Managing for Organizational Effectiveness
Retaining talent in highly competitive technology companies may well require more than improving salaries, benefits, bonuses, and other forms of monetary compensation. The most effective strategies for retaining talented and valuable staff members involve treating employees with a sense of fairness and integrity, offering numerous training and career advancement opportunities while simultaneously fostering the kind of participative decision-making, intrapreneurial environment that workers prefer (Alati, 2004). Many human resource managers take the position that it is the characteristics of a job and not merely financial rewards that work to attract and retain competent professionals (Alati, 2004).
Alati (2004) also pointed out that a number of job characteristics are directly associated with high rates of employee retention. These characteristics include involving employees in job and product design, empowering work teams, creating opportunities for and rewards for innovation, and expanding employee authority and autonomy. Some less dramatic changes recommended by Alati (2004) include the creation of work environments that are less rigid, bureaucratic, and authoritarian and more casual, "laid-back," and flexible.
Retention issues were also addressed by Alati (2004) who called for capturing employees' attention by creating a proactive, collegial, and supportive culture. Maintaining consistent communication to include employees in company activities, recognizing performance and rewarding results, offering continuing education, and demonstrating interest in workers are among the strategies that seem to be particularly effective in retaining IT workers in general and computer programmers in particular. As Alati (2004) noted, retention is based on developing the right kind of work environment and organizational culture that rewards performance, creativity, and initiative, and most ...