Case studies of well-known companies retaining core employees

How to retain core employees in a people-oriented enterprise (zz)

Background information

On November 2, 2000, within four years, Skyworth’s sales performance single-handedly improved from Lu Qianghua, general manager of the China Regional Sales Headquarters of Original Dimension, which has reached 4.33 billion from 700 million, has more than 150 Skyworth people, including 11 Original Dimension area managers, more than 20 core management cadres, and their most recent The trusted core employees collectively switched jobs to Gao Luhua, "the worst company in the industry currently" (Lu Qiang in Chinese). So far, there have been more than ten cases of exodus among the middle and upper levels of Skyworth: Hu Qiusheng, Chu Xiuju, Du Jianjun, Ren Jian, Tao Jun, Huang Xuezheng... Among them are the production director of Skyworth, the general manager of regional sales in China, the group vice president, The financial director and executive director took away not only the company's customer relationships, but more importantly, the company's core employees, which caused huge difficulties to the normal development and daily operations of the company's core business. The following article analyzes the value of the company's core employees, proposes solutions on how to retain them, and achieves good implementation results.

Reform measures

The so-called core employees include those who deal directly with customers face-to-face or conduct various business negotiations with customers over the phone all day long, so they can be called the company's "image ambassadors" Or a group of people who are "image spokesmen"; it also includes those who are engaged in the core business that is closely related to the life and death of the enterprise. So how to retain key employees? Skyworth mainly starts from the following aspects.

1. Key employees’ identification with the enterprise. One factor that hinders the performance improvement of core employees is the lack of real and meaningful information about the enterprise among front-line employees. Most companies do not prioritize information sharing. As a result, many front-line employees only have a general and vague idea of ??what kind of benefits the company has achieved and how they can make greater contributions to the company. Only by letting core employees know more about the company's operating conditions and the company's philosophy, making them feel more proud of the company, and increasing their awareness and understanding of the company's customer needs can we effectively achieve a "win-win" situation.

2. Let core employees participate meaningfully. Key employees who are responsible for the survival of the company will not spontaneously identify with the company unless they truly understand how their daily activities are linked to the company's performance. In fact, one key to improving core employee satisfaction is to allow them to participate meaningfully. There is currently a lack of mechanisms to truly involve team members in decision-making activities, and little or no consideration is given to the subsequent impact on employee perceptions. . Atlantic Airways management adopted GITS (Growth and Improvement Team) as a constructive approach to increasing employee ownership. Each member of GITS becomes an owner of the activity: they check that the changes they recommend are being implemented effectively. This completes the transition from a diagnostic role to a more leadership role, whereby employees are more actively engaged and accountable for improving performance.

3. Develop clear goals and performance appraisal system. Without clear and measurable performance goals, recognition and investment in the enterprise will have minimal impact on the loyalty and performance of core employees. If you want to make the connection between core employees' loyalty and performance visible and tangible, you must let employees understand the goals and conduct regular appraisals. With this in mind, Bayer employees worked with management to develop the performance scoreboard. The scoreboard is a comprehensive way to measure the entire organization, reflecting the five areas where employees can really have an impact. Because the scoreboard visually reflects changes in each of the five areas over time, employees can understand how their own performance affects those changes and how those changes impact the overall company's performance.

4. Effectively improve employees’ sense of job security. Due to the globalization of the economy and increasingly fierce business competition, job security has gradually become a thing of the past, but this does not mean that employees do not need job security. If an employee completes his job satisfactorily and helps the company he works for succeed, it helps him keep his job and increases his chances of finding another job opportunity, which is reflected in an increase in his salary.

For example, Bayer's management uses candid communication to explain the company's policies and respond to employees' concerns. Now, supervisors receive monthly feedback reports on performance measures and share this information with employees. This communication increases employees' job security because they know management is not hiding potentially bad news.

5. Rely on the incentive system to retain people. In addition to designing a reasonable salary system, there must also be a long-term incentive system. Generally speaking, incentive systems include internal promotion systems and option incentive systems. The promotion system covers a wide range, including promotion of positions and non-leadership positions. It is a broad promotion system that can improve employees' status in the enterprise or social status. This article mainly discusses option incentives. The option incentive system of my country's technology companies mainly draws on the relatively mature option incentive system in the West, including: stock incentives, stock appreciation rights, restricted stock awards, deferred stock issuance and employee stock ownership plans.

6. Rely on "career adaptability" to retain people. Although the job market is tight, talented and enterprising talents are still a "hot commodity" for many companies. Large foreign companies generally believe that the most difficult talents to retain are middle managers, especially those who have been with the company for 3-8 years. They are familiar with how the company operates, but have few opportunities for rewards and promotions. Pay attention when retaining people. The company will develop a career adaptation system for the employees it recruits, so that employees can understand the different job responsibilities of each department as soon as they enter the company. Once you want to leave your position, you can first look for development opportunities within the company and find a job that suits you. Work. Mobil Oil Company pays attention to the abilities of employees at different levels, giving them promotion opportunities and arranging different jobs in advance. Screen managers through layers to discover and train new leaders of the company, and let new people rotate to work in various functional departments. To help them adjust to the career, each newcomer is also assigned a development liaison. In addition, SONY's original internal recruitment system is also a good solution.

7. Rely on "special tasks" to retain people. In order to retain capable employees, Hanigan Company in the United States implemented an employee structure chart model and developed a satisfaction coordinate: one axis reflects the managers' degree of satisfaction with their jobs, and the other axis reflects their degree of satisfaction with the company and the possibility of leaving the company. Once the coordinates of the two axes reach the intersection, the company will take stimulus measures to help employees get through the dangerous period of job-hopping. To this end, for some employees who have promotion hopes, when there are no vacancies for a while, the employees are assigned to special tasks that take several months to complete. Company presidents admit they feel guilty when an employee leaves a high-profile job; it also gives the company a few months to look for advancement opportunities.

8. Trust employees and fully empower them. Empowerment means motivating employees to take on more responsibilities and have more power to make decisions on their own. First of all, delegation must have a suitable target, that is, a mature and enthusiastic employee who has enough ability and willingness to take on responsibilities. Therefore, the first step in delegation is to cultivate the process of motivating employees. Knowing how to use effective attitudes and methods to motivate others plays a dual role in a manager's career. If you motivate others, others will also motivate you. This is the growth of interaction. We can recognize this from Thomas Edison and his mother. A child does very well when he feels that he is completely immersed in reliable trust. The same goes for employees. In an atmosphere of trust, he will not go to great lengths to protect himself from failure; on the contrary, he will fully explore the possibility of success. At this stage, managers play the role of leaders and need to give employees specific goals, guidance and guidance, and assist them in completing tasks. Obviously, the efficiency at this time is very low because employees cannot work independently.

Implementation results

Skyworth needs people with ideals, and Skyworth needs people with team spirit. Huang Hongsheng, President of Skyworth Group, said: He now has more trust in talents. It's not because his consciousness has improved and he can "employ people without doubting them and don't use them when they are suspicious", but because there is now a restrictive system. Learned to use incentive system and supervision mechanism to manage people. Now some of Skyworth's new important positions have improved their contracts, including the establishment of non-compete clauses, intellectual property clauses and other aspects. The CEOs of the six newly established companies and some key technical positions have signed such contracts. The contract between the CEO and the employer is dozens of pages long.

In terms of management reform, Skyworth introduced outstanding scientists and entrepreneurs from the international market to bring advanced management thinking. Together with domestic first-class entrepreneurs, they are working hard to shape Skyworth into an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial innovative organizations. In order to better motivate outstanding talents, Skyworth promotes employee stock ownership. Currently, more than 800 core employees hold shares in Skyworth, achieving a close combination of corporate efficiency and personal value growth. Win the future competition with optimal organizational structure, marketing structure and product structure.

As a result, Skyworth Group has freed itself from the shadow of collective job-hopping and has continued to achieve extraordinary development. It has continuously introduced various types of talents from all over the country and even from overseas, forming a team including product development, sales, The talent team in branding, international marketing, capital operations, etc. is an international and professional talent aircraft carrier.