What makes an employee invaluable?
What makes an employee invaluable?
(OP)
This is a question for those that either run their own business or manage employees. What are your opinions of what makes an employee invaluable? I'm looking for a little more than the typical cliches.
Thank you for your input!
Thank you for your input!





RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
The short answer is they solve far more problems than they create.
Or is that a cliché?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Sadly, after working in a supervisory capacity for the last 20 years of my employment, I found many employees with superior intellect, great qualifications/education that "found the door" more often than the "guy that just got along" with the management. Work ethic and timeliness play a big part.......Still, it's all too often a "personality" driven business.
Perhaps I've been retired too long (14 years this April) and have become somewhat cynical in my declining years?
Rod
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Sorry if these also sound like a cliché but sometimes it is what it is.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
UG/NX Museum: http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
But getting the job done right the first time, and working with minimal supervision goes a long way towards it.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
but if an employee hits home the key elements for a firm, than they would be considered a good emplpoyee.
these key elements can be:
cost
technical ability
timing
client liaison
quality control
ass kissing
http://www.nceng.com.au/
"A safe structure will be the one whose weakest link is never overloaded by the greatest force to which the structure is subjected" Petroski 1992
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
I like people who:
-are looking for their next assignment before their current one is totally finished - able to juggle projects.
-go the extra mile. While I enjoy problem solving, look for the answers and talk to the right people before bringing me the problem.
-know their own capabilities and are sincere about it. I'd rather have to explain to superiors that a job will take longer than expected and be on time, rather than have to explain why we were late.
-are flexible. If I really need a material take off or a purchase order or something a little different, I sometimes need a right hand man (or lady) who can make my life easier.
-act like they want to be here. I actually have a co-worker that has outright told me that he doesn't like working on projects for the client that I primarily work for. He is a good technical engineer, but I always know that he'd rather be doing something else.
I hope this helps.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
I look for self motivation, self critical, a strong work ethic and pride in doing a good job. Ability to work as a team team member and show respect for the work and position of others also helps a lot. If people strive to make themselves irreplaceable, I replace them ASAP
If you find this in an employee, make sure you show sufficient appreciation to make them feel special. Cash is the only truly sincere form of flattery in business. OK, giving someone authority is also a pretty sincere form of flattery. It does not take much extra to make someone feel special.
Regards
Pat
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
- to their own integrity
- to their family
- to their profession
- to their Company
- to their project
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
As for the right characteristics it really depends on the organization. At one place you may be the cats meow in the technical arena but at another you may be a hinderence. Half the battle is finding where YOU fit in.
One thing I constantly remind myself is that you can go from hero to zero at work in the blink of an eye and my main responsibility at work is to take for myself as much as I give my organization. Deep down that is what MOST people are doing and it is the main reason why they stay around for so long.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
> Know their presentation material inside out
> Know when to shut up and listen to the customer
TTFN
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Here's another question - how many of you put up with problem employees just because it's too big of a headache to replace them. Furthermore, what does an employee have to do to get shown the door? Also, if an employee does prove to be a problem, what actions are taken for correction?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Typically to correct a problem employee the first thing I do is try to increase communication with that person. If I didn't get much out of them I would casually seek information from a coworker of that person who may know what their issue is.
To correct their behavior I take what their grievance is and if practical try to accommodate them. It's better for the whole group if you can make that person happy without screwing others over. The person may need a different assignment, better support, or have a coworker that they don't get a long with. I try to bring the two together to discuss differences and work things out first before separating them. I don't want people playing games with job assignments because they think I'm weak and will reward negative behavior by giving them what they want.
In a nut shell it's all situation specific but those are my experiences.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Make money for the owners.
Make your boss and coworkers look good to TPTB (the powers that be).
Make life easier, not harder, for your boss and coworkers.
Have specialized, scarce knowledge valuable in your role.
"I want to get fired" employee:
Be dishonest, untrustworthy, irresponsible.
Stir up gossip or other trouble among coworkers.
Provide substandard performance in your duties.
I will put up with poor performers to a point, but when an employee actively sabotages our ability to work together through dishonesty or troublemaking, their days are numbered. I could forgive scrapping $1000 worth of parts; stealing $10 would mean termination. For me the most important thing is trust. I have not found a way to work with someone effectively over time if there is no trust present.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
To summarize the comments above, no one is indispensible unless perceived so by the person who has termination authority. I believe it.
But I firmly believe that it is a very rare bird who makes a really fine manager. Most of us have to suffer through terrible excuses for managers. I think THAT is the root cause of most bad employee behavior.
I had good one, once, when much younger. I was part of a team of recent grads, frightfully intelligent but not so experienced, who "knew it all" and were part of something really exciting. Our team boss had the personality & savvy to herd this bunch of tempermental cats into some great award-winning achievements. It was the best experience of my career. He quit to go on to much greater things with that guy who ran the "Fruit Computer" company. The company replaced GoodBoss with "YearsOfExperienceManager" and it all went to hell. The entire team quit in a manner of a couple months.
I had the experience of salvaging a "trouble employee". This person was hated by the entire company and the regime wanted her gone, but she was wonderfully competent. I used the soft approach, was patient, and was able to get her to understand she needed to modify her behavior. She did, and the company was better for it.
We're all made in the image of the Almighty and should be treated as such. It rarely happens, unfortunately. For the so-called "trouble employees", if given the opportunity, I would try everything I know to salvage that employee. If unsalvagable, then I would attempt to guide that person into another position and/or company where they could be happier and a better fit. But the "quick reaction, decisive management" culture we live in today, a result of the dysfunctional HR weasels and legal industry, rarely allows that opportunity to treat each other with anything resembling human dignity.
TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering
www.bluetechnik.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
It's not "the smartest" guy (gal); I am not that.
It's not the "most talented" guy / gal; I am not that.
It's not the "most profitable" guy (gal); I am not that.
It's not "the best looking" guy (gal); well, OK, I *am* that...
It's certainly *NOT* an MBA...not that I am in any way bitter...
Actually, whatever most people think it is, I am none of it...and, yet, this year, at the Christmas Party, I was still recognized as one of the outstanding employees of the year.
So...what is it?
In hockey terms...it's the ability to either put the puck in the net, or know who to pass it to so that *they* can put the puck in the net. An example:
I asked an intern student to get me a price for (make / model) pump from (named specific supplier) and try to give me (x weeks) delivery. The intern corresponded with exactly who I asked him to, asked him exactly what I wanted him to ask, and got the answer: delivery would be (x+y) weeks. Then, he got on the phone and on the email and researched everyone else who could find the exact same pump, explained that "x" was acceptable whereas "x+y" was not, found a suitable alternate supplier, and came back to my office in a couple of days with a bid summary, a draft purchase order, terms and conditions, and asked if there was anything else that I might need to approve in order to obtain the pump I wanted in the time I wanted it. I signed the paperwork and said "good job", because that was all that was left for me to do.
This "mentorship" stuff is easy!
It's *that* that makes an employee invaluable.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Oddly, we cross paths again, 6 yrs later at another company, but it wasn't my problem any more and it wasn't my department's problem either.
Unrelated, during those 6 yrs at another company, we had another problem child; when she announced her departure, we had a going away party for her, but somehow, we forgot to invite her
TTFN
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
I believe that method is used in goverment. It is called "kicking a problem upstairs".
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
"One Monkey doan stop no show!"
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Personality, skill-set, creativity, ability to empower others, communication skills, ability to identify problems ahead of criticality and solve them, and the list goes on.
Just my 2 cents.
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Some responders are interpreting it as so valuable as to be difficult to place a value on it.
Some are interpreting it as irreplaceable.
Here are some dictionary definitions.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/invaluable
ht
Regards
Pat
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
I believe its the intangibles he / she brings to bear in the job.
We can all hire well-qualified, capable people to retire in place so to speak. Recognizing candidates or people in your organization who have those qualities is the key. You can teach most people any given task, you can't teach (on a rare occasion maybe) someone to look beyond the task, reach out to find a solution, engage in the process, or get others engaged, without being told or prompted to do so. The question you have asked is interesting because it is tough to quantify or describe adequately, but we all recognize individuals like that because they become our go to people. They're accountable, engaging, and when they speak, as EF Hutton used to say "People Listen." I'm fortunate because I have several in my group. I wish I could bottle up their enthusiasm and energy and inject it into a few others. Hope that helps.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
- Steve
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Nobody is irreplaceable. Check the graveyard as bridgebuster so wisely pointed out.
A wise and cynical person once told me that all employees can be neatly fit into a 2x2 matrix: smart and stupid on one axis, hardworking and lazy on the other.
Obviously the smart and hard-working ones are the ones you want, as they net you 10x their salary in revenue.
Smart and lazy is OK too: they may only generate 3x, but they're still good.
Stupid and lazy is OK too- they cost you only a little more than a salary.
But stupid and hardworking- those you've got to find and fire QUICK before they bankrupt you!
All kidding aside: what makes someone an invaluable employee? It depends totally on the business they're in- and who is employing them. Many unsuccessful companies have invaluable employees, remember, so what is in the company's actual interest and what the company perceives to be in its interest may be different. It's also true that some of the skills that make me totally successful in my current employ would make me a complete disaster in other lines of work.
A good employee can figure out what the business needs and then build those skills, without waiting for their boss to tell them that they're not measuring up.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
That's perfect, particularly if a promotion makes you a manager instead of an engineer.
TTFN

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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
While I think companies should help their employees, I struggle with how much help should be provided. I think companies are too harsh on some and too lenient on others. But, if the church weren't falling down on its functions, Christians would be much better in the workplace because their family baggage would be dealt with elsewhere.
There are all kinds of situations in life with creative and innovative solutions, which is the fun part. :)
Overall, I don't think of any of us are indispensable. Value is often an intangible measurement, which should be considered with care.
My training to shed union employees was enlightening. There are several steps that have to be meticulously documented for obvious reasons. The company's perspective was don't bother because it isn't worth the time and effort because the union will win anyway.
But, I have friends in business who love their employees because they make life and business so much easier. It seems very personality dependent to me.
Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
In another team where I work, no current member was part of it when I joined the department. That team is in at least its second generation, possibly third.
- Steve
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Also it takes more than being good at your current roll to be good in the next role. Management has to guess as to how you will handle untested qualities that will be required.
Regards
Pat
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
I wish Pat, instead they just dump the new work on you while in practice still expecting you to do whatever you were already doing.
(Of course if I wasn't wasting time on eng-tips maybe I'd have made some progress
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
So I made one mistake in five -- I am not invaluable - I just run the department.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
"One I would like to let go - but he has 3 kids"
From a business point of view why is the quantity of his off spring your concern? Don't get me wrong, I dislike excessively hard nosed business folks as much as the next employee. However, if they are really so bad you want to get rid of them is them having kids a good enough reason to keep them? How is their poor performance impacting other employees etc.?
Sorry, just stood out to me for some reason.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
In retrospect, what frustrated me about him was not that he did things wrong, but that he chose to do the wrong things.
E.g., to run a DC linear actuator, he chose to design a power supply from scratch, rather than buying one, or just buying a car battery and a float charger. That last would have been the best option because the actuator required >250 amps to start under load (which it had to do in our application), vs. its nominal current requirement of about 20 amps, which is what our magic power supply was designed for. The power supply worked great on the test bench.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Back in my drafting days, the small company I worked for hired a client's son to do drafting for us. I was Senior Draftsman (for whatever that's worth), but found out they were paying him something like $1.50/hr more. When questioned about that, the response was "He doesn't want to have a roommate in his apartment, so he needs more money to pay the rent." No kidding... really? I don't want to live with roommates, either, but that didn't affect my pay. I quit several weeks later after having worked for them nearly four years. Found out sometime later that the kid left them high and dry a few months after I left.
Except in times of need, such as time off for sickness/death in the family, your personal life and details should have zero effect on how you are treated at work, including pay.
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
It's not a holiday camp, or a family picnic.
- Steve
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
But I am human - and love kids .... in the right sort of way!!!
Got 4 g-kids that are the love of my life!! Daughter - not so much.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
"Luck is where preparation meets opportunity"
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
This has been in the works for over two years. I have had two people who kind of intimated that he drove them crazy and they had to move on - either internally or externally.
Once I get a few other things straightened out - he's gone.
It just has taken me that long to get "others" trained and licensed!!
I LOVE my daughter - she is just a dark haired "blond" if you get my drift!!! "An air head"
PLEASE slta and Cassiopeia and any other women on this forum - nothing against women!!! I promise. Her husband is probably worse!! Actually, he is!!!
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
If I had the power to force people to make those kind of decisions over the net, I would have been rich long ago.
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
"Luck is where preparation meets opportunity"
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
That's why I love this forum -- there are always two sides to every story and usually three sides - with the truth somewhere in the middle.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
It's business. There's an intangible side of making a business efficient by keeping employees happy... and there's also the money side. Dollars are really easy to count.
MTC. Good luck with your decision.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
And yes, being too good makes you a good prospect for being kept in the same job for as long as possible.
On the other hand, the over-riding HR guiding principle is that no one is indispensable.
Anyone who appears to be invaluable will tend to be regarded as a bit of a risk.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
The arrogant and egotistical people I've encountered in all of the places that I've worked could usually be replaced by a steaming pile of cow dung and the company would be no worse for it. Unfortunately, they are usually the ones who stick around just long enough to frustrate the invaluable guy/girl to the point of quitting, and then go their merry way after smartly upsetting the works.
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Brilliance = talent (it's a gift); Helpful = attitude (takes effort)
With sports, as with any team in anything, effort beats talent most of the time. Just look at how the Bruins disposed of the Canucks in last year's Stanley Cup, for example. The same is true in the workplace.
The only time it doesn't work that way is when the people with the most talent also put in the most effort. That's when they become invaluable.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
I've seen too many talented people not putting the effort because they never had to to get ahead or just to be on par with those with work hard! That's a shame to waste all that potential.
Patrick
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Pseudo Brilliance = effort and involvement - by comparison with many, not hard to achieve the illusion of brilliance if you have some smarts (in the kingdom of the blind....)
Helpful = attitude. Not easy to fake. Some people are naturally inclined to be helpful.
Well, they are that way inclined even if what they have to offer isn't worth the effort in the end. Think of all those people only too pleased to give directions when they clearly have no idea where they are or where you want to be. (My wife has a gift of selecting these people to ask for directions. They always want to help and will waste hours with their useless directions.)
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Maybe so if they make that attribution to themselves, however if others make it, how does that make the recipient of the praise arrogant or snobbish.
Regards
Pat
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
TTFN

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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
The absence of brown-nosers, the valuable employee's natural predator.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
- Steve
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
(sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to spell the word the way I wanted to... this isn't the Pub
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Regards
Pat
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Sleep with the pointy headed one?
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Regards
Pat
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
A long time ago I worked for a female boss, and she was both highly competent and invariably professional. But if she had offered I confess I would have been sorely tempted. But not for the purpose of moving up in the organization...she was simply stunningly lovely.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Yeah Ok, I'm just joking too and I did know you were joking Lisa247.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Thank goodness you were only fooling around.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Did you really mean to say she was fooling around.
Lisa. We don't mind that sort of joking around in the pub. It's kinda what it's for.
Regards
Pat
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Give them answers a day before the question are asked
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Managing managers is not that difficult for some.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
The most secure "invaluable" employee that I can think of would be an in-law of some sort to top management.
Technically, the glass is always full.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Regards
Pat
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
As an employer I used to think " That guy is great, but what am I going to do if he quits?".
It has happened, my top guy got a better offer from a competitor that I was unwilling to match.
So then I am more careful in how I train people, because if I show them too much they will leave.
You can see how self defeating this is, you end up with a bunch of guys/gals you have to nursemaid who do not expand and grow.
At which time they are all dispensible.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Technically, the glass is always full.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
I think the answer is to have depth in the organisation by having everyone trained up for their next potential advancement and to have several skilled in each task essential for the companies ongoing viability.
Regards
Pat
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
I agree fully with Pat. If you do not invest in your employees the whole organisation can become stale. This in return can be used to motivate employees to stay there. Employees are an asset as much as machinery and other physical assets.
Joe Borg
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
Entrapment by the insistence on performance mediocrity.
That is a completely mind-staggering perversion.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
To expect people to remain in one place for long is unrealistic.
However, if you don't offer incentives to stay for longer you lose useful people quicker than you can train them and get left with the no-hopers.
Training adds value.
It does make people more employable by others.
But it also acts as an incentive to encourage people to stay longer where they can add value to themselves quicker.
The issue then is for the employer to try and come out ahead on the cost benefit side of the game.
Employees with ambitions are often better employees. Not always, but often.
Good employers will recognise that they can attract the best employees if they help those employees meet their own goals which may well be to move on to better jobs.
HR's function is succession planning.
People can do funny things like leave to work for some one else or get run over by buses.
Funnily enough the one area that seems to defeat HR succession planning is retirement. They know that if so and so doesn't get the sack or hand in his notice or get hit by a bus, come his 65th birthday he is out of the door.
Usually HR catch on to this about one or two days before he actually retires.
Plus it seems that the more valuable the employee the closer to retirement before they realise the problem.
Go figure.
It makes you wonder bout working your notice period too.
I can't say I have ever had a constructive well thought out plan put to me for my notice period.
In some companies, if they think you are going to a competitor, they will let you go immediately. I have never understood why because if your leaving is a surprise to them, it isn't to you and if you were going to do anything tricky, you'd have done it already.
The first job I left they decided to keep me as long as possible to spite the competitor I was going to but took me off normal duties and gave me a special project which I did to the best of my ability, even though I was the last one to arrive at the pub for my own leaving party.
I have never been asked to help transfer anything to a successor.
The most I have been asked to do is make sure everything on my laptop was organised onto the company mainframe for future reference but I have never seen any sign that anyone ever used it.
But who ever said management or HR were smart?
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
I work for a company that does an excellent job of staff retention. They offer great benefits, tons of training opportunities, flexible work hours and competitive pay and the result is that most people stay for their entire career.
However, I think this may be the company's biggest issue because you have a person that has worked there for 35 years, and nowhere else, teaching someone that will work there for 35 years, and nowhere else. You begin to develop an inbreeding of knowledge and it becomes incredible difficult to change the way of thinking. It is a great company that has a lot of very experienced people, but sometimes it suffers from a lack of fresh ideas and perspectives.
Best bet is to treat your employees well; they will reciprocate. All the while, plan for, and appreciate the benefits of, change.
RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
If you do not train, you never get competent people even short term. If you do train and they leave, at least you had competent people for some time. If you do train and manage to retain them, you have won twice.
If you are holding them back, try to place them with a customer or prospect. That way you get a loyal friend at the customers.
Regards
Pat
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RE: What makes an employee invaluable?
They fast tracked good candidates into good positions. Not brown nosers, good candidates.... (this is the company where I once had a good manager who was fast tracked out of there).
If they went on to better things in Schlum or with other companies it was all the same.
I also worked at companies where they not only had a problem keeping employees they had a problem finding good candidates to begin with because it was recognised that no one good ever came from that company.
So if you do take new employees in one year and turn them out several years later as above average, you should find good applicants come your way and you get a better return on your investment than if you have to invest the same or more effort on poor employees you then can't get rid of.
JMW
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