Be as attentive to your best employees as you are to your best customers.

In the past organizations have invested tremendous resources to attract and keep great customers, but in this bold economy businesses are forced to be less concerned with getting the business in the door and more concerned with moving the business out the door. Now, production and delivery capture more attention than sales, which is why great employees become extremely valuable. Losing them can seriously cripple an operation.

Chris, a computer hardware technician, was reasonably happy with her job. She liked that it was near her home, and she could easily be available to her children; but she was working harder and harder with scant recognition or compensation. When approached by another company with a more attractive salary and flexible work schedule, she accepted. Although her current employer counter-offered and begged her to stay, Chris says, "It was too late. Why didn't they take better care of me in the first place?"

Roy, who works in the after-sales department of a manufacturing plant, filling orders for old parts, says, "Only two more years to retirement, and I'm out of here. This company has run off the good people who can do this job, and they're having difficulty hiring anyone knowledgeable and willing to take on the stress from the record-breaking sales of the past few years. I do what I can, but it's overwhelming."

Julie Schiltz with Stihl, Inc in Virginia Beach, Virginia talks about deliberate ways the company takes care of great employees. Says Schiltz, "We have an attractive reward system; this company shares it's wealth. We don't take on more than we can produce. We don't sacrifice quality for quantity. We are conscientious about showing appreciation and maintaining an attractive work environment. Perhaps the biggest motivator, though, is our sense of pride for making the best steel chainsaws in the world."

Is your organization as attentive to its best employees as it is to its best customers?

Ann C. Humphries, CPCM, is President of ETICON, Inc. - etiquette consultants for your business - and creator of the Proud To Be Polite education program, PO Box 69530, Columbia, SC 29229 USA. Phone: 803-736-1934/fax: 803-736-0673 http://www.eticon.com