August 17, 2012

A personnel management book to watch for: Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go


A personnel management book to watch for: Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, ISBN-10: 1609946324; ISBN-13: 978-1609946326

This book by co-authors by Beverly Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni is designed for personnel officers, supervisors, managers, directors, team leaders, training personnel and others involved in personnel management and development. Focusing on employment models and personnel management situations common to the private sector, it provides insights to help management develop and retain valuable personnel that are applicable to employment in the public sector as well.

The basic premise of the authors: “Career development is one of the most powerful and underutilized levers managers have to drive engagement, retention and results. Even during challenging economic times, an organization’s best and brightest have options. Failing to help them grow can lead employees to quit and leave or quit and stay which can sometimes be even more devastating.” 

This is an easy to read handbook, with easy to apply insights, that will prove valuable to those having personnel management responsibilities as well as those aspiring to such positions.

To download an excerpt from this book to your computer, visit www.help-them-grow.com

Scheduled for publication September 17, 2012, Watch Them Grow may be pre-ordered from your local bookstore or Amazon. It will be available in a soft-cover edition and in an e-book edition.

Below is a sampling of the author’s suggestions set out in this 144 page “hands on, how to handbook” that could make a difference.

Just talk with people. In today’s workplace, everyone knows that employees own their careers. But there’s a lot you can do through conversation to help focus, energize, and activate that ownership toward satisfying results by merely talking with employees.

Keep learning about employees — and help them learn about themselves throughout their careers.  Genuine interest is too frequently in short supply, yet it goes a long way toward building loyalty, retention, and results.

Encourage and enable foresight. What people are good at, what they love, and how they like to work needs to be filtered through a foresight lens. When you help employees develop the ability to scan the environment, anticipate trends, and spot opportunities, you provide a constructive context for career development.

Leverage insights... Opportunities exist where what the employee wants to do can find expression in the real, ever-changing world of work. Help employees mine that intersection. 

Paint a more expansive picture of career development and available growth opportunities.
Most people have blinders on when it comes to how to advance their careers, and they look only upward. Encourage them to develop in all directions.

Help others think through how to turn their career goals into action. Ideas and objectives are a good starting point, but they don’t get far without the creativity of opportunity mindedness, the tactical focus of planning, and the ongoing conversations that help employees recognize and make the most of education, exposure, and experiences designed for development.

Find ways to bring development to life day in and day out. Waiting for an annual or pre-scheduled meeting to discuss career matters robs you and the employee of the energy and opportunities that are present always and everywhere. Infuse development conversations into the workflow and see how quickly they permeate the culture.