Strategy #10: Re-recruit your best people on a regular basis

When the recruiting rush is on, the job candidate is made to feel like a Hollywood celebrity. Shortly after they’ve completed orientation, however, they may start to feel like they’re being taken for granted. It begins to feel like a well-worn marriage, where years have passed since the husband sent his wife a bouquet of roses on their anniversary (if indeed he even remembers it). What if, instead, every employee felt like they were periodically being re-recruited, the way a husband my ask his wife out for “a date” on a special occasion, even though they’ve been married for years?

I was recently speaking with a nurse who’d worked with her hospital for almost 30 years. She was pretty upset to have learned that a newly-graduated nurse was coming onto her unit making almost the same money as the floor’s veterans. She was definitely feeling taken for granted.  In a metaphorical sense, she felt that the administration was falling all over itself trying to get “dates” with new graduates, but had forgotten to send roses to the loyal old hands. She emphasized that it was not really about the money – she understood the need to compete for new graduates at market rates. Rather, it was that sense of being taken for granted that bothered her.

As with many of the other ideas in this report, it does not necessarily require money. The nurse with whom I was speaking understood the marketplace dynamics of health care, and the constrictions upon her organization. She was willing to make sacrifices; she was just resentful that her sacrifices were not being recognized or appreciated. A personal visit from the CEO to tell her how much she and the other veterans were appreciated would have done a lot to assuage her anger.

“The choice of a work community defines our lives and identities more powerfully than our choice of a suburb or a senator or even a house or vacation destination.  Yet many people look on a job only as a necessary evil, the unavoidable means of achieving a desired standard of living…  But talk to employees of the companies we call loyalty leaders, and you will get a very different picture.  Employees are proud that they and their colleagues treat customers and each other the way they themselves would like to be treated.”

Frederick F. Reichheld: The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden
Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value

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