Using Technology to Build the "Will" to Stay in the "At-Will" Relationship

Tomorrow we begin a couple of class sessions in which we discuss the dominant employment relationship in the U.S.: employment-at-will. There are benefits and drawbacks to the at-will relationship for both employers and employees. In general, it's easy enough to see that employment-at-will leaves the employee with less employment security in any particular job, but concomitantly leaves the employer with the ability to manage its workforce with some agility (to downsize when needed, for example).

We may less often focus on the flipside of that benefit/drawback comparison. Nevertheless, it's important. Employees have flexibility to leave a job for a better opportunity -- or simply because they're unhappy -- without any liability to the employer. Because of that flexibility, employers can lose significant investments in training employees who subsequently leave, must deal with competition from other employers (especially in a labor shortage), and can find themselves with significant gaps in human talent when employees leave.

The Wall Street Journal Online has an interesting story regarding how some companies are trying to manage and avoid those drawbacks and to encourage good employees to develop the "will to stay" with talent-management technology. Check it out here at Career Journal.