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by:
Dr.
Eric Pellegrino, CITEC's HR Specialist
Employee
selection and retention has always been a critical function in
any organization. But today, it is even more critical because
of the portability with
which employees view their skills and the reduced loyalty exhibited
by so many more employees. Typically organizations neglect to
view employee selection and retention as a continuous process
-- rather employee selection is regarded as one function, employee
development another function, and retention as still another
function.
The
entire process should focus on acquiring the best available talent
which can be groomed for the long haul. By taking an "outside-inside" view
instead of the reverse which is often favored, organizations
can increase the likelihood of obtaining winners or at least
potential winners who can be transformed into winners.
Today,
with so many options open to employees, a reasonable approach
to retention is to build an employee-retention process which
provides important value to potential employees, thus the "outside-inside" view.
Employees
are concerned about work-life balance, caring for their parents
as well as their children, real and creative opportunities for
growth and development, a work environment that encourages more
than discourages. They want a work environment which communicates
that they are critical partners in determining the bottom line,
offers them opportunities to give back to the community (and
not just on one's personal time), and provides a positive work
climate that exudes trust.
So,
to reverse the trend of employee portability, employee selection
and retention must be regarded as a process not that meets some
internal policy need but rather that gets at the values today's
employees and potential employees consider important. Considering
these values in the design of an employee selection and retention
process will move any organization in the direction of an employer
of choice.
EP
CITEC
is ready to assist your company with employee selection and
retention.
Contact us today for assistance.
In
order to best meet the special needs of Northern New York companies,
CITEC is pleased to welcome Dr. Pellegrino as its human resource
specialist.
Dr.
Pellegrino recently retired as Executive Assistant to the President
at SUNY Canton. Since its inception in 1983, he was Co-Director
and Lead Instructor in the SUNY Canton Leadership Institute --
an in-residence program designed to develop leadership skills
for managers in a variety of organizations. He has worked in
business and industry with the Aluminum Company of America and
the New York Telephone Company. In 1984, he was the recipient
of SUNY Canton's Distinguished Faculty Award.
Dr.
Pellegrino has over 25 years of experience in designing and delivering
programs in training and development for both the public and
private sectors. His clients have included General Electric;
General Motors; Alcoa; Corning; Kinney Drugs; New York State
Department of Transportation; Departments of Social Services
for St. Lawrence, Franklin, Clinton, Jefferson, and Lewis Counties;
Potsdam College; Niagara Mohawk; Kraft; St. Lawrence University;
and Georgia Pacific, among others. He is the owner of S. L. Jenner
Consulting Group.
| Employee
hiring and retention are
critical to the companies of Northern new York. In CITEC's
2001 Manufacturer's Needs Survey completed by top management
of North Country companies, 96% feel employee selection
is critical to their move to high performance, with employee
retention equaling that level. |
By:
Patricia Wilson, CITEC Marketing Manager
Are
manufacturers in the North Country as concerned about computer
security issues as they are about energy efficiency? Do most
of them see the value in having a company website and are they
ready to conduct business on the world wide web?
A
summary of the results from CITEC's 2001 Manufacturers' Needs
Survey follows...
The
top ten areas which companies feel are critical to their move
to high performance are:
- Implement/Improve
Safety Policies
- Employee
Training
- Continuous
Quality Improvements
- Employee
Hiring
- Employee
Retention
- Marketing
Planning
- Improve
Quality of Existing Products
- Strategic
Planning
- Manufacturing/Production
Improvements
- Examine/Improve
Profitability
- Energy
efficiency finished 11th on the list of 21 issues -- computer
security finished at the bottom, with 4% of respondents feeling
it is critical. And, while 79% of respondents have a company
website, only 71% felt that eBusiness was critical to their
success.
- The
majority of companies in Northern New York are private, with
46% of those being family owned; and most (58%) have been in
business for less than 20 years.
- Over
the next three years, 38% of companies located in our region
will expand their current facilities, and an additional 29%
will renovate. Sixty-three-percent anticipate increases in
staffing; with 38% indicating their employment levels will
remain the same.
PW
A
great source for future business may well be found by talking
to "the ones that got away." You need to maintain,
preferably in an easy to manipulate electronic database, a record
of orders and bids that you lose, along with the reason you didn't
get the job. While the reason given is often "price",
more often than not, it's something else. A skilled interviewer
can help get to the real reasons.
Finding
out why customers are buying from someone else is obviously critical
to your marketing efforts, but unfortunately it is too often
overlooked. If you're not collecting the information to know
why you're losing orders, you won't know what to change to improve
your "hit" ratio.
Armed
with the knowledge of "why not", you can make the appropriate
sales and promotional decisions that will help you build profitable
sales. Not to mention, some of those lost customers from yesterday
may well be your customers of tomorrow.
Contact
Patricia Wilson, Marketing Manager at 315-268-3778 x23 or wilson@citec.org
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