Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad: Breakthrough Ideas for Keeping your Best Workers Paperback – January 24, 2017

Good book

Bought for work

Trying to really get a grasp on why turnover happens and this book offers suggestions and studies to help understand and create possible cultural solutions.

You might think that a recession is exactly the time when good employees batten down their hatches and cling to their jobs, even if they do not like them. Think again. Really talented employees can find work during any economic period. Indeed, they change jobs all the time. Such turnover cuts productivity, making operations less efficient, and burdens companies with heavy employee replacement costs. Although the tariff can be staggering, most organizations do not have a formal - or even an informal - retention abatement process. Instead, they relegate retention to a sideline human resources department activity. To correct this operational oversight, retention consultant Richard P. Finnegan provides the "Rethinking Retention Model," a robust best-practices program you can use to cut down on expensive employee churn. In his heavily researched and sourced book, Finnegan thoroughly details the exact steps organizations should implement to increase retention. He offers numerous case studies that illustrate how companies hold on to their best employees. getAbstract highly recommends this comprehensive, logical, thoughtful guide as an ideal resource for CEOs, managers and HR executives who need to close the revolving door.

Mr. Finnegan's Rethinking Retention explores the many ways management can tune in to the developmental needs of its organization and create an environment where its employees and business thrives. This type of book and research is long overdue in the corporate workplace. It's not always income, benefits and perks that maintains good employees. Alot of it has to do with the calibre of the management team and their ability to connect with their employees and create a work environment that inspires quality contributions and keeps the workplace challenging, stimulating and rewarding. Finnegan promotes the need to create retention goals within the corporate management team along with all of the other annual key business or market share goals and objectives. Moroever, he stresses the importance of investing in the professional fulfillment of key employees which in turn results in a positive outward reflection of the company as a great place to work. This "success breeds success" corporate atmosphere and reputation will attract the best and the brightest the market has to offer. The book provides processes and procedures to implement these "retention practices." It extols the value and effectiveness of mentoring within the organization and an open communications environment where employees can question or challenge rules and procedures with the understanding that it supports best practices of the organization. Finnegan hits a home run with this insightful look at the corporate workplace and how companies can maintain and nurture their most prized assets, their people.

Rethinking Retention is an impressive examination of a problem that many businesses, both large and small, fail to tackle -- and, as the book shows, the results are costly. Through a combination of careful research and personal anecdotes, Finnegan illuminates the reasons why companies -- even very good companies -- regularly lose valuable, productive employees who might have been retained, at little or no additional cost, if enlightened policies for managing human capital had been in place. Finnegan deftly explains those policies, and the associated analytical tools that make them work, in a way that is both logically sound and unusually practical. For example, in most books of management advice, you will seldom find a concept that mates theory and pragmatism as effectively as Finnegan's idea of EVP (employee value proposition). Moreover, the book presents ideas very clearly. All chapters are structured alike, with a tidy preview up front and a summary at the end, which makes the book a more efficient learning tool. Overall, this is a five-star work, combining the author's vast personal knowledge and strong analytical skills with sound recommendations that any company can act on. We all know that high turnover rates are costly to businesses, and this book makes clear that those costs are higher than most managers recognize. If you'd rather not continue to pay those costs, take a look at Rethinking Retention.

Some of the biggest drivers of organizational performance boil down to "consistency" What is it that a company does consistently - no matter what the economic landscape - that engenders customer loyalty and employee loyalty while at the same time driver better results for shareholders? Dick Finnegan knows this to be true, and he's an expert at helping companies understand the impact they feel when they don't make employee retention a long-standing commitment for their enterprise. A lot of business leaders say that their people are their biggest assets, yet strikingly few of those same business leaders really hold their organizations, and themselves, accountable for developing and retaining the very best people they have, and as a result, those great people usually walk out the door, leaving huge holes in their organizations along with diminished morale. If you're concerned about the bottom-line, you better be concerned about your workforce productivity, and how a lack of commitment to retention is holding performance back. I strongly recommend you read 'Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad, as I have done. Dick has raised my own understanding of just how critical a driver of business results retention has become. If you know that, you already have an edge over your competition. You might call that "the Finnegan effect!"

Rethinking Retention gives practical, real world advice on this important subject. Retention is a driver of business success and Finnegan describes how to make it happen.