BFG Technologies was a privately held U.S.-based supplier of power supplies and 3D video cards based on NVIDIA graphics technology and a manufacturer of high-end gaming/home theater computer systems. BFG Technologies branded products were available in North America and Europe at retailers and e-tailers. The company's main headquarters were located in Lake County, Illinois, near Lake Forest.
Employers are continually concerned about competing with each other to hire and hold the best employees they can find. Sometimes this competition becomes a frenzy, since the best people-qualified, experienced-are in high demand. It's essential, to compete well, to become an Employer of Choice. Ahlrichs, in her preface, observes that employers of choice "know that their 'choice' status is a significant achievement attained through consistent application of comprehensive strategies and tactics, as well as top-bottom organizational responsibility for retention.
This book is divided into three important sections: the big picture, recruiting, and retention. In Part One, How Employers of Choice are Winning the Talent Wars, the three chapters focus on Learning from Employers of Choice, Employer of Choice Foundation Strategies, and Building and Communicating a Top Employer Reputation. These writings present a good overview and insight into how Employers of Choice are operating. The orientation is to understand what these companies are doing, rather than a how-to approach. There is a lot to learn here.
The second part, Creative Strategies for Recruiting Top Talent, offers the readers four chapters, starting with How Employers of Choice are Redesigning Recruitment. The next chapter, Only You Will Do, has a little more instructional tone, but still primarily takes a third person view. This chapter concludes with a helpful Orientation Checklist. Chapter 6, Surfing for Recruiting Results Online does provide a healthy amount of how-to. While this field is changing almost daily, there is a lot of value here for the reader. Plenty of website domains are included. The last chapter in this section, Finding New Hires in Unlikely Places, is filled with good ideas. Here I felt a lot more of the how-to I was looking for.
The third section is entitled Comprehensive Strategies for Retaining Top Performers. Here the chapters are titled Understanding Why Employees Leave; Managing and Leading for Retention; Retrain, Develop, and Profit; and New Compensation and Benefits Strategies. There is a lot of value in these chapters-lots of ideas and perspectives. An exit interview guide will be helpful to those companies that have not taken advantage of this tool. The author seems to really hit her stride in providing ideas for readers in this section. The same holds for her conclusion, Becoming an Employer of Choice.
The Role of Technology In Improving Retention:
When employees leave an organization, it often comes as a surprise to the management. It is easy
to have a pulse on employees in a smaller organization with a handful of employees. However, as
the size of the organization increases, the importance of having a systematic method to collect
information about key organizational health indicators and benchmark against other organizations
in the same industry increases.
One needs to set up a program to answer these key questions at an organizational level. Wherever
possible, the organization must be benchmarked against others in the industry:
1. In the hiring process, how does my organization compare?
2. What is the satisfaction level of employees in their jobs?
3. What is the level of job-stress and the perceived sense of work-life balance?
4. How well do my people understand the organization’s policies, priorities and initiatives?
How effective are these policies, priorities and initiatives?
5. Why do people leave my organization?
6. Is there sufficient equality and diversity in my organization?
At an individual level, one needs to be able to answer these questions:
1. Before hiring an individual, one needs to be able to assess the personality fit of the
prospective employee. Specifically, one needs to be able to answer the following
questions:
a. How well does this person’s personality suit my organization?
b. What is the likelihood of this person leaving my organization and within what
timeframe?
c. What is the level of technical expertise of this person?
2. After hiring an individual, one needs to be able to answer some additional questions.
These include:
a. How effective is the person in the current role?
b. What is the most optimal career path for the individual given his set of skills and
experience and the organization’s needs?
When a technology solution is implemented, it may not be easy to directly establish a return on
investment. The following factors must be considered in calculating the return on investment
while evaluating a central platform for organizational feedback, leadership development and jobskills
training:
1) Savings through reduction in attrition rates and salaries:
If a centralized system is implemented, and findings are acted upon in a systematic
manner, it should reduce attrition rates over time. Further, it must be understood that
salaries alone are not enough to produce optimal performance from employees. Firms
mistakenly, raise salaries without providing accompanying opportunities for development,
learning and job-satisfaction. Employees need to be heard and an organizational feedback
mechanism is an excellent method to provide them with a means to be heard.
2) Leadership development
Inadequate leadership cost firms millions of dollars in opportunity costs. The scarce
resource in organizations is not capital, labor, or even ideas. The scarce resource is a lack
of leaders – employees who are motivated, employees who have initiative and employees
with the right skills for their job.
3) Savings through avoiding duplication and redundancy
Duplication of effort is common in large organizations. Apart from creating redundancies,
duplication of efforts in the area of information gathering causes the creation of
information silos. A centralized platform with an accompanying centralized initiative for
organizational feedback; leadership development, competency mapping and job-skills
training can create enormous savings.
Employers are continually concerned about competing with each other to hire and hold the best employees they can find. Sometimes this competition becomes a frenzy, since the best people-qualified, experienced-are in high demand. It's essential, to compete well, to become an Employer of Choice. Ahlrichs, in her preface, observes that employers of choice "know that their 'choice' status is a significant achievement attained through consistent application of comprehensive strategies and tactics, as well as top-bottom organizational responsibility for retention.
This book is divided into three important sections: the big picture, recruiting, and retention. In Part One, How Employers of Choice are Winning the Talent Wars, the three chapters focus on Learning from Employers of Choice, Employer of Choice Foundation Strategies, and Building and Communicating a Top Employer Reputation. These writings present a good overview and insight into how Employers of Choice are operating. The orientation is to understand what these companies are doing, rather than a how-to approach. There is a lot to learn here.
The second part, Creative Strategies for Recruiting Top Talent, offers the readers four chapters, starting with How Employers of Choice are Redesigning Recruitment. The next chapter, Only You Will Do, has a little more instructional tone, but still primarily takes a third person view. This chapter concludes with a helpful Orientation Checklist. Chapter 6, Surfing for Recruiting Results Online does provide a healthy amount of how-to. While this field is changing almost daily, there is a lot of value here for the reader. Plenty of website domains are included. The last chapter in this section, Finding New Hires in Unlikely Places, is filled with good ideas. Here I felt a lot more of the how-to I was looking for.
The third section is entitled Comprehensive Strategies for Retaining Top Performers. Here the chapters are titled Understanding Why Employees Leave; Managing and Leading for Retention; Retrain, Develop, and Profit; and New Compensation and Benefits Strategies. There is a lot of value in these chapters-lots of ideas and perspectives. An exit interview guide will be helpful to those companies that have not taken advantage of this tool. The author seems to really hit her stride in providing ideas for readers in this section. The same holds for her conclusion, Becoming an Employer of Choice.
The Role of Technology In Improving Retention:
When employees leave an organization, it often comes as a surprise to the management. It is easy
to have a pulse on employees in a smaller organization with a handful of employees. However, as
the size of the organization increases, the importance of having a systematic method to collect
information about key organizational health indicators and benchmark against other organizations
in the same industry increases.
One needs to set up a program to answer these key questions at an organizational level. Wherever
possible, the organization must be benchmarked against others in the industry:
1. In the hiring process, how does my organization compare?
2. What is the satisfaction level of employees in their jobs?
3. What is the level of job-stress and the perceived sense of work-life balance?
4. How well do my people understand the organization’s policies, priorities and initiatives?
How effective are these policies, priorities and initiatives?
5. Why do people leave my organization?
6. Is there sufficient equality and diversity in my organization?
At an individual level, one needs to be able to answer these questions:
1. Before hiring an individual, one needs to be able to assess the personality fit of the
prospective employee. Specifically, one needs to be able to answer the following
questions:
a. How well does this person’s personality suit my organization?
b. What is the likelihood of this person leaving my organization and within what
timeframe?
c. What is the level of technical expertise of this person?
2. After hiring an individual, one needs to be able to answer some additional questions.
These include:
a. How effective is the person in the current role?
b. What is the most optimal career path for the individual given his set of skills and
experience and the organization’s needs?
When a technology solution is implemented, it may not be easy to directly establish a return on
investment. The following factors must be considered in calculating the return on investment
while evaluating a central platform for organizational feedback, leadership development and jobskills
training:
1) Savings through reduction in attrition rates and salaries:
If a centralized system is implemented, and findings are acted upon in a systematic
manner, it should reduce attrition rates over time. Further, it must be understood that
salaries alone are not enough to produce optimal performance from employees. Firms
mistakenly, raise salaries without providing accompanying opportunities for development,
learning and job-satisfaction. Employees need to be heard and an organizational feedback
mechanism is an excellent method to provide them with a means to be heard.
2) Leadership development
Inadequate leadership cost firms millions of dollars in opportunity costs. The scarce
resource in organizations is not capital, labor, or even ideas. The scarce resource is a lack
of leaders – employees who are motivated, employees who have initiative and employees
with the right skills for their job.
3) Savings through avoiding duplication and redundancy
Duplication of effort is common in large organizations. Apart from creating redundancies,
duplication of efforts in the area of information gathering causes the creation of
information silos. A centralized platform with an accompanying centralized initiative for
organizational feedback; leadership development, competency mapping and job-skills
training can create enormous savings.