I came across Mark Andreesen’s post tonight and he brings up some excellent suggestions for retaining the best employees.
THINGS TO DO
Focus: In a technology company, focus on retaining the great architects and managers — the people who are the magnets for retaining other great people and hiring more great people…You have to retain the magnets — or at least a critical mass of them — because without them, you’re going to lose everyone else.
Promote Your Best People: especially into the jobs vacated by the more senior of the people you just fired — and give them very interesting challenges.
THINGS TO AVOID
Don’t create a new group or organization within your company whose job is “innovation”:
This takes various forms, but it happens reasonably often when a big company gets into product trouble, and it’s hugely damaging.
First, you send the terrible message to the rest of the organization that they’re not supposed to innovate. Second, you send the terrible message to the rest of the organization that you think they’re the B team.
The last company I worked for did exactly what Mark says to avoid, and it was very destructive.
It’s tough to get excited about much when you’ve been relegated to the B Team. As tempting as it sounds to only include a chosen few, it’s best to widen the input and brain-storming meetings to anyone, regardless of title, to those who show an interest.
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