Most company owners would agree that the most important asset is their employees, and one of the biggest challenges of building and…

One company's story in trying to solve their retention problem. For them, the solution to keeping people from leaving was to embrace reality and support those leaving. Also, this kind of tactic has massive implications on your employer brand.

I think I've mentioned that the concept of "belonging" is far more powerful than "joining" (think about that when you write your 47th "join us!" social media job post...), but the HBR goes deeper, defining the value of having people feel like they belong to the company. (Note the juxtaposition with the white paper above where isolation and loneliness are going to be a real problem).

Consider how many people applied to Valve after seeing this viral employee handbook (which was designed as a public-facing document because it has a section on what it is looking for in new employees). If you read it, it is filled to the brim with so many little touches and brand-specfic in-jokes that it REEKS of publicity stunt, but an insanely specific one.

I'm really surprised I haven't heard more chatter about this essay at HBR. They suggest that one strategy to encouraging retention is to focus on hiring women. They also bring up data suggesting employees (even millennials) want to be loyal. As someone who is marries to a career coach, I can affirm that NO ONE likes or wants to look for a job unless they absolutely have to, so maybe companies don't really have to bend over backwards to increase retention.

Is now the perfect time to form a company book club? Well, I'm a huge fan of getting book clubs together (and I've seen instances of the CEO just mentioning that he/she is reading a certain book lead to informal but impactful culture change), so yes. Do it. Do it now. The trick, as ever, is to pick a good book.

What you reward is who your company is. But how do you reward people in a remote work situation? Stories Incorporated has some ideas on the subject.

According to Gallup's most recent data, employee engagement is at an all-time high. Huh?