BRANDEblog

Thursday, February 01, 2007

The “Oy” In “Loyalty”

In a recent edition of Inc. Magazine, Joanne S. Hovis of Columbia Telecommunications Corp. wrote in with an interesting quote: "My engineers have access to all kinds of confidential information. Can I (and should I) require them to sign a noncompete agreement?"

As a quick response, the author of "Ask Inc." said: "The more employees know about your business, the more they can help you -- or themselves if they decide to set up shop across the street or light out for the competition." In other words, a competent and eager employee can be both a positive and negative force to your company.

Michael Shetterley, an attorney for Ogletree Deakins, believes in making a new hire sign such an agreement, but questions the validity of one that is highly binding. For example, claiming exclusivity for too much territory can be a problem: "'Employees may not work for any telecom company anywhere in the country for years' won't fly with most courts."

The courts of Maryland being one example. RelianceNet CEO Pat Cooley makes employees sign noncompete forms but only enforces them in instances related to losing trade-secrets or workers to competitors. Explained Cooley: "We don't want to block or limit anybody from being successful in the future, but there are things we need to do to protect our business interest."

TicketCity.com CEO Randy Cohen feels similar to Cooley, believing that his employees should be entitled to future success, but sees the noncompete form as a test of loyalty: "If they seem worried about signing it, they're not looking at the big picture and seeing themselves as part of the team, so you probably don't want them anyway." His form includes a clause that bars these employees from working within 500 miles of TicketCity.com's headquarters. Although for current employees that are signing after the employee agreement has been signed, as a sign of your loyalty: "Give them something in return, such as bonuses or souped-up severance packages."

As this Q&A relates to staffing, it ought to lead you to think about your company. Were you personally working with a competitor in the past? How many of your company's staffers have previously worked with a competitor?

Of your company's former staffers, how many of them have moved on to working with a competitor, or started their related company? An employer ought to learn more about his or her employees. What seem to be their professional goals? What are their outside interests? Do they seem dissatisfied with any parts of their current position? While knowledge and skills themselves cannot be controlled, knowing who it is that's working for your company can only help prepare for loyalty and longevity within the company's culture.

Labels: Competition, Human Resources, Staffing

Written at 5:34 PM by CMO.

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Monday, January 29, 2007

Creativity for Business Results. That's Creative!

Nordson Corporation is one of the world's leading producers of precision dispensing equipment that apply adhesives, sealants and coatings to a broad range of consumer and industrial products.

In a piece from Incentive Magazine, CEO Bruce Fields discusses how they maintains its average employee for 15 years. This, while nearly half of its workforce of 3,600 employees is spread outside of the U.S. in more than two-dozen countries. And also as the company has increased shareholder dividends for 43 consecutive years, in addition to giving 5 percent of pre-tax domestic profits to charity.

"We believe the keys to leadership are vision, communication and trust. Without trust, it is difficult to impossible to effectively manage people, and ethics and integrity are two central components for trust." Believing in creativity as a key to their "solve the customers' problems business," Fields continually aims to foster such: "We invest time and other resources to recruit motivated and creative people who can deliver solutions to meet customers' needs. When you combine this with interesting work, and then surround that with a culture that supports learning, career opportunity and development--the result is an attractive package that not only enables people to provide technologically advanced and creative solutions to customers, but also [to] enjoy the process."

About a work/life balance, Fields believes: "Norton's leadership, since the company's inception, has held the belief that giving back to our communities is just the right thing to do. A benefit is that by being a visible community partner, Nordson has a good reputation as an employer of choice, which assists us in attracting and retaining talented people...We clearly define community involvement in terms of time as well as money." In regards to human resources, Fields noted: "We are continually testing the best ways to measure and evaluate people performance. Our human resources staff works with Nordson's business leaders each year to identify--based on the performance of their people--what they would like to emphasize in training. However, I am not challenged when we invest in leadership development, for example, to write up a report that says we'll see a six-month payback on that investment. In fact, we tend to ask if we are investing as much as we would like, rather than justifying the investments we're making."

In many ways, Nordson is describing a cutting-edge company in that it thinks locally and acts globally, yet simultaneously pleases its workers, clients, shareholders, and community. The message enforced by Fields appears to be that there are many people necessary to keep a company creative, active and profitable, and while working with a team focus, individual needs should also be considered. Even if many of those individuals are overseas.

How does these viewpoints from Nordson compare to your company? And how well do you communicate the vision?

Labels: Community, Human Resources, Leadership, Staffing

Written at 6:34 PM by JODY.

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