Competitors aren’t trying to woo your underachievers. Instead, they’re stalking your top performers.

Unfortunately, surveys, polls and studies alike have found that all too often, employees are willing to be wooed. Today’s challenge is to craft ways to foster employee commitment and reduce turnover within newspapers.

A simple analogy. I owned a foreign brand of car when it still started with a “D.” It eventually gave out and I had to buy an American auto because of the difference in price. I was still single so it was sleek, sporty and powerful.  After driving it a few months, I started recommending it to my friends. I was a one-man, unpaid advertisement.

I believed in the car and the feeling it provided.

That’s loyalty - and it’s priceless.

Falling apart

Now comes the bad part. The car started to fall apart little by little. Within six months, the locks jammed, dashboard instrumentation started to fail and leaks sprung forth. The car ceased being enjoyable as the number of malfunctions increased.

What’s more, my mechanic began giving me some really bad news about the cost of repairs on parts that had gone past the warranty period.

Eventually, the car wouldn’t start and I left it where it died.

It was the last time I drove that brand. I left loyalty at the spot where I left the car.

How much is it worth?

So how much is loyalty worth to you? You know your newspaper is built on that concept. You need loyal customers, of course, but you also need loyal employees.

Let’s examine loyalty.

In the past few Newspapers & Technology articles, I’ve referred to the “Walker Loyalty Report: Loyalty and Ethics in the Workplace,” a September 2002 study gauging employee allegiance.

That survey found that only three in 10 U.S. employees are truly loyal to their employers. And another one-third has one foot out the door.

Clearly, today’s economic uncertainty may skew those percentages. But when the job market starts to open up again, you could see one-third of your workforce leaving within a few short months.

The Walker study showed that only 45 percent of respondents felt their organization was interested in developing their skills for long-term careers.

That figure hasn’t changed since 2001.

Someone once told me that employees are the only corporate assets with feet. They make a conscious decision every day to go back to work. Those assets may disappear without the concerted efforts of employers to increase the numbers of loyal employees - along with the profit margin.

What will work?

What does it take to keep employees happy, motivated and engaged in their jobs today?

As the NAA 2002 “Pipeline Survey” points out, two factors stand out: career training and development, and good managers. 

You should also learn what works from soon-to-be-former employees.

One place is the exit interview. Find out why they are leaving. Trends show up. You can also ask exiting employees, particularly those with top talent, whether you can invite them to return in the event a future job position opens up.

Yet another loyalty survey, this one conducted in 2002 by Milwaukee-based Manpower Inc., said loyalty is encouraged at companies that provide strong leadership and strong teamwork with open and honest communications.

It also found that professional and career employees “hit the wall” at the three-year mark. That’s the point when employees are ready to grow and look at new opportunities.

More choices

Manpower used the data from its study to bring more attention and emphasis to leadership development - defining it as anyone who manages people.

In addition, Manpower created its own corporate university. Employees today can sign up for courses, download information and manage a learning plan to get them where they want to go in the company.

Not only did these efforts give managers and employees better tools, they showed workers that “the company took action on feedback and did something. It was viewed very positively,” according to the firm.

Let me leave you with some thoughts from a Society of Human Resource Management white paper by Lin Grensing-Pophal, “Engaging Employees - From A - Z” (reviewed October 2002).

She addresses specific issues using the alphabet as a guide. I’ll concentrate on just a few, which I think are most important.

G: Give feedback.

H: Honesty. Employees appreciate your honesty.

I: Involve employees through participation in decision-making.

M: Manage effectively.

O: Opportunities. Many employees are upwardly mobile and want to move into higher-level and/or more challenging jobs.

Q: Question. You can learn a lot from your employees if you take the time to ask them.

S: Share information. Employees want to know so they can help make a more valuable contribution to their newspaper.

Ken Columbia is the Newspaper Association of America’s director of industry staff development. He can be reached via e-mail at coluk@naa.org.