The methodology was born in the middle of the (previous) recession, when all the news headlines were about firing, not hiring – and I thought staff retention isn’t exactly a top priority. When we asked the (German) client for whom the prototype was developed why they bother with extra retention effort – ‘Aren’t they all holding on to their desks and chairs in fear of redundancy?/ – they replied ‘Yes! The useless ones are. We only lose a small fraction, but those are our best people, who can afford to leave because they are marketable and in demand…’

I think we are seeing a lot of this again, and will perhaps see some more in 09.

Are you marketable and in demand? Consider a startup

V.

P.S. A little ‘secret’ and another reason to recommend startups: in our numerous studies with that tool we found that salary is rarely among the top 3 reasons to leave a job, and almost never made it to no.1. Yet management kept throwing money to stop talent churn. Another thing happened to be always in the top 3, and often no.1. It was ‘They don’t listen to me’ – listening doesn’t cost much, but…

Unlike the corporate world, in a startup you can be sure they will listen

Check out http://www.startuphire.com a job board focused exclusively on VC backed companies. Job seekers can create a search agent which notifies them when a new posting meets your criteria such as industry, VC, location or role. Employers can create a widget which will automatically post all openings on your career page on your site.