This is a great point. Now don't freak out if you're an employee.
It's not about what you pay. It's about what it costs you if they leave.
This is from an article in AmericanChronicle.com by Gerard Brandon, Managing Director of Eplixo Ltd., and founder, director and former CEO of Alltracel Pharmaceuticals.
Employee retention is a huge issue for businesses, especially in highly competitive, highly specialized industries. But the point here that's really worth holding on to is this:
Employees are NOT company assets. They are scarce experts renting their time to employers. An asset implies ownership.
Great point from Daniel Muzyka, Dean, Sauder School of Business, University British Columbia.
Brandon has one other point I'd like to highlight.
The biggest misconception that an employer has and mistake that they make is to believe that employees work for anybody but themselves.
He's right. So the next time you have a discussion about your "human resources" and are tempted to consider them "assets", keep this in mind.
You don't own them, you're only renting them for a limited time. Since you don't have ultimate ownership of them like you do a suit or a microwave, someone else just might be interested in renting them for a while.
Treat them well.
I remember from business school the definition of an asset is something you have rights to that creates income.
Talented people are creators. They are creative. Yes, there's a cost if they leave, but there's a much worse cost (in my perfect world) if they stay but, because of myriad reasons, they don't perform as well as they COULD... they don't create as much as they COULD. They don't succeed as much as they COULD.
Posted by: Robert Merrill | May 18, 2006 3:54 PM | Permalink to Comment