Stick with what works

摘要

By figuring out what it was already doing right, a major firm leveraged that success into a solid retention program. A few years ago, offshore construction giant J. Ray McDermott was in a bind. Economic layoffs and a 10-year industry loss of influx into the engineering pipeline had reduced the available talent pool in the offshore construction world. J. Ray employees were stretched thin and overworked, and adding to head-count was proving to be difficult in the down market. "The company had no bench strength," said Lisa Seeker, vice president of human resources and organizational development for the company "We were at a pivotal point in the company's history. We were poised to grow, but resource-constrained. We needed to recruit top talent from the outside that would invigorate and augment the strong talent we were holding on to. But times were tough. Our company financials were not strong, and finding and hiring additional talent was a bit of a challenge."