Finding & Keeping Great Employees [Hardcover]

Jim Harris Ph.D. (Author), Joan Brannick Ph.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 8, 1999

What makes an employee great? According to Harris and Brannick, great employees are those who match the culture of the company they work for and whose personal values align with the organization's core purpose.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Harris (Getting Employees To Fall in Love with Your Company, AMACOM, 1996), who is involved in creating high-performance workplaces, and Brannick, a consultant and former human resources executive, here focus on the theme that company and employee values must match?that there must be common goals in order to create a productive work environment. Written for business and human resources professionals and based on research at 250 companies, this book underlines employee selection and retention as a strategic management function; identifies such important organizational principles as operational excellence, customer service, innovation, and spirit; and outlines a framework to fit any business or industry. While the concept of a shared vision as introduced by Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (Doubleday, 1990) is not new, the emphasis on people and corporate culture as essential instruments of this vision is a logical outgrowth and worthy of exploration. Recommended for business collections.?Marilyn Rosenthal, Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Hiring woes? Bag the Maalox and buy this book....There is at least one terrific--and frequently counterintuitive--idea on every one of its 208 pages." --Fortune

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 230 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM; 1 edition (March 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814404545
• ISBN-13: 978-0814404546
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,254,079 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical Guidance & Breakthrough Thinking, November 24, 1999

By 

just plain bill "Mr. Bill" (Seminole, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Finding & Keeping Great Employees (Hardcover)

In my work with line managers and other HR professionals, the things that are keeping them up at night are directly related to finding good people and keeping them. With labor shortages and knowledge gaps, I believe that this is the number one issue for HR professionals in the next decade. Jim Harris and Joan Brannick address this issue directly in a framework that gives the reader specific, implementable ideas to improve their staffing and retention efforts.

The breakthrough thinking in this book is establishing a clear link between corporate culture and staffing and recruiting efforts. The authors encourage readers to define their culture clearly, then be intentional about matching recruiting efforts and retention programs to the culture. By providing examples of best practices that match each of four basic organizational cultures (operational excellence, customer service, innovation, and spirit), the authors provide readers with practical guidance on how to align staffing and retention efforts with the cultures at their companies.

I found most helpful of all the guidance the authors provide on retention. In 25 years of work as an HR professional, I've found that the topic of retention is a lot like the weather - everyone talks about it, but nobody knows how to make it better! This book is different. The authors describe specific ways to influence retention and build a company where employees will want to stay. Immediately after reading this book, I went to work creating a retention plan built around nine specific management practices that will support my company's culture and foster retention. My counterparts on the company's leadership team are enthusiastic about the plan, and are actively at work implementing the management practices.

Finally, I recommend this book because it is well written. The authors avoid jargon and buzzwords. They speak from the heart about HR practices that will engage the soul and generate employee commitment.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS BOOK IS A "STALL BUSTER", March 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Finding & Keeping Great Employees (Hardcover)

We have tried ads, interviewing at colleges, postings on our Web site, word of mouth, and we are still stalled when it comes to FINDING AND KEEPING GREAT EMPLOYEES. I have visited Disney and The Ritz Carlton and I continue to be envious of their screening, training and culture. Disney's emphasis on safety at the parks and the Ritz Carlton's "We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen" are great examples of the need to match values. Even in these high turnover jobs, they lead in best practices and getting employees to take ownership. That message, well stated in this book, of the need to find a good match between employees and corporate culture is ever so important, particularly in this rapidly changing world. For example, the engineering company that always hired engineers may now find that they cannot succeed without superb finance people and really good communicators. The Tradition Stall would never allow them to hire an English major! Or, the firm that always used the same headhunters might never believe they could find better people on their own. That's the Disbelief Stall If you are really interested in developing better employees, you should also read THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION, by Mitchell, Coles and Meets and encourage your staff to identify their stalls, and the company's stalls, and learn how to leap over them. A gift of FINDING AND KEEPING GREAT EMPLOYEES is the sixteen best practices of companies who have discovered the secrets. Use them as a guide and checklist. You will be glad you did

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aligning people with organizational culture., February 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Finding & Keeping Great Employees (Hardcover)

The authors' central message is that companies with great staffing and retention practices see culture as vital to organization, consequently culture forms the strategic basis for selecting and rewarding people. To build this connection between culture and people, management must seek people who fit with and will support the core culture, and retain those who presently do so. The alignment between core culture and people is the underlying theme. The authors' profile four core cultures-customer service, innovation, operational excellence, and spirit. They then examine best practices in staffing and retention. The book concludes with a six-step approach to change for achieving the culture-employee alignment. Approaching this issue of alignment strategically is not common. In many companies alignment is achieved through a 'Darwinian' process which is costly to both the organization and individuals. Too many companies go about selection and retention paying little or no heed to the issue of person-culture fit. Often, the issue of making a technical match between the person and the job requirements is so challenging that alignment with culture is totally overshadowed by need-now pressures to address immediate staffing demands. In tight labor markets this is especially true. This situation is also a logical consequence of rapid company growth. Overall, we find this book to be a perceptive and important contribution.