3 ways to retain and engage your valuable employees

Valuable in-demand leaders are what turn a company from good to great. An organization’s most important asset is its talented, high-performing employees. Companies that prioritize retaining valued employees understand retention’s direct impact on their success.

To maintain the company’s greatness, it must commit and invest resources in the vast pool of quality talent across the company. The most effective way to maintain a competitive advantage in today’s marketplace is to fully utilize your top performers. This will directly differentiate your company from its competition.

But how do you do this? Begin to implement these three strategies today:

Read the full story:

http://smartblogs.com/leadership/2013/08/19/3-ways-to-retain-and-engage-your-valuable-employees/

Managers failing their unhappy staff

There’s usually one in every office – the person who’s just doing the bare minimum in order to get by. They’re not doing anything wrong; they’re just not getting it right either. In some cases you throw training, resources and opportunities at them until you’re blue in the face, for others you give them the basic tasks, leaving the ones that need innovation for your motivated workers.

Regardless of your personal approach, research from Zenger/Folkman finds that in general, managers give up too soon on disgruntled employees.

“Our evidence shows that managers are giving up far too soon on their disgruntled employees, making them less productive than they could be, exposing their companies to unnecessary risks from thefts and leaks in the process, and inflating turnover costs,” company president Joseph Folkman said.

Read the full story:

http://www.hrmonline.ca/hr-news/turn-around-your-most-miserable-worker-174716.aspx

Gauge of U.S. layoffs falls to pre-recession level

The four-week average of new claims for state jobless benefits dropped to 335,500, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The reading has not been that low since November 2007, just before the United States fell into a calamitous recession.

Now it appears that a long cycle of aggressive layoffs, which had fueled a surge in unemployment and helped shape two presidential elections, is over.

Read the full story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/08/us-usa-economy-idUSBRE9770K220130808