Notorious for neglecting to engender company loyalty, PR firms now seem to be listening. GCI, for example, recently enacted the GCI Academy, a training and development program for employees. Every employee is encouraged to attend. Ketchum College, established in 1990 to provide Ketchum employees with professional development training, offers classes run by leaders in their respective industries. It's critical to an organization that employees feel they have professional growth and expansion opportunities, in addition to feeling important.
Professional development is only one hot button companies push.
Some have enacted or sweetened such employee-friendly policies as flex time, signing bonuses, casual dress, job sharing and 401K and other financial plans. A Piece of the Action Equity in the company seems to foster employee loyalty. According to a study by the National Center for Employee Ownership, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California, a strong correlation exists between the amount of money a company puts into its stock plan and employee retention. It found that workers are even less likely to resign if the stock vests over several years, requiring them to forfeit significant sums if they depart. AlliedSignal, located in Morristown, New Jersey, for example, recently launched a mentoring program for about a thousand of its recent college recruits, pairing them with senior managers who take them to meetings or lunch on a regular basis.