{"id":1159,"date":"2007-08-30T11:02:46","date_gmt":"2007-08-30T16:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/08\/employees-as-investors\/"},"modified":"2007-08-30T11:02:47","modified_gmt":"2007-08-30T16:02:47","slug":"employees-as-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/08\/employees-as-investors\/","title":{"rendered":"Employees As Investors"},"content":{"rendered":"

From today’s excellent ERE.net article Employees Are Not Assets<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
Employees As Investors<\/strong><\/p>\n
One of our problems is that we think of employees as assets, or things we control and dispose of as we see fit. Unfortunately, this characterization leads to behaviors that are incompatible with reality. Employees cannot be owned, taxed, depreciated, or disposed of as machines or other tangible assets. <\/p>\n
They are investors in our organizations and they freely choose to share their expertise and skills with us or not. Each employee has a built-in return on investment meter that is constantly sampling the atmosphere and deciding if she is gaining or losing from a continuing association with the firm. As long as employees feel they are gaining, they don’t look for different jobs. <\/p>\n
But in this job market, whenever the balance shifts even slightly, employees become vulnerable to any offer that may present itself. That is why having managers who have a history of good employee loyalty and low turnover are so valuable.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I think the author makes a great point in the context of today’s talent demands. He couches the article around the need to allow employees to have positional movement within your company. It is a compelling argument.<\/p>\n
The key here is to monitor your manager’s retention rate within his department and within the company (do employees want to stay with the company but get out of that dept.?).<\/p>\n
About 5 years ago we worked with a large company who had many sales managers within its divisions. It was quite clear which managers were adept at growing their people and retaining top talent. There was one manager who was able to retain his “right-hand man” and nobody else – his department was a consistent turnstile. After our first meeting with him, it became quite apparent why this was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From today’s excellent ERE.net article Employees Are Not Assets: Employees As Investors One of our problems is that we think of employees as assets, or things we control and dispose of as we see fit. Unfortunately, this characterization leads to behaviors that are incompatible with reality. Employees cannot be owned, taxed, depreciated, or disposed of as machines or other tangible assets. They are investors in our organizations and they freely choose to share their expertise and skills with us or not. Each employee has a built-in return on investment meter that is constantly sampling the atmosphere and deciding if she is gaining or losing from a continuing association with the… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retention","category-trends"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-iH","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1207,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/09\/sales-traits-series-gaining-commitment\/","url_meta":{"origin":1159,"position":0},"title":"Sales Traits Series – Gaining Commitment","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Sales managers need to focus their team on specific objectives.\u00a0 This requires the manager to gain commitment from each salesperson...on a regular basis.\u00a0 It is an important aspect of successful coaching and empowering the employee. Gaining CommitmentThis ability develops and invokes a self-starting attitude in employees in their pursuit of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Aptitudes"","block_context":{"text":"Aptitudes","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/aptitudes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1357,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/12\/the-young-guns-of-vc-former-googlers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1159,"position":1},"title":"The Young Guns Of VC-Former Googlers","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Most people are aware of the insane amount of money Google keeps earning, but the New York Times (h\/t Online Media Daily) offers up an article about what the former employees are doing with it.\u00a0 They are starting their own venture capital firms. What I didn't know was that this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trends"","block_context":{"text":"Trends","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/trends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1451,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/the-end-of-telecommuting\/","url_meta":{"origin":1159,"position":2},"title":"The End Of Telecommuting?","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Perhaps the telecommuting trend will end before it truly gets established?\u00a0 I doubt it, but this Wall Street Journal article discusses some bellwether technology companies that are calling back a portion of their telecommuters. A few big promoters of home-based and mobile-office work arrangements, including AT&T, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and parts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Team Management"","block_context":{"text":"Team Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/team-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1797,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/11\/10-ways-to-help-out-your-employees\/","url_meta":{"origin":1159,"position":3},"title":"10 Ways To Help Out Your Employees","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"November 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"ManageSmarter has a good article that\u00a0provides 10 ways that you can help your employees through the economic crisis.\u00a0 There are some simple ideas on the list that a manager should do regardless of the economy.\u00a0 What better way to retain your employees than to show your appreciation for their efforts?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Communication"","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":515,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/12\/are-your-employees-looking\/","url_meta":{"origin":1159,"position":4},"title":"Are Your Employees Looking?","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"December 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently yes. From a recent poll conducted by Career Journal of nearly 500 employees: 41% of respondents admitted they are actively searching for a new job 35% considered themselves passive jobseekers 21% indicated they were not looking for a job at all So the obvious question is what are you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hiring"","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2416,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2010\/08\/what-employees-want\/","url_meta":{"origin":1159,"position":5},"title":"What Employees Want","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"August 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I am usually a bit cynical regarding these types of articles.\u00a0 My reasoning is this \u2013 each individual is unique in their motivations and rewards.\u00a0 Attempting to place employees into set categories regarding global characterizations is a stretch.\u00a0 Nonetheless, this article from Inc.com presents some excellent points and advice for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Generations"","block_context":{"text":"Generations","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/generations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}