Book Short: On Employee Engagement The first time I ever heard the term “Employee Engagement” was from my colleague David Sieh, one of the better managers I’ve ever worked with. He said it was his objective for his engineering team. He explained how he tried to achieve it. I Quit, But forgot to Tell You, by Terri Kabachnick, is a whole book on this topic, a very short but very potent one (the best kind of business books, if you ask me). It’s got all the short-form stuff you’d expect…a checklist of reasons for disengagement, an engagement quiz, the lifecycle of an employee that leads to disengagement, rules for dealing as a manager. But beyond the practical, the book serves…
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Human Resources
Closer to the Front Lines
Closer to the Front Lines When we started Return Path, we added a little clause to our employee handbook that entitled people to a sabbatical after 7 years of service (and then after every 5 incremental years). Six weeks off, 3/4 pay. Full pay if you do something “work related.” Sure, we thought. That’s an easy thing to give. We’ll never be 7 years old as a company. Now, 8 1/2 years later, of course, the first wave of people are reaching their sabbatical date. A couple have already gone (one trip around the world, one quality time with the kids). A couple others are pending. Four of us at the exec level are overdue to take ours, and we…
Saying Goodbye
Saying Goodbye Seth Godin’s post yesterday of the same title has this good advice for businesses who are shutting down: It seems to me that you ought to say goodbye with the same care and attention to detail and honesty you use to say hello. You never know when you’ll be back. The same should be said of companies and employees. We always try in interviews to be as kind as possible to candidates who we are not going to hire. I’m sure we don’t always get it right at all levels, but I always make a personal phone call and usually send a handwritten letter to finalists for senior jobs. Once, when I had to “ding” a candidate for…
Who’s The Boss?
That’s not just the title of a mediocre 1980’s sitcom starring Tony Danza, it’s a question I get periodically, including last week in an interview. A writer I know is working on an article on entrepreneurship and asked me, “Before you started your own business, how did you like working for other people?” The question made me think a little bit. I know what she was asking — how I liked being the boss instead of working for one — but the way she phrased it is interesting and revealing about what it’s like to be a CEO. One of the biggest differences between being in a company and starting or running one is that you’re not working for a…