A brief case of President and CEO, John Kissinger, by BizTimes How Do I Retain Our Best People?

“The No. 1 thing is to create a career path that is exciting. This means the work is professionally challenging, it is not repetitive or monotonous, and it has the potential to grow. Ideally, it will also require a high degree of creativity.

This requires a conscious decision to pursue certain types of work, avoid other types, and not specialize in one or two areas. This decision has ramifications on how the firm is perceived, and how success is measured internally. I am not saying that a firm cannot provide successful career paths or retain people if it is more specialized, it just won’t generally motivate people who fit our culture.

Once you provide the types of career paths that attract and motivate the people you want, you must continuously work on making the workplace fun. Not fun like a concert or a vacation, but fun enough that you really want to go there when you get up. Most people spend an incredible amount of time at work. If it is not challenging and fun, why do it? You create a fun environment by encouraging social interaction among employees. By allowing them to be individuals. By listening to them. By doing things in the community that let them know their company is making a difference. By making fun of yourself sometimes. Don’t get me wrong…work is serious business, and we are not at the office to play. That does not mean that we can’t be serious and have fun, too.”

For the full article, see the BizTimes page here.