Page 24 - Retaining Top Employees
P. 24
McKeown01.qxd 4/13/02 8:05 AM Page 12
12 Retaining Top Employees
Plan to Address Higher Needs
In designing your employee retention strategy,recognize in
advance that compensation and benefits are just a start (as
we’ll cover in Chapter 5),so you can begin dealing with the other,higher
needs of your employees. By anticipating those higher needs and plan-
ning in advance to meet them—once you’ve addressed the basic,mone-
tary needs—you and your fellow managers will not be surprised when
your employees begin that dialogue. In fact,you’ll be prepared for it.
this section by looking at the main trends that are impacting
approaches to employee retention currently and are likely to do
so increasingly in the near future.
In particular, we will look at four prominent factors in current
thinking on employee retention:
• Core competencies and outsourcing
• The rise of the “free agent”
• The so-called “war for talent”
• Becoming an employer of choice
Core Competencies and Outsourcing
In 1990 C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel wrote an article titled
“The Core Competence of the Corporation” (Harvard Business
Review, May-June 1990). Their idea—that organizations had
core competencies (skills and activities that are essen-
tial to an organization’s
Core competence (or
success and that the
competency) “A bundle organization must do well)
of skills and technologies
and not-so-core compe-
that enables a company to provide a
tencies (skills and activi-
particular benefit to customers.”
That’s how C.K. Prahalad and Gary ties that are not essential
Hamel define this term in Competing to an organization’s suc-
for the Future. Core competencies cess and that it probably
contribute to the competitiveness of isn’t doing well)—slowly
a range of products or services.They gained acceptance as a
transcend any particular product or competitive strategy. As a
service and perhaps any particular
result, the book that
business unit within the organization.
Prahalad and Hamel pub-