Employee Retention of General Electric : The General Electric Company, or GE (NYSE: GE), is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in New York.[3] The Company operates through five segments: Energy Infrastructure, Technology Infrastructure, Capital Finance and Consumer & Industrial.[4] In 2010, Forbes ranked GE as the world's second largest company after JPMorgan Chase,[5] based on a formula that compared the total sales, profits, assets, and market value of several multinational companies.[6] The company has 287,000 employees around the world.
By 1890, Thomas Edison had brought together several of his business interests under one corporation to form Edison General Electric. At about the same time, Thomson-Houston Electric Company, under the leadership of Charles A. Coffin, gained access to a number of key patents through the acquisition of a number of competitors. Subsequently, General Electric was formed by the 1892 merger of Edison General Electric of Schenectady, New York and Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts, and both plants remain in operation under the GE banner to this day.[7] The company was incorporated in New York, with the Schenectady plant as headquarters for many years thereafter. Around the same time, General Electric's Canadian counterpart, Canadian General Electric, was formed.
Employee Retention, it is supposed to be a good thing. When I hear the word retention, it makes me think of attorneys and – retainers. If an attorney is retained, you either pay to use their services, or you pay to keep them available so you can use them. So now back to employee retention; we do pay them and hopefully they stick around. That is the premise, you want to keep them around – or do you? This was a subject me an my Project Social partner Laura Schroeder discussed last week You can read her take on the matter here.
Now regarding employee retention, Jack Welch, former CEO of G.E. felt that, at a minimum, 10% of workforce needed to leave every year. Now, this theory did get Jack and his company in a little hot water. Even so, SHRM must have tacitly endorsed this, as they had Jack as an opening speaker in 2009 in New Orleans. So some turnover can’t be all bad, and there is going to be a certain amount of turnover no matter what. Employees will move, leave, graduate, quit to care for loved ones, die and/or whatever else you can imagine.
So with all of that out of the way it boils down to what are you doing to keep most of your better employees from jumping ship? For the last several years, the economy has been in the doldrums and very few people have left any job because there were so few to move to. But now some of the soothsayers are prognosticating that when, the economy turns around, and it will, Katy bar the door. The theory is that all of the best talent will be stolen. It will be courted away from your business with more pay, better benefits, on-site daycare and employee massages.
Now there are some of us employers who really have not been able to land the top tier talent. For example: my son who graduated last year with a B.S. in M.E. told me that Microsoft visited his campus and was only interested in talking to the top 10 in the class. (That may be factually inaccurate, but suffice it to say they set the bar pretty high.) I have never had a swing at those kids, or employees of that caliber. Our organization has had to settle for the kids with a 3.0 who have a well rounded balanced life and are not expecting the world’s treasure’s at their feet.
Ever since these folks, the 3.0 ers, just like all of our employees, have come to work for our Company we have tried to treat them with respect and provide them with the best pay and benefits our Company can afford. That’s all we can do. We will continue to do so. If this doesn’t keep our “B” level talent then I guess we will have to move down to “B-“or “C+” talent. We can’t give the store away and will never have the resources of Microsoft of Exxon.
We will hire the people who wish to work at our Company and keep them as long as they want to stay. I hope this is for a long time. I am sure that any employer who treats their staff fairly, pays them a fair market based wage and offers reasonable benefits, will in-turn keep most of their best folks.
Here is the takeaway Focus on what you do control TODAY – and how you and your Company treat people EVERYDAY. Too much time spend worrying about what could be is simply wasted effort.
Federal Express (Baldrige Winner) Plan for Career Development & Education Develop a Career Plan for Each Employee: Federal Express employs extensive certification procedures — which must be annually updated and renewed — to ensure competency in critical skill areas for all line jobs and management positions. Indeed, customer contact employees go through testing every six months to ensure their skills meet minimum acceptable requirements. Through these certification procedures, FedEx can keep up-to-date tabs on individual employee skill levels and identify areas where large-scale training needs are not being met. Provide Various Training Options to Meet Diverse Needs: Federal Express is a recognized world leader in training. The company's extensive education and development programs include computer-based training, satellite broad-cast training, and staff-conducted training. FedEx excels in the area of cost, effectively delivering training to a massive work force in many locations operating 24 hours each day
GE is committed to the GRI G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (“The G3 Guidelines”), which continues to provide a valuable framework for GE’s citizenship reporting. Our 2009 citizenship reporting, which includes both the print 2009 Citizenship Report “Renewing Responsibilities” and the additional content on the GE Citizenship web site, applies a self-declared GRI Application Level A.
Through two sections — Part I: Reporting Principles and Guidance and Part II: Standard Disclosures (including performance indicators) — the G3 Guidelines provide a framework for organizations to report on their social, environmental and economic performance.
PART I REPORTING
In compiling the content for GE’s 2009 citizenship reporting, GE applies the Reporting Principles for Defining Content — see our Reporting Process — and the Reporting Principles for Defining Quality:
Balance — Provides both favorable and unfavorable results and covers a range of controversial issues relating to the application or misuse of GE products and services.
Comparability — Provides metrics over a minimum of five years (less only when the information is not available) and includes a GRI Index.
Timeliness — Publishes our annual citizenship reports at the same time every year with updates to the web site as new issues arise.
Clarity — Provides various formats for reporting to our stakeholders on GE citizenship activities through the summarized print report outlining our strategy and progress against commitments, and complimentary online content, which includes metrics and graphics, perspectives and longer features.
Accuracy and Reliability — GE Internal Audit Staff have reviewed the metrics and claims made in the 2009 Citizenship Report. The report has also been reviewed and approved by GE senior management.
Power production and distribution companies and the
companies that serve the power industry are capitalizing
on a surge of interest in the topic of energy—notably
alternative and clean energy sources—to bolster sagging
ranks depleted by a workforce dominated by employees
approaching retirement.
General Electric is one of those companies that sees strong
staffi ng opportunities in the media frenzy over energy.
“Today’s power industry is very exciting and
competitive,” says Kim Warne, manager of the GE Center
of Excellence supporting US recruiting and staffing
operations for five GE businesses: Energy, Aviation,
Transportation, Water & Process Technologies, and Oil
& Gas. “Innovative shifts to alternative power sources
such as renewable energy and cleaner coal, as well
as traditional power sources such as natural gas and
nuclear, are driving tremendous interest and activity.”
“First, due to the large number of new people we bring
into our business each year, we fi nd that orientation and
assimilation are critical to retaining talent within the fi rst
12 months,” she says. “We have new-hire checklists that
walk new employees through the fi rst 30-60 days. We have
also developed a PowerOn new employee assimilation
program, which is mandatory for all new hires. We provide
information on the business, our products, critical processes,
and operating mechanisms. We also provide bimonthly
newsletters to keep new employees up to date on tools and
information that’s useful as they become acclimated to GE.”
Also as part of its retention initiatives, GE Energy is actively
targeting its employees who have been with the business for
2-5 years.
“We have created a special program called Energized Faces,
Exciting Places that highlights employees at various stages
in their careers and details why they decided to come to GE
and why they choose to stay,” Warne says. “Th e program
also provides a tool for employees to blog with one another
about their experiences.”
GE Energy also came to the conclusion that no matter
“what career stage you are in, your manager plays a large
role in your overall ‘engagement’ and therefore retention
with GE Energy.”
Accordingly, in 2007, GE launched a Contemporary
Leadership Series for all managers.
“Th ese sessions focused on Knowing and Connecting with
Employees, Coaching Skills, Empowering Employees,
Appreciating Employees, and fi nally Building a Global Team,”
Warne notes. “Retention needs to be driven at the manageremployee
level and needs to be specifi c to each person.”
By 1890, Thomas Edison had brought together several of his business interests under one corporation to form Edison General Electric. At about the same time, Thomson-Houston Electric Company, under the leadership of Charles A. Coffin, gained access to a number of key patents through the acquisition of a number of competitors. Subsequently, General Electric was formed by the 1892 merger of Edison General Electric of Schenectady, New York and Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts, and both plants remain in operation under the GE banner to this day.[7] The company was incorporated in New York, with the Schenectady plant as headquarters for many years thereafter. Around the same time, General Electric's Canadian counterpart, Canadian General Electric, was formed.
Employee Retention, it is supposed to be a good thing. When I hear the word retention, it makes me think of attorneys and – retainers. If an attorney is retained, you either pay to use their services, or you pay to keep them available so you can use them. So now back to employee retention; we do pay them and hopefully they stick around. That is the premise, you want to keep them around – or do you? This was a subject me an my Project Social partner Laura Schroeder discussed last week You can read her take on the matter here.
Now regarding employee retention, Jack Welch, former CEO of G.E. felt that, at a minimum, 10% of workforce needed to leave every year. Now, this theory did get Jack and his company in a little hot water. Even so, SHRM must have tacitly endorsed this, as they had Jack as an opening speaker in 2009 in New Orleans. So some turnover can’t be all bad, and there is going to be a certain amount of turnover no matter what. Employees will move, leave, graduate, quit to care for loved ones, die and/or whatever else you can imagine.
So with all of that out of the way it boils down to what are you doing to keep most of your better employees from jumping ship? For the last several years, the economy has been in the doldrums and very few people have left any job because there were so few to move to. But now some of the soothsayers are prognosticating that when, the economy turns around, and it will, Katy bar the door. The theory is that all of the best talent will be stolen. It will be courted away from your business with more pay, better benefits, on-site daycare and employee massages.
Now there are some of us employers who really have not been able to land the top tier talent. For example: my son who graduated last year with a B.S. in M.E. told me that Microsoft visited his campus and was only interested in talking to the top 10 in the class. (That may be factually inaccurate, but suffice it to say they set the bar pretty high.) I have never had a swing at those kids, or employees of that caliber. Our organization has had to settle for the kids with a 3.0 who have a well rounded balanced life and are not expecting the world’s treasure’s at their feet.
Ever since these folks, the 3.0 ers, just like all of our employees, have come to work for our Company we have tried to treat them with respect and provide them with the best pay and benefits our Company can afford. That’s all we can do. We will continue to do so. If this doesn’t keep our “B” level talent then I guess we will have to move down to “B-“or “C+” talent. We can’t give the store away and will never have the resources of Microsoft of Exxon.
We will hire the people who wish to work at our Company and keep them as long as they want to stay. I hope this is for a long time. I am sure that any employer who treats their staff fairly, pays them a fair market based wage and offers reasonable benefits, will in-turn keep most of their best folks.
Here is the takeaway Focus on what you do control TODAY – and how you and your Company treat people EVERYDAY. Too much time spend worrying about what could be is simply wasted effort.
Federal Express (Baldrige Winner) Plan for Career Development & Education Develop a Career Plan for Each Employee: Federal Express employs extensive certification procedures — which must be annually updated and renewed — to ensure competency in critical skill areas for all line jobs and management positions. Indeed, customer contact employees go through testing every six months to ensure their skills meet minimum acceptable requirements. Through these certification procedures, FedEx can keep up-to-date tabs on individual employee skill levels and identify areas where large-scale training needs are not being met. Provide Various Training Options to Meet Diverse Needs: Federal Express is a recognized world leader in training. The company's extensive education and development programs include computer-based training, satellite broad-cast training, and staff-conducted training. FedEx excels in the area of cost, effectively delivering training to a massive work force in many locations operating 24 hours each day
GE is committed to the GRI G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (“The G3 Guidelines”), which continues to provide a valuable framework for GE’s citizenship reporting. Our 2009 citizenship reporting, which includes both the print 2009 Citizenship Report “Renewing Responsibilities” and the additional content on the GE Citizenship web site, applies a self-declared GRI Application Level A.
Through two sections — Part I: Reporting Principles and Guidance and Part II: Standard Disclosures (including performance indicators) — the G3 Guidelines provide a framework for organizations to report on their social, environmental and economic performance.
PART I REPORTING
In compiling the content for GE’s 2009 citizenship reporting, GE applies the Reporting Principles for Defining Content — see our Reporting Process — and the Reporting Principles for Defining Quality:
Balance — Provides both favorable and unfavorable results and covers a range of controversial issues relating to the application or misuse of GE products and services.
Comparability — Provides metrics over a minimum of five years (less only when the information is not available) and includes a GRI Index.
Timeliness — Publishes our annual citizenship reports at the same time every year with updates to the web site as new issues arise.
Clarity — Provides various formats for reporting to our stakeholders on GE citizenship activities through the summarized print report outlining our strategy and progress against commitments, and complimentary online content, which includes metrics and graphics, perspectives and longer features.
Accuracy and Reliability — GE Internal Audit Staff have reviewed the metrics and claims made in the 2009 Citizenship Report. The report has also been reviewed and approved by GE senior management.
Power production and distribution companies and the
companies that serve the power industry are capitalizing
on a surge of interest in the topic of energy—notably
alternative and clean energy sources—to bolster sagging
ranks depleted by a workforce dominated by employees
approaching retirement.
General Electric is one of those companies that sees strong
staffi ng opportunities in the media frenzy over energy.
“Today’s power industry is very exciting and
competitive,” says Kim Warne, manager of the GE Center
of Excellence supporting US recruiting and staffing
operations for five GE businesses: Energy, Aviation,
Transportation, Water & Process Technologies, and Oil
& Gas. “Innovative shifts to alternative power sources
such as renewable energy and cleaner coal, as well
as traditional power sources such as natural gas and
nuclear, are driving tremendous interest and activity.”
“First, due to the large number of new people we bring
into our business each year, we fi nd that orientation and
assimilation are critical to retaining talent within the fi rst
12 months,” she says. “We have new-hire checklists that
walk new employees through the fi rst 30-60 days. We have
also developed a PowerOn new employee assimilation
program, which is mandatory for all new hires. We provide
information on the business, our products, critical processes,
and operating mechanisms. We also provide bimonthly
newsletters to keep new employees up to date on tools and
information that’s useful as they become acclimated to GE.”
Also as part of its retention initiatives, GE Energy is actively
targeting its employees who have been with the business for
2-5 years.
“We have created a special program called Energized Faces,
Exciting Places that highlights employees at various stages
in their careers and details why they decided to come to GE
and why they choose to stay,” Warne says. “Th e program
also provides a tool for employees to blog with one another
about their experiences.”
GE Energy also came to the conclusion that no matter
“what career stage you are in, your manager plays a large
role in your overall ‘engagement’ and therefore retention
with GE Energy.”
Accordingly, in 2007, GE launched a Contemporary
Leadership Series for all managers.
“Th ese sessions focused on Knowing and Connecting with
Employees, Coaching Skills, Empowering Employees,
Appreciating Employees, and fi nally Building a Global Team,”
Warne notes. “Retention needs to be driven at the manageremployee
level and needs to be specifi c to each person.”
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