with the globalization of commerce
have fueled demand for new, higher-level job skills in virtually
all industries. The ever-increasing pressure to work longer,
faster, and harder has driven millions of workers not only to
question their personal commitment to an all-consuming career
but to search for meaning outside of the workplace. These are
not entirely new phenomena, but in the last two decades, the
combined power of these changes have forever altered the once-
strong connection between a company and its employees.
The cumulative effect of this workplace turbulence is a dis-
connected workforce. When, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, a typical American holds more than eight different
jobs between the ages of 18 and 32, long-term connection to any
The Great Challenge 5
Company Disconnection
ring well under the scan of the Wall Street radar screen— among
mainstream America’s traditional mom-and-pop businesses.
Consolidators are rapidly buying small, independent, and
family-owned businesses such as funeral homes, plumbing con-
tractors, and real estate offices, organizing them under one ad-
ministrative umbrella and changing the very face of small
business.
The economies of scale achieved during reorganization,
merger, and consolidation have one inevitable result: job loss.
Workers live in constant fear that their job might be the next
one eliminated. The relentless uncertainty of potential job loss
increases disconnection from the company.
Job Disconnection
Occupational Half-Life
Personal Disconnection
NOTES
1. BusinessWeek (June 15, 1998), p. 53.
2. St. Petersburg Times (February 8, 1998).
CHAPTER 2
THE CULTURE
CONNECTION
11
12 The Power of Focus
Customer Service
their customers do, anticipate their needs, and create value for
them. Customer-service cultures often empower the frontline
service worker, and create strong customer-employee partner-
ship links that build high levels of repeat business.
Innovation
Operational Excellence
Spirit
The four core cultures are separate but equal. No one core cul-
ture is superior to another. None is more likely to guarantee
outstanding financial performance than another. All are equally
powerful in driving long-term organizational success.
In most companies, elements of all four cultures exist si-
multaneously. Without question, customer service, innovation,
operational excellence, and employee spirit are all important.
But to find and keep great employees, key questions must be
asked and answered:
16 The Power of Focus
You enjoy numerous benefits when you align staffing and reten-
tion processes to core culture.
Does the focus on one core culture totally eliminate all your
staffing and retention problems? Does it automatically attract
thousands of superior employee applicants or transform all the
average performers into great employees? No, of course not. No
one formula can ever produce such results. We are not prescrib-
ing a magic pill that forever eliminates your staffing and reten-
tion challenges. Rather, in this book we outline a method in use
at leading companies that keeps them one step ahead of their
competition. Through their efforts to carefully align staffing
and retention to their core culture, they attract and retain a high-
performing employees at a rate that is the envy of their
competitors. This is the distinct competitive advantage: being
an organization filled with culturally aligned and motivationally
connected employees.
20 The Power of Focus
NOTES
1. James Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last: Successful Habits of
Visionary Companies (New York: HarperBusiness, 1994), p. 135.
2. Terrence E. Deal and Alan Kennedy, Corporate Cultures: The
Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,
1982), pp. 15–16.
3. The Fuqua Report (May 16, 1998).
4. Telephone interview (March 10, 1998).
5. John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett, Corporate Culture and Per-
formance (New York: The Free Press, 1992), p. 9.
6. ‘‘Caffeine Nation,’’ Human Resource Executive (March 1996), p.
28.
7. Jim Harris, Getting Employees to Fall in Love With Your Com-
pany (New York: AMACOM, 1996), p. 21.
8. Daniel Pink, ‘‘Free Agent Nation,’’ Fast Company (December-
January) 1998, pp. 131–147.
PART TWO
A CULTURE OF
CUSTOMER SERVICE
‘‘Our customers are everything. Without them,
nothing else matters.’’
—The Customer Creed at Office Depot
23
24 The Four Core Cultures
Employee Training
Customer Training
A Step Ahead
CORE-CULTURE CONNECTIONS
Perhaps the most flak (as well as the most fun) I have experienced
as feedback on my first book, Getting Employees to Fall in Love
With Your Company (AMACOM, 1997), resulted from the
somewhat radical notion of allowing frontline employees input
into ‘‘firing’’ customers. By this, I mean that all companies have
customers that are irritating, irrational, or impossible to please.
These customers cost the company and employees more time,
energy, and money than they are worth. Ultimately, these cus-
tomers take valuable resources away from more valuable cus-
tomers. Customers who strongly support a culture of customer
30 The Four Core Cultures
service need to ‘‘fire’’ customers who are more trouble than they
are worth so that they can best meet their current and future
customer service needs. This notion flies in the face of the con-
ventional wisdom that the customer is always right. Whether
you believe the customer is or isn’t always right, one thing all
service-driven companies agree upon is that the customer is al-
ways the customer, and that, right or wrong, it is everyone’s job
to deliver outstanding service to that source of all business.
Companies resist the idea of firing the customer because,
on the surface, it appears to violate every principle associated
with providing outstanding customer service. On the other
hand, customer service is a two-way relationship that involves
the customer and the employee who is providing the service.
Top companies clearly communicate their performance standard
to employees who are responsible for serving the customer.
These companies are also just as clear regarding customer behav-
ior. Customers not living up to the company’s expectations are
sometimes asked to take their business elsewhere.
Although allowing customers to be fired is not a universally
accepted practice within all customer-service cultures, it is gain-
ing popularity. It allows these companies to lavish even more
time and world-class service on core customers, as well as im-
posing even higher standards of service that decrease the likeli-
hood of any customer needing to be fired. By clearly defining
employee and customer expectations and acting on those expec-
tations, the prospect of firing a customer sends a message to
employees and customers alike about which performance stan-
dards are acceptable and which are unacceptable.
practice this same principle with their customers. They often put
their customers’ needs ahead of the company needs. By doing
so, these companies build long-term relationships and extreme
loyalty from core customers who know that they truly do come
first.
Ryder, the Florida-based transportation services company,
provides a strong example of a company that truly puts cus-
tomer needs first. Companies frequently contract with Ryder to
deliver their goods. As part of this service, Ryder’s drivers often
wear the uniforms of the client companies. This is a win-win
situation for Ryder and its customers. The Ryder customer is
better served because the customer’s name remains in front of
the ultimate customer. In turn, Ryder gains long-term business
and extreme loyalty because its customers see a tangible sign of
Ryder’s commitment to serving them—a sign that clearly shows
Ryder putting the customer’s image needs above its own.
Another company that practices the notion of love and
marriage in its daily operations is PeopleSoft, a Pleasanton, Cali-
fornia–based developer of enterprise-side application software.
PeopleSoft organizes its operations around customers rather
than products or sales. More than 300 account managers are the
customer’s primary point of contact and act as liaison between
the customer and other divisions of the company. The account
manager and the contact person within the customer organiza-
tion are extremely close because of the frequent contact with
and the varied responsibilities of the account manager; it’s not
unusual for a customer to become dependent on an account
manager. Whenever an account manager is relocated or gets pro-
moted, he is responsible for ensuring a smooth transition in the
customer’s relationship with the new account manager. To sup-
port this relationship, account managers at PeopleSoft are not
commissioned sales staff, which is common practice. Rather
than being rewarded on sales performance, account managers at
PeopleSoft are rewarded according to how easy it is for custom-
32 The Four Core Cultures
Real-Time Reactions
You answer the knock at your front door. As you open it,
you glance at a freshly washed and beautifully painted
van parked out front. Standing at your door is a clean-
cut, uniformed, professional-looking person. After greet-
ing you with a friendly ‘‘Good morning,’’ the professional
asks, ‘‘May I enter your house?’’ As you answer yes, the
professional then pulls on a pair of surgical-style booties
over shined black work shoes before entering your home.
There follow a careful inspection and from a superbly
printed catalog before any work begins. If you agree to
the work, a red carpet is then placed under the work area
to protect the floor. In the end, the work area is left
cleaner than when the work began.
36 The Four Core Cultures
NOTES
1. John Graham, ‘‘Customer Service Redefined: The Game Has
Changed Again,’’ www.smartbiz.com/sbs/arts/jrg17.htm (April 27,
1998).
2. ‘‘This Month’s Winning Customer Service Story,’’ www.
therightanswer. html (April 27, 1998).
3. Betsy Sanders, ‘‘Ordinary Acts, Extraordinary Outcomes,’’ ex-
cerpted from Fabled Service by Betsy Sanders (San Francisco: Pfeiffer,
1995), www.smartbiz.com/sbs/arts/ebs1.htm.
4. Jim Harris, Getting Employees to Fall in Love With Your Com-
pany (New York: AMACOM, 1996).
CHAPTER 4
A CULTURE OF
INNOVATION
41
42 The Four Core Cultures
COLLECTIVE CRANIUMS
Freedom to Succeed
When you visit the Cisco home page and click on the
‘‘Jobs@Cisco’’ button, the first thing you see is a head-
line graphic that shouts: ‘‘We know where your friends
are—Welcome to Cisco—Would you like a job?’’ Cisco
leverages its Website not so much as a classified ad but
more as an advertising link, trumpeting the power of the
culture to lure top talent into applying with an industry
leader. Choosing from a menu of offerings that range
across hot jobs, benefits, university relations, diversity,
and job fairs, Website visitors are enticed to click on the
‘‘culture’’ button. This is clearly a site that defines the
Cisco corporate culture as an innovative one.
58 The Four Core Cultures
NOTES
1. Andrew S. Grove, Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the
Crises Points That Challenge Every Company and Career (New York:
Currency/Doubleday, 1996).
2. Interview with executives of Cisco Systems (May 4, 1998).
3. James Martin, Cybercorp (New York: AMACOM, 1996).
4. Randall E. Stross, The Microsoft Way (Reading, Mass.: Addison-
Wesley, 1996), p. 35.
5. Alan Deutschman, ‘‘How H-P Continues to Grow and Grow,’’
Fortune (May 2, 1994), pp. 90–94.
6. Jim Harris, Getting Employees to Fall in Love With Your Com-
pany (New York: AMACOM, 1996), p. 99.
7. Cisco Systems Website, ‘‘Cisco Fact Sheet’’ (March 1998).
8. Matt Goldberg, ‘‘Cisco’s Most Important Meal of the Day,’’ Fast
Company (February-March 1998), p. 56.
CHAPTER 5
A CULTURE OF
OPERATIONAL
EXCELLENCE
61
62 The Four Core Cultures
A SIMPLE FOUNDATION
BIG PAYOFFS
Standardize
Get It Right
doing the right thing, but in doing it the right way—the com-
pany way.
NOTES
1. Kenneth Iverson, Plain Talk: Lessons From a Business Maverick
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997).
2. Kate Kane, ‘‘L.L. Bean Delivers the Goods,’’ Fast Company (Au-
gust-September 1997), pp. 104–113.
3. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, The Goal (Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: North
River Press, 1992).
4. Jerry Useem, ‘‘The Richest Man You’ve Never Heard Of,’’ Inc.
(September 1997), pp. 43–59.
5. Excerpted from the handbook ‘‘Get Involved—It’s the Way We
Win,’’ outlining SmithKline Beecham’s corporate approach to cultural
renewal.
CHAPTER 6
A CULTURE OF SPIRIT
77
78 The Four Core Cultures
There are many reasons why spirit-driven cultures are the fastest
emerging core corporate culture in the United States.
Backlash to Downsizing
Pay Inequity
many years ago, the primary social community was the neigh-
borhood where we lived. We all vividly remember the neighbor-
hood where we grew up. Perhaps we knew everyone who lived
on the block and for the several blocks around us. We even knew
all the neighborhood dogs by name, their owners, and which
ones would bite! Yet today’s average employee is working longer
hours than ever before, and spending more time with work col-
leagues than with families or neighbors. The company has be-
come the social community. Deep and lasting friendships are
now more likely to emerge among workmates than among
neighbors. Employees are even more likely today to know the
names of their coworkers’ pets than their neighbors’ names!
Spirit-driven companies recognize the reality that today’s em-
ployees are looking for a deeper social connection to the work-
place and fellow coworkers.
Employee Disillusionment
Religion-Focused Cultures
trade horror stories, and help each other learn to run their busi-
nesses better. The entire in-store experience at Kinko’s produces
strong social connections among employees and customers,
which in turn builds strong business connections.
From international missions of service to creating social
connections for customers, socially focused cultures have
emerged as a viable business model. Such trailblazers as Ben &
Jerry’s and Kinko’s illustrate both the potential challenge and
the rewards of taking a higher social road.
Employee-Focused Cultures
Servant Leadership
NOTES
1. Hal Lancaster, ‘‘Disillusioned Workers Look to Nonprofit Orga-
nizations,’’ The Wall Street Journal (April 13, 1998).
2. C. William Pollard, The Soul of the Firm (New York: HarperBusi-
ness, 1996), p. 20.
3. Ibid., p. 22.
4. Paul C. Judge, ‘‘It’s Not Easy Being Green,’’ BusinessWeek (No-
vember 24, 1997), pp. 180–182.
5. Fast Company (January 1998), p. 166.
6. Hal Rosenbluth, The Customer Comes Second (New York: Wil-
liam Morrow, 1992), p. 24.
7. William Barrett, ‘‘An American Original,’’ Forbes Online (De-
cember 1997).
PART THREE
FINDING GREAT
EMPLOYEES
CHAPTER 7: BEST PRACTICES IN
STAFFING
CHAPTER 8: STAFFING BEST PRACTICES
IN ACTION
CHAPTER 9: ALIGNING STAFFING TO
CORE CULTURE
CHAPTER 7
BEST PRACTICES IN
STAFFING
99
100 Finding Great Employees
NOTES
1. Tom Peters, The Pursuit of WOW (New York: Vintage Original,
1994), p. xi.
2. D. Wendal Attig, personal communication (April 28, 1998).
3. John DePolo, ‘‘High Tech Recruiting Practices,’’ HRNET@
cornell.edu (April 17, 1998).
4. Joseph Rosse and Robert Levin, High-Impact Hiring: A Compre-
hensive Guide to Performance-Based Hiring (San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass, 1997).
CHAPTER 8
STAFFING BEST
PRACTICES IN ACTION
113
114 Finding Great Employees
amples of how they do it. Since one of the goals of this book is
to help you create an action plan to better align your staffing
strategies to your core culture, please strongly consider the fol-
lowing advice. As you read the many examples within each best
practice in this chapter, ask yourself the following questions:
▼ Casting a Net.
Cisco Systems, known for its innovation-driven culture,
uses Profiler, an online resume creator of the company’s own
design, to allow the applicant to ‘‘paint a picture of yourself that
differentiates you from everyone else.’’ Profiler’s easy-to-fill-in
boxes allow Cisco to carefully analyze each applicant’s core mo-
tivations and skills, evaluating them so as to quickly identify a
good potential match.
Another good illustration of Cisco’s innovative culture and
customer-service approach to dealing with applicants can be
found in a sidebar with Profiler. Since applications generally ar-
rive during regular business hours of 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M.,
while most applicants are at work, Cisco provided an ‘‘Oh no,
118 Finding Great Employees
▼ Go Back to School.
Capital Holding, located in Louisville, Kentucky, is one of
the largest stockholder-owned life insurance companies in the
United States. It is a wonderful example of how an operationally
excellent culture can create a strong, positive image in the mar-
ketplace. Over a three-year period, Capital Holding committed
more than $3 million to learning-related programs. Former vice
president John Franco initially realized the need for a well-
educated workforce for the 1990s and beyond. The company,
the Jefferson County school system, and Pleasure Ridge Park
High School agreed to develop a curriculum that would begin to
meet the needs of the business, the community, and the students.
The result was Project Business. Today, it is one of the best
Staffing Best Practices in Action 121
Peace Pops effort created Ben & Jerry’s reputation for ‘‘social
activism,’’ a reputation that continues to this day. Through their
efforts to effect social change, Ben & Jerry’s leverage their image
as a social change agent to attract applicants who share the values
of this unique and successful company.
▼ The Dodgers Way.
The Los Angeles Dodgers educates its employees regarding
the history of the organization and, by doing so, strengthens its
commitment and connection to customers. The Dodgers create
and sustain their winning image through various staffing-related
activities. For example, as soon as a player arrives at rookie camp
in Vero Beach, Florida, he begins to learn about the roots of the
organization. They show a film of history of the organization—
starting back in 1890. During spring training, three nights a
week, the players must report for discussions. The Dodgers
bring in guest speakers to talk about how to plan for life after
baseball and what it is to have pride in the Dodgers tradition.
The recruits learn, from day one, the ‘‘Dodgers Way’’ of
doing things. The Dodgers Way is not just about playing base-
ball. It’s about how people are treated, and that comes from the
top of the organization. This means the owners, the O’Malley
family, and what has been passed on all these years will continue
to be passed on.
Obviously, the Dodgers Way works. In a very competitive
and high-turnover business, the Dodgers have had tremendous
continuity and stability. Since 1954, the team has had only three
managers, four general managers, three farm directors, and three
scouting directors. People love working for an organization with
a winning image, and it shows.
▼Work and Learn.
Le Vieux Manoir au Lac, a hotel located in Murten-
Meyriez, Switzerland, prides itself on its customer-service cul-
ture. The hotel’s enthusiastic, friendly, and professional staff is
Staffing Best Practices in Action 123
Aligned companies get real with their applicants so that both the
company and the potential employee know what they are get-
ting into and can make an informed decision about employment.
Companies that present themselves to applicants honestly and
in a balanced way save time—both the applicant’s and the com-
pany’s. More important, getting real creates strong cultural con-
nections and maximizes the fit between the person, the job, and,
ultimately, the company. Here are some examples of how vari-
ous companies are up front with their applicants during the
staffing process.
▼ Seeing Is Believing.
Eckerd Corporation, a retail drugstore chain headquartered
in Largo, Florida, employs 76,000 people. To assist store manag-
ers in hiring hourly employees who will support the organiza-
tion’s customer-service core culture, the company provides a
hiring kit. Among other things, it includes a video for the store
manager to show to all hourly applicants prior to interviewing
them.
Often, applicants assume that the job is only what they see
employees doing when they visit the store. The video is intended
to better align applicants’ expectations in terms of what the job
really involves and requires. The Eckerd video stresses the im-
portance of employee attitude (‘‘We want people who like to
work with people, and people who are willing to go out of their
way to help people’’). It shows real-life situations with custom-
ers where the employee has to do more than just stand behind
the counter and ring up the sale. In the video, employees per-
form some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the job: unload-
ing trucks, stocking merchandise, helping customers find
merchandise, and cleaning bathrooms. It also presents an over-
view of all the departments in the store (cosmetics, express
Staffing Best Practices in Action 125
into the applicant’s first few weeks of work, if hired. This uncon-
ventional mentoring approach builds strong connections
throughout the Cisco system and jump-starts new-hire produc-
tivity.
▼ Engineer Your Career.
Texas Instruments, the Dallas-based computer products
company, uses a tool that assesses candidates both profession-
ally and personally for cultural fit in an operationally excellent
culture. The tool was developed by Personnel Decisions, an in-
ternational HR consulting firm in Minneapolis, as a kit entitled
‘‘Engineer Your Career.’’ It contains a disk that opens up into a
brochure describing Texas Instruments—its products, history,
and values.
Following the introduction is a self-selection tool that asks
candidates to respond to thirty-two questions about work pref-
erences, such as work environment, working conditions, and re-
lationships. For instance, one question asks how the candidate
feels about smoking in the office; possible responses range from
strongly agree to strongly disagree. At the end of this section,
the computer displays a bar-like graph that indicates the candi-
date’s compatibility with the company. If a potential problem
exists, the tool so informs the candidate. In the case of smoking
in the office, if the applicant responded that he or she felt
strongly in favor of smoking, the computer would signal that the
company has a nonsmoking environment. The tool also high-
lights strong matches. This insider’s view allows applicants to
make an informed choice prior to considering an offer.
▼ Watch Them Work.
In a factory in Greer, South Carolina, BMW built a simu-
lated assembly line to assess candidates’ ability to perform jobs
within an operationally excellent culture. As part of the hiring
process, job candidates have ninety minutes to perform a variety
of work-related tasks. Charles Austin, a consultant with Devel-
Staffing Best Practices in Action 127
▼ Immune System.
Dave Bolles, director of the staffing resource center at 3M,
described a practice that clearly demonstrates 3M’s commitment
to hiring top talent in support of its innovation-driven culture.
The ‘‘designated requisition process’’ is a method by which 3M
approves hiring someone before the actual job is available.
Each year 3M projects its hiring needs, and the company
authorizes a percentage of those hires before actual jobs are
posted. This process allows 3M to make offers to their very best
candidates regardless of whether they have a specific opening or
not.
To further demonstrate 3M’s commitment to the job-or-no-
job philosophy, all designated requisitions are immune to can-
cellation. That is, the company guarantees that all designated-
requisition positions are funded. This action recognizes the need
to bring in new talent and keeps the company from cutting
funding for campus-level recruiting activities and programs.
This action also guarantees ties with college recruiting programs
128 Finding Great Employees
Hiring people who have been schooled for ten or twenty years
in the traditional way of doing business, they say, can be a real
negative. They also claim that when they hire from the outside,
they are hiring an unknown quantity. Many times, people hired
from the outside do not work out. The pair found that when
the company promotes from within, they know what they are
getting. Cohen and Greenfield have tried it both ways. They
hired people for their expertise, being less concerned about their
values alignment. They hired people for their values alignment,
being less concerned about their expertise. Going forward, they
have decided to hire (at the top of the company) only people
who agree with their progressive social values.5
▼ The Staples Way.
Staples, the Westboro, Massachusetts–based office supply
store chain, has a great way of sustaining a strong customer-
service culture using the job-or-no-job philosophy. The com-
pany hires new M.B.A.s without having specific jobs for them at
the time they are hired. Instead, they hire the person and have
him work in different departments until he becomes familiar
with and acclimated to the company.
This practice benefits all. First, the company hires a poten-
tially great employee whose values support the company’s val-
ues. Second, while the M.B.A. holder is working in different
departments, the company obtains information about the per-
son’s strengths and weaknesses and then uses this to make the
best placement decision. Finally, the employee benefits by get-
ting experience in different departments and gaining a better un-
derstanding of various parts of the company.
▼ Be Prepared.
Lands’ End, the well-known mail-order clothing business
in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, offers an unusual benefit to job candi-
dates that clearly demonstrates commitment to the job-or-no-
job philosophy. The ‘‘job enrollment program’’ is available to all
130 Finding Great Employees
▼ Take a Vote.
Whole Foods Market, located in Austin, Texas, is the largest
natural-foods grocer in the United States. It uses decentralized
teamwork as a cornerstone of its customer-service culture. To
find employees who support that culture, the company links it
to hiring practices. Store teams—and only the teams—have the
power to approve new hires for full-time jobs. Store leaders
screen candidates and recommend them for a job on a specific
team. It then takes a two-thirds vote of the team, after what is
usually a thirty-day trial period, for the candidate to become a
full-time employee.
This hiring approach affects the behavior and attitudes of
those involved in the hiring process. Store leaders take great care
not to recommend people they do not think the team will ap-
prove. Applicants receive a strong message of the importance of
teamwork early on in the hiring process. The teams have a voice
about their group.
Staffing Best Practices in Action 131
▼ Go Team.
To sustain its innovation-driven culture, 3M has a strong
commitment to promoting from within. Most of 3M’s staffing
practices, therefore, revolve around college recruiting efforts. To
most effectively support those efforts, 3M created ‘‘focus college
relations teams.’’ Again according to Dave Bolles, these teams
are currently in place at twenty-eight schools that represent the
company’s main recruiting sources. The goal of the teams is two-
fold: to engage as many people as possible at 3M in recruiting
efforts and to better focus the efforts on specific schools.
The teams consist of eight to twelve people representing
three functions within the company: engineering, technical, and
administrative. Each team organizes all of 3M’s recruiting activi-
ties at its particular school. The team performs many functions,
including:
Aligned companies know that they cannot find what they are
not looking for. These companies actively and aggressively seek
information on their ideal employee. They define the ideal and
build their staffing practices to support finding it. Here are some
examples of how various companies use the great-employee-
profile best practice in their staffing process.
▼ ESP.
Several years ago, EMC, a manufacturer of enterprise stor-
age products, realized that it would need to significantly increase
staff over the next few years. Top management thought about
how the company could add thousands of new people without
losing its identity—the cultural attributes that had made it such
a success in the first place. A team of senior executives and HR
specialists began to ask, What characterizes a great EMC em-
ployee? The answer resulted in EMC’s ‘‘employee success pro-
file.’’ The ESP is a detailed definition of who succeeds at the
company. The profile is based on seven critical factors:
1. Technical competence
2. Goal orientation
3. A sense of urgency
4. Accountability
5. External and internal customer responsiveness
6. Cross-functional behavior
7. Integrity
134 Finding Great Employees
▼A Bunch of Yahoos.
Yahoo, the innovation-driven Internet search company in
Santa Clara, California, identified four core attributes of great
Yahoo employees:
1. People skills
2. Spheres of influence
3. Zoom in, zoom out
4. Passion for life
▼Preferred Stock.
Prudential Securities illustrates how a customer-service cul-
ture can use the great-employee profile to hire well-suited em-
ployees. Prudential examined the kinds of people who are likely
Staffing Best Practices in Action 135
▼ I Dare You.
The core culture at Cisco Systems is so amazingly innova-
tive that people openly share all their current staffing programs
with anyone who asks—including competitors. Why would
they be so willing to give away their staffing secrets? They sim-
ply follow their employment charter, which reads: ‘‘To challenge
and outperform all standard and accepted forms of staffing.’’
The consensus within the human resource department is that if
the company is turning over its products every six to twelve
months, Human Resources should follow this practice as well.
▼ Creative Abrasion.
Nissan Design International (NDI), based in LaJolla, Cali-
Staffing Best Practices in Action 137
fornia, creates cars of the future. The auto design studio shows
us another great example of how innovation-driven culture uses
the beyond-benchmarking strategy to hire people who sustain
the company’s culture. According to Jerry Hirshberg, NDI’s
founder and president, ‘‘Sometimes the right person for the job
is two people.’’ Hirshberg hires people in pairs to create what he
calls ‘‘creative abrasion.’’ In hiring people to design new cars,
creativity is a critical success factor. When it comes to creativity,
Hirshberg believes that two people are better than one. More-
over, he’s looking for two people who see the world in entirely
different ways.
NDI now has more than twenty-five pairs of highly tal-
ented, creative, and strong-willed employees. Hiring in diver-
gent pairs has become a defining organizational principle for
NDI.
Hirshberg warns other companies considering this hiring
approach: ‘‘You need to have a pretty strong sense of self when
a person working on the same project as you has an entirely
different set of priorities. The folks we’re hiring share almost
nothing—except a deep belief in their own way and their own
passion.’’7
▼ One Question.
Rather than hiring store managers with previous restaurant
experience, the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A, headquartered in
Atlanta, focuses its assessment of the candidate on such things
as character, drive, and whether or not she has a natural liking
for people. Recruiters who hire store managers often ask them-
selves one key question when evaluating candidates: ‘‘Would I
like to have my son or daughter working for this person?’’
▼ Live What You Sell.
Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), the nation’s largest
consumer cooperative of outdoor products, goes far beyond tra-
ditional practices associated with hiring employees who can pro-
138 Finding Great Employees
NOTES
1. Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg, Nuts: Southwest Airlines’
Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success (Austin, Tex.: Bard
Press, 1996), pp. 64–73.
2. Tim Ouellette, ‘‘Corporate Strategies,’’ www2.computerworld.
com/home/print.nsf/All/9803303E56 (March 30, 1998).
3. Julia King, ‘‘Corporate Strategies,’’ www2.computerworld.com/
home/print9497.nsf/All/SL3bounty (January 20, 1997).
4. Caroline Bollinger, ‘‘Building a Sales Force From Scratch,’’ Sales
and Marketing Management, vol. 15, no. 2 (February 1998), pp. 26–28.
5. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Ben & Jerry’s Double-Dip: Lead
Staffing Best Practices in Action 139
With Your Values and Make Money, Too (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1997), pp. 185–188.
6. Justin Martin, ‘‘So, You Want to Work for the Best,’’ Fortune (Jan-
uary 12, 1998), pp. 77–78.
7. Katherine Mieszkowski, ‘‘Opposites Attract,’’ Fast Company
(December–January 1998), pp. 42–44.
CHAPTER 9
ALIGNING STAFFING TO
CORE CULTURE
▼ Customer Service
▼ Innovation
▼ Operational Excellence
▼ Spirit
141
142 Finding Great Employees
The following actions will help you align your staffing practices
to your core culture of creating customer solutions.
INNOVATION CULTURE
The following actions will help you align your staffing practices
to your core culture of creating and shaping the future.
The following actions will help you align your staffing practices
to your core culture of creating processes that minimize costs
and maximize productivity.
that make it easy. Remove barriers that keep people from being
great.
▼ Ask long-term, high-performing employees about what
they feel are the strongest operational-excellence culture con-
nections to the company and to their jobs. Profile employees’
comments in your recruiting materials and during the interview
process.
▼ Ask applicants to attend company events where employ-
ees are recognized for their contributions to operational excel-
lence. Ask those employees being recognized to speak with and
spend time with applicants.
▼ Evaluate your selection process to determine the multiple
methods you use to identify applicants’ ability to connect with
your operationally excellent culture. Make sure you assess appli-
cants based on the five cultural connections (standardize; get it
right; measure twice, cut once; stay within the lines; waste not,
want not).
SPIRIT CULTURE
The following actions will help you align your staffing practices
to your core culture of creating an environment that supports
employees.
The action ideas in this chapter are general and are meant to
provide only a starting point for your own efforts at alignment.
Because you have a lot more information about your company
and its culture, we strongly encourage you to create unique ac-
tion ideas to best align your staffing materials and processes to
your company’s core culture.
PART FOUR
KEEPING GREAT
EMPLOYEES
CHAPTER 10: RETENTION BEST
PRACTICES
CHAPTER 11: RETENTION BEST
PRACTICES IN ACTION
CHAPTER 12: ALIGNING RETENTION
TO CORE CULTURE
CHAPTER 10
RETENTION BEST
PRACTICES
155
156 Keeping Great Employees
Not too many years ago, the good life was perceived as getting
on the fast track of business: Work hard, strike the deal, hit the
road, make the bonus, impress the boss, move up the ladder.
There was little time for anything beyond closing the big deal or
finishing the big project. Even though we were pushed to the
edge, we were told by friends (and the message was reinforced
through countless media advertisements) that yes, we could have
it all. But somewhere along the way, the fast track lost its gleam.
Its promises of fame, fortune, and happiness were replaced with
the startling realities of massive stress, relationship upheavals,
and career burnout.
The fast track has lost much of its luster in recent years.
Those who jumped on the bandwagon, as well as those who
merely stood by and observed, now realize that the fast track is
not the right track for everyone. In fact, for many great employ-
ees, the drive to get on the fast track has been replaced with a
drive to get on with a life, one that focuses just as much (and
maybe more) on what happens outside of work than on what
happens at work.
Balancing work and personal life is and will continue to be
a tremendous challenge for all employers. With the competitive
162 Keeping Great Employees
Remember the last time you sensed you were out of the corpo-
rate loop? Remember how you felt uninformed, and unimpor-
tant? At one time or another, we have all believed we were
disconnected from our company. This disconnection tears at the
very heart of our allegiance to our colleagues, our department,
and the company at large. Disconnected employees feel out of
Retention Best Practices 163
RETENTION
BEST PRACTICES
IN ACTION
167
168 Keeping Great Employees
Since one of the goals of this book is to help you create an action
plan to better align your retention strategies to core culture,
please heed the following advice. As you read the many exam-
ples within each best-practice category, ask yourself three ques-
tions:
ribbon tours,’’ the audit finds CEO Pat Kelly and other senior
staff visiting each branch location and grading it on an extensive
yes-no checklist. It includes the top 100 things every branch
must do to be successful. The payoff for a high-scoring visit can
be considerable. Every employee at the top-scoring branch for
the year receives $3,000; employees at the second-highest–
scoring branch receive $2,000 each, and so forth, down as far as
the number-ten branch, where each employee receives $500.
What generates real learning is that all the nonwinning
branches must pay for the top ten branch winnings. This aver-
ages about $3,000 taken from the bottom line of every nonwin-
ning branch. Although not a significant amount, it’s enough for
every branch manager to notice and want to work hard so that
it won’t happen again next year. Learning how to effectively
implement all 100 items thus has an impact on the earning of
literally every employee at the Jacksonville, Florida–based PSS/
World Medical.
▼ Two-Minute Warnings.
At the Phelps Group, a Santa Monica, California, marketing
agency, employees are given a two-minute warning at exactly
9:28 A.M. every Monday. They have just enough time to make
the weekly staff meeting. Held in an open area, the first order of
business is to give away $100 to an employee (picked at random)
who can answer a question from the employee handbook. This
quick, easy, and fun example boosts earning for all those who
learn the employee handbook and motivates learning to the en-
tire Phelps team on critical issues.
▼ Impact Vote.
During her staff meetings, Susan Groenwald, president of
Barter Corporation in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, asks employ-
ees to share tales of exemplary customer-service acts performed
by other employees. After hearing and learning of the many
Retention Best Practices in Action 177
▼ Please Go Away.
Outstanding performers at investment banker Shulman As-
sociates of Boca Raton, Florida, are given an envelope marked
‘‘Please go away.’’ Enclosed in the envelope are airline tickets
for spending Christmas in the Bahamas. Shulman reinforces the
need for its employees to get a life through this fun and interest-
ing technique that any culture can successfully adopt.
▼ Take a Hike.
If you work for Hewlett-Packard (innovation-driven), or
Pacific Gas and Electric (customer-driven), you are apt to hear
someone tell you to take a hike. That is, take a hike at HP’s free
cabins or at one of PG&E’s seven camping sites. Regardless of
core culture type, it is important to occasionally suggest that
employees take a hike!
▼ ‘‘Cognoid’’ Perseverance.
Any ‘‘Cognoid’’—the affectionate term used to describe
employees at wildly successful, wildly fun Cognex (a Natick,
Massachusetts, manufacturer of machine vision systems)—is eli-
gible for a slew of magnificent get-aways if he’s the persevering
type. For five years of employment, Cognoids are rewarded with
a fully paid, three-day getaway to entertainment centers such as
Nashville, Orlando, or New Orleans. After ten years of perse-
verance, Cognoids receive an all-expenses paid vacation to places
on the order of London and Paris. After fifteen years, Cognoids
Retention Best Practices in Action 179
posted all over offices. Kendle found that this was a great way to
remind current employees to get a life outside of work. But they
discovered an unexpected surprise from posting these photo-
graphs: It was also a great recruiting tool for prospective em-
ployees. The photographs demonstrate that there is and should
be life outside of work, and they allow prospective employees
an opportunity to make quick connections with current em-
ployees by way of shared interests outside of work.
▼Tell ’Em What They’ve Already Got.
A recent internal survey conducted by Hoechst Celanese
uncovered an amazing retention reality. They found that em-
ployees who were made aware of the company’s already estab-
lished work/life programs were almost 40 percent more likely to
remain with the company for the next three years than employ-
ees who were not aware of the programs. Any culture can imple-
ment this best practice to improve employee retention.
▼ Flex Fit.
In 1992, Peat Marwick, the global service-driven consul-
tancy, was facing a serious problem. It was about to lose many of
its best employees simply because the company was not flexible
regarding the employees’ desire for more balanced work/life in-
tegration. In response, Peat Marwick began a program that of-
fered part-time work, flex time, and flex hours to its employees,
especially professional women who wanted to cut back on work
hours to spend more time with family. Now, part-timers who
work 1,000 hours receive benefits, and full-timers can work at
home. Through helping their employees get a life, Peat Marwick
continues to be a recognized service leader.
▼I Forgive You.
Legacy Health System in Portland, Oregon, has a program
to help employees become first-time home buyers. They pro-
vide forgivable, small financial loans to employees who buy
Retention Best Practices in Action 181
▼ Abolitionists.
The executive team at SOL, a highly successful cleaning
company in Finland, so embraces the concept of free-at-last that
they have abolished every conceivable standard corporate perk.
Within SOL, there are no titles, no secretaries, no individual
offices, no set working hours, no status, and no special perks.
Employees are free from the constraints of traditional status and
the political fights that inevitably arise within conventional orga-
nizational systems, and they are therefore free to take whatever
initiative is necessary to perform their duties. Besides, who
would want to leave a service-driven company whose logo is a
yellow happy face?
188 Keeping Great Employees
NOTE
1. Nancy Austin, ‘‘The Culture Evolution,’’ Inc. 500 1997 Issue
(October 1997), pp. 72–80.
CHAPTER 12
ALIGNING RETENTION
TO CORE CULTURE
This offers action ideas to help you begin aligning your reten-
tion practices to your core culture. As in Chapter 9, which of-
fered ideas on staffing, here you might want to read first the
section that applies to your core culture.
As you review the action ideas for your culture, consider
the following:
191
192 Keeping Great Employees
courage staff to read the service stuff first and save the other
stuff for when they need a quick mental break or an update.
▼ Begin a ‘‘service mistake of the month’’ program. En-
INNOVATION CULTURE
Here are fourteen ideas for increasing retention within your
innovation-focused culture.
SPIRIT CULTURE
GETTING
STARTED
CHAPTER 13: LEADING THE CHARGE
CHAPTER 13
You have read this book, you believe in the ability of culture to
break the cycle of disconnection, and you understand the com-
petitive advantage gained by aligning your staffing and retention
strategies to your company’s core culture.
Many business books inspire people to take action in their
own organization. Frequently, though, no action follows—
because people do not know how to get started. They do not
have a plan to help them apply what’s in the book to their com-
pany.
In this chapter, we describe a six-step process to help your
company become more like the aligned companies described in
this book. By following this process, you too can find and keep
great employees.
203
204 Getting Started
MOVING FORWARD
Ben & Jerry’s Double Dip: Lead With Your Values and Make
Money, Too, by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1997). Describes the unique and highly suc-
cessful management philosophy of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade.
Explains their ‘‘value-led business’’ approach; discusses why this
approach is the best model for business today; and tells how
anyone who owns, works for, invests in, or shops with a com-
pany can help make it a socially responsible business.
209
210 Recommended Readings
215
216 Index