Great Read on High Potential Employees- Why You Need Them to Stay

Retaining High Potentials

by Norman Schippers (Talent Management Magazine)

According to a recent study by the Society for Human Resource Management, 12 percent of the workforce, on average, voluntarily resigned January through August 2006.

More-current statistics do not look any more promising — a February 2007 survey by Salary.com revealed that nearly 66 percent of tenured employees (people who have been in their positions for three to 10 years) plan to look for a new job in the next three months.

The threat of increased turnover is grabbing the attention of management, as well as human resources. The productivity costs of losing 12 percent of your workforce is certainly enough for companies to take action, but when combined with the financial and market impact, addressing retention issues quickly escalates to the top of upper management's priority list.

Studies show employee turnover can cost companies up to 40 percent of their annual profit. That's for the turnover of all employees, regardless of their performance levels. The financial impact of losing a significant number of high- potential employees (those who have been identified as your future leaders) can be exponentially higher.

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http://www.talentmgt.com/succession_planning/2007/August/394/index.php

How Does a Best Practice become Better?

The notion of a best practice is not new. Frederick Taylor (1919)^[1] said as much nearly 100 years ago: “among the various methods and implements used in each element of each trade there is always one method and one implement which is quicker and better than any of the rest”. This viewpoint came to be known as the "one best way" (Kanigel, 1997)^[2].

History, however, is filled with examples of people who were unwilling to accept the industry standard as the best way to do anything. The enormous technological changes since the Industrial Revolutions in England and the United States bear witness to this fact. For example, at one time horses were considered the 'best' form of transportation, even after 'horse-less carriages' were invented. Today, most people drive a gasoline, diesel, or bio-fuel vehicle—itself an improvement on the horse-less carriage.

In real-world application, Best Practice is a very useful concept. Despite the need to improve on processes as times change and things evolve, Best Practice is considered by some as a business buzzword used to describe the process of developing and following a standard way of doing things that multiple organizations can use for management, policy, and especially software systems.

Best Practices are commonly used in many Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Marketing Operations Management (MOM) systems. A Best Practice can be selected (generally from several competing options) and defined within a computer system. Then, any organization performing similar tasks can draw from the same procedure, and theoretically improve their operations.

Human Resources is one example of Best Practices as implemented in MOM systems. There are numerous standard procedures defined when managing an organisation's employees, volunteers, and contractors. By choosing a "Best Practice" or standard way of organizing and performing processes, the makers of MOM systems or Human Resource Management (HRM) system software are able to produce systems that can be used by multiple organisations.

Because such systems are restrictive by nature, implementing Best Practices by using such software may force organizations who have less formally defined procedures to conform to a single standard. Deviation from this standard may require a change to the software. Avoiding these related costs may be a motivating factor in choosing to conform.

Newly discovered Best Practices and changing industry standards often heavily influence ERP/MOM/HRM system design. Recent pressures on companies to change quickly in emerging global marketplaces have forced many vendors to be more flexible in how Best Practices are defined and implemented

Remember, today's Best practices continually evolve

Where did the Likert Scale come from?

The American educator and organizational psychologist Rensis Likert (pronounced 'Lick-urt') (1903–1981) is best known for his research on management styles.

He developed Likert Scales and the Linking pin model.

A Likert scale (pronounced 'lick-urt') is a type of psychometric response scale often used in questionnaires, and is the most widely used scale in survey research. When responding to a Likert questionnaire item, respondents specify their level of agreement to a statement. The scale is named after Rensis Likert, who published a report describing its use (Likert, 1932).

Sample Question presented using a five-point Likert Scale

A typical test item in a Likert scale is a statement. The respondent is asked to indicate his or her degree of agreement with the statement or any kind of subjective or objective evaluation of the statement. Traditionally a five-point scale is used, however many psychometricians advocate using a seven or nine point scale.

Ice cream is good for breakfast

1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Neither agree nor disagree
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree

Likert scaling is a bipolar scaling method, measuring either positive or negative response to a statement. Sometimes a four-point scale is used; this is a forced choice method since the middle option of "Neither agree nor disagree" is not available. Likert scales may be subject to distortion from several causes. Respondents may avoid using extreme response categories (central tendency bias); agree with statements as presented (acquiescence bias); or try to portray themselves or their organization in a more favorable light (social desirability bias).