Think Twice: Why Stars Switch Galaxies
Are you pleased about recruiting top talent? Don't forget the talent you've already got.
By Todd Raphael

Greta Van Susteren, the smart and ratings-winning CNN journalist/attorney, quit her job for a better offer at Fox. Rumor has it that her list of complaints about the cable-news king was a mile long.

Many of her criticisms had a common theme: Van Susteren felt like she was being ignored. Meanwhile, CNN was working hard to bring in new employees.

If you don’t think you also could be recruiting top talent even while losing the stars you’ve got, think again. Sharon Jordan-Evans, co-author of Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em: Getting Good People to Stay, says that the problem, ironically, may be getting worse in the recession. Employers think the war for talent is over, and that employees have surrendered. They think the balance of power has shifted back to employers. It hasn’t.

"Your slow and sleepy people are going to stick around," Jordan-Evans says. "But your stars can get a new job tomorrow. It’s easier than ever to get a new job. You don’t have to leave your desk. All employees have to do is connect with someone who sees them as new and smart and fresh and wonderful, and they’ll see that grass as a heck of a lot greener."

    If you’re worried that you, too, might lose a high-quality employee, Jordan-Evans has some suggestions:

• Reward insiders like outsiders. Top employees know what’s going on in their field. It’s not a secret to them what you’re offering new employees in your company. If you’re giving signing bonuses to top rookies, consider giving retention bonuses to your best veterans. In the sports world -- which adopted HR trends like free agency, pay-for-performance, arbitration, and long-range succession planning before most other industries -- some superstars, angry that new recruits are getting paid more than they are, now have clauses in their contracts stipulating that they must have one of the top 10 biggest contracts in their sport.

• At the same time, watch out for people looking for money. Keep making great offers to great people to bring them in. But when money is the driving factor in a person’s decision-making, it’s a red flag. \"What you’ve just welcomed in the door is somebody who is not motivated by the other things your organization values,\" Jordan-Evans says. The Washington Post says Van Susteren took a pay cut of several hundred thousand dollars to go to Fox.

• Talk to managers about re-recruiting. Managers have more power and influence over retention than anybody else. Jordan-Evans suggests you train managers to ensure that top employees aren’t ignored. Managers should ask employees what will make them happier and more productive. This may take some brainstorming -- after all, if people knew immediately what it was that would improve their quality of job life and their efficiency, they’d already have asked for it. Managers should also help employees obtain the skills they need to get a promotion.

• Thank the dickens out of your best employees. Positive reinforcement, most psychologists will tell you, works better than negative.

It may be human nature to overlook and even neglect those closest to us. We buy flowers for the men and women we’re courting, but often not for our spouses. We give T-shirts and alarm clocks for starting a magazine subscription, but not for renewals. We distribute airline miles if you get a new credit card. Once you’re signed on, we jack up the interest rates.

Sometimes we treat current employees with the same disregard. In a 2001 letter to shareholders, Jack Welch said, "The top 20 percent of an organization’s employees should be loved, nurtured, and rewarded in the soul and wallet because they are the ones who make magic happen. Losing one of these people must be held up as a leadership sin -- a real failing."

To re-recruit your top employees, you may have to battle senior execs in your company. I say "battle" because if you want your company to spend some of its limited resources on employees and not other investments, you may be in for a fight. If you want backup, you’ve got Jack Welch.

You’ve also got Van Susteren. She was unquestionably in the top 20 percent of employees at CNN. Her program The Point was the network’s second-most-popular, behind Larry King’s show. The Wall Street Journal says that "Ms. Van Susteren’s departure is a blow to CNN because she was clearly part of the network’s plans."

She’s now a part of Fox’s plans, a fact the leaders at her new company should not forget. If they do, she may just pack her bags.

Workforce, April 2002, p. 80 -- Subscribe Now

Other columns by Todd:

• HR's New Guru? An NBA Bigmouth
• Let's Teach Employees to Retire
• Business Can Make Child Care Work
• It's a Good Time for Quiet Radicals
• A Holiday to Help the Econom