Love 'Em or Lose 'Em

Rating:
Summary: Employee retention is as easy as A to Z
Review: A must read for any manager trying to keep good employees amidst the heat of competition. Kaye and Jordan-Evans have heard the voices of frustrated employees as well as the cries of woe from HR professionals and managers at every level - in all industries! "Love 'Em or Lose 'Em" offers 26 easy-reading chapters filled with useful, practical tips and ideas to help managers hold on to their star employees. What a small investment for such a large payoff.

Rating:
Summary: A straightforward, easy cure for stress from staff turnover
Review: Here it is - everything you need to know about maintaining an environment where your star staff want to come back to work every morning! And best of all, it DOESN'T depend on money! It's all in this book, and in a format and style to let you easily read and digest it all during your average business trip. The authors present actions so beneficial and yet so deceptively simple - their recommendations are grounded in the reality of their exhaustive research on what makes people stay with an organization. With continuing unbelievable low levels of unemployment and every manager praying he or she doesn't loose the ones they love, the authors' timing is perfect!

Rating:
Summary: Chock full of gems to keep 'em coming
Review: This approachable, engaging book offers useful, common sense strategies to address one of the most pressing challenges that managers face today. The material is immediately accessible in small, bite sized chunks, a veritable alphabet soup that is easily consumed letter by letter. Not only is the content palatable, but it is downright digestible! The suggestions are practical, doable and outcome driven. A must read for even the busiest of managers who is committed to keeping good employees!

Rating:
Summary: This book provides a direct approach to employee retention
Review: Excellent book, that can be easily implimented to assist in employee retention. After years of recruitment experience, I found myself saying yes, to so many of the points brought out in this very concise, easy to read book. If more employers could impliment these simple principles the quality of work would be improved for so many.The need to be appreciated and acknowledged for one's efforts and contribution are overlooked in the workplace. Books like this provide exceptional tools that assist employers in increasing productivity, morale and retention. I think it should be a must read for all that manage people.

Rating:
Summary: A must read for managers and leaders!
Review: Love 'Em or Lose 'Em offers practical advice and actionable ideas. Too often employee retention becomes mired in elaborate strategies and complex programs. The authors make it clear that simple, direct approaches can work. This book is an absolute must for anyone charged with managing or leading others in this competitive environment.

Rating:
Summary: Finally: a how-to book real world business people can use.
Review: This book is FUN...and I never thought I could say that about a topic like retention. It's written for real world business people, everday line managers and supervisors dealing with real world people problems, and it gives practical, hands-on tips in a user-friendly way. I appreciated the elegant simplicity of the approach to employee retention, the easy to read layout, and the honesty the authors use in dealing with often difficult situations. And I certainly can understand A.J.'s dilemma: I think we all know her. This book should be a household word for every business household.

Rating:
Summary: This book delivers the goods -- practical and insightful.
Review: Practical and insightful, this book is filled with tips and tools that are easy to use for people at every organizaional level. Love Em or Lose Em is a big step in advancing manager-employee dialogue.

Rating:
Summary: Love 'Em or Lose 'Em keeps it simple, pithy and fun to read.
Review: I loved this book. I've worked at more than 35 jobs and while reading Kaye's and Jordan Evans' compilation of great ideas, kept thinking: Clueless companies and corporations, listen up! Anyone who works for a living should read Love 'Em or Lose 'Em.

Rating:
Summary: Remarkably good: as entertaining as it is informative.
Review: Star Bright, Star Flight

What more is there to say about retention? The facts are as familiar as they are stark. Barring a sudden financial cataclysm, the U.S. is rapidly approaching an era of full employment, likely to last through much of the next decade. At the same time, a drop in the birth rate a generation ago means there are fewer workers to go around; indeed, the pool of available 35- to 44-year-olds - the people usually selected for middle-manager and emerging-leader jobs - will plummet by 15 percent between now and the year 2015. Unswerving company loyalty, whether motivated by fealty or fear, has evaporated in the pressure cooker of 1980s downsizing and 1990s employee expectations. Whatever you call the competition for talent - war, race, prizefight, gymkhana - there's little question that good people will grow increasingly scarce and harder to keep as the next century takes hold.

Amid all the retention studies and doom-and-gloom prophecies, managers should remember three crucial dicta.

- It's not the money.

- It could be your fault.

- You can do something about it.

For many employers these assertions will be lost in a flurry of knee-jerk denials: they don't apply to my company; my employees are as loyal as St. Bernards; I'm perfect, so it's not my problem; it's the economy, stupid. But for those employers who keep their blinders off and their minds open, there's now an outstanding resource and vade mecum. Love 'Em or Lose 'Em is insightful, straightforward, clever, charming, everything you'd want in a companion. Kaye and Jordan-Evans have created a combination between a reference work and a course participant guide, and like a good training course, it's designed to maximize impact through multiple formats. The book is chock-a-block with case studies, to-do ideas, quotations from managers and employees, quizzes, and fictionalized examples. It even features "Alas stories," brief tales of what went wrong to make an employee leave. (There's a certain guilty pleasure in thumbing through to these first.)

"Make an employee leave" is the key phrase here. Although there are some people who are peripatetic or impossible to satisfy, Kaye and Jordan-Evans contend that most employees leave either because no one tried to keep them or because something or someone in the company made it too unpleasant to stay. Happy employees - those who have found opportunities, career growth, teamwork, enrichment, kicks, and more - don't jump ship even when someone waves a larger paycheck under their noses. And by taking inspiration from this book, managers can be sure they provide precisely the attractions their employees need to stay and succeed.

For readers accustomed to grave and earnest tomes, Love 'Em or Lose 'Em will seem too informal, too friendly, too approachable. And it's true that there are occasional recommendations that seem silly, repetitive, or a tad self-promotional. But for the most part the book is a genuine pleasure to read. What more is there to say about retention? Turn to Kaye and Jordan-Evans and find out.

Rating:
Summary: Not just for managers
Review: LOVE 'EM or LOSE `EM contains 26 steps for improving employee retention organized in an A-Z fashion. Although written during the recent boom times when retention was a challenge, information presented is quite valuable now for managers who wish to stay employed. The suggestions will promote a happier and more productive workforce. Many of the concepts can be applied to all interpersonal relationships - between co-workers, family and friends.

The book's presentation is visually appealing - section headings and key passages are in a complimentary blue font. There are various other eye-catching features that make the book interesting and exciting. Each chapter starts with a short statement from a fictitious employee referred to as A.J some key excerpts follow

Introduction:
I quit.
I'm giving you my notice.
I found another opportunity.
I've accepted another offer.
Can we talk?

Chapter 1 Ask - What Keeps You
They never asked.

Chapter 2 Buck - It Stops Here
I think my manager actually could have kept me. But I don't think he ever saw it as his job.

Chapter 5 Enrich - Energize the Job
The job just became ho-hum. I mean, I was good at it, my customers were pleased, but I was just plain bored.

Chapter 13 Mentor - Be One
I wish I'd had someone to warn me about some of the political ins and outs that were never written in any policy manual.

Chapter 18 Reward - Provide Recognition
It wasn't about the money, really. Oh, sure, a bonus would have been nice when I brought that new client in or when I finished those specs ahead of schedule. But a "thank you-I noticed" would really have been appreciated.

Generously distributed throughout are "Alas" sections - short, as the authors state, "the-fish-that-got-away" stories that actually happened. There are numerous "Business Examples" - things that really worked in large and small organizations. As references to other parts of the book there are "Go To" Icons to augment the information being presented.

If you're wondering how effective your management skills are in retaining employees, go to Chapter 26 - Zenith and take the assessment of your "Retention Probability Index".

At the end of the book is a Quick Start Guide - you might want to go there first and get an overview of the entire book.

Employee retention as well as productivity is not just about the money and the other "hygiene" factors (work space, hours, etc.), it's about listening to and respecting others. In these difficult times, it's more important than ever.

This book is clearly for everyone.