I continue to work with my manufacturing client on determining the value of training initiatives on their bottom line.  Our goal is to better understand how an investment of a single training dollar impacts the cost of a company (turnover, increased productivity, decrease in defect rate) as well as increasing revenue (increased customer retention, repeat […]

Some recent studies on teacher turnover in elementary and secondary schools is frightening for our kids and our future.  One study shows an annual turnover of 16.5%.  Another indicated that 5% of teachers quit the profession every year, another 5% request a transfer to a different school.  One figure often bandied about is that 50 […]

(I know, an Old Testament reference!)
I talked earlier this week about the retention bonuses that have become pervasive on Wall Street.  I questioned the business wisdom of getting rid of the practice completely, but then was very disappointed in the game played by their board’s h.r. committee played with top executive compensation.  Bad form, bad […]

A new report from Right Management and the Villanova School of Business found that retention rates were as high as 100 percent in some sectors.  The report attributed one of the chief causes of high turnover to managers’ inability to lead and engage their teams. Less than 50 percent of employees agreed that their […]

Happy Hump-Day!
I’ll be leaving for Mexico City in a week for a couple of speeches to the Compensation and Benefits Congress.  I’ve given up on trying to learn Spanish for this trip, I think languages are meant to be learned by kids who don’t know how freakin’ hard it is.  And this from a guy […]

I’m working with a company on determining the ROI of a rather healthy training and development budget in a time when the company (and their competitors) are in a rather dramatic cost-cutting mode.
As a manufacturer in a still growing niche, they aren’t yet feeling the doom-and-gloom many others in manufacturing and in other industries are […]

Prize
Gift
Award
Windfall
Plus
Extra
Bonus
Lots of words, all with the same meaning.
In 1998, HR Magazine had an article titled “Retention bonuses prove effective for companies in transition“.  The article started off with the following statement”
“Mergers, downsizing and reorganization all can wreak havoc with operations. To make transitions run smoothly, companies increasingly turn to retention bonuses, or “stay pay,” to […]