Chapter 10 Discussion Post

1. Concept and Brief Description
2. Emotional Hook (provocative question/claim/real-life problem)
3. Key Points to Elicit in Discussion
4. Facilitative Questions

1. This chapter discussed separating and retaining employees. I've learned from personal experience that these are two of the most important elements in building a successful team (or business.) Knowing who to keep and who to let go is an ongoing dilemma. I was told by Kimberly Clark's former CEO that many businesses get rid of the bottom 10% of their people as a recurring practice. What are the processes for terminating someone's employment? (involuntary turnover.) What if someone wants to leave of their own volition? (voluntary turnover.) I've learned that firing can be a delicate situation. This chapter explains how to do it while remaining sensitive to the employees feelings, mitigating legal risk, and gaining insight into how to improve the organization. Of all the details this chapter went into, the main overarching theme for me was to have a PROCESS for these things. Do not leave them up to individual managers or you will find yourself not being objective, and probably not being in compliance with the law. The process leading up to termination that the book recommends is: unofficial spoken warning, official written warning, second written warning plus the threat of temporary suspension, temporary suspension plus written notice that this is a last chance to improve, and finally termination. If an employee wishes to leave (even though you may want him or her to stay), it would be wise for you to conduct an "exit interview" to gain insight into why they are leaving. If several employees state the same reasons for leaving in different exit interviews, you may want to review your management processes to prevent future turnover.

2. Have you ever left an organization voluntarily? What were your reasons?

3. There are thousands of legitimate reasons for leaving a company. Many if not most of which have nothing to do with poor management by the company. Often however, the reasons are due to the way company does things or the way certain people behaved or interacted with us on the job. I don't think one big event causes people to decide in an instant to leave their job. I think its gradual. This chapter talks a lot about "job withdrawal." It states the reasons employees become withdrawn from their jobs is because they become dissatisfied. The primary causes of job dissatisfaction are: personal dispositions (such as if your job goes against your values or has no personal meaning), tasks and roles (for example if your job duties are unclear or overwhelming), supervisors or coworkers (if there were conflict with these people), and pay and benefits (if you're not being compensated well enough.) Any of these can cause an employee to withdraw, waste time, and eventually leave.

4. Have you ever experienced job withdrawal? Can you identify what caused it? Could you categorize it into one of these four areas? What happened? (Did you leave, talk to your supervisors to seek resolution, etc.)

Reflections

The interesting topic in this class discussion was training vs development. What is the difference between the two? Why is one mandatory and one one voluntary? Training represents a minimum standard of current knowledge. Development is future oriented and may not apply to everyone. Everyone may not have the same ambitions and you don't want to waste time and resources helping people "develop" that do not want to develop! Or maybe they do but they are not going to be with your organizations at the point when that developing would come to fruition. So as an HR manager you need to recognize the difference between training and development.