Reputation

To conclude, my view is that, perhaps after all, reputation - or more accurately, perceived reputation - may well be what certainly attracts, and may then help to hold people. But don't be too complacent. Life today is fast and furious. A bad reputation today leads to a good reputation tomorrow. For example: Company A throws out 10,000 people and the analysts applaud and the would-be worker eventually beats a path to their door. Why? Because the stock looks good, opportunities look good (they are lean and mean) and they have swept away all the dead wood, allowing people to, wait for it, ˜be themselves at work.' The fact that this is the only way they can recruit people is irrelevant. Why? Because this is the new way of doing business.

And there is something everyone needs to keep in their heads. We can't keep people for very long - I don't mean forever, or for 20 years (which we don't want to anyway), but even for a couple of years - unless we learn to play the new game and learn the new rules (which, annoyingly, get re-invented every time you play the game). Maybe what we should be considering is that our success - our ability to hire in talent - will be based on one thing: that we can hire people faster and hold people longer than our competitors . Why? Because we do all the things that our employees demand. Could that be the new success factor?

What we need to realise, and soon, is that corporate popularity is ephemeral. We write off organisations only to see them rise again from the ashes. Conversely, we gave huge plaudits to businesses that never, ever deserved it.

• We will have shorter spans of being popular as businesses. The longer we can hang in the better though, so we need to find better ways to manage that process and shorten the downtime between industry darling and industry dunce.

• Going down faster means we can come back quicker if we get the next business wave right.

• Perception management will grow: managing the corporate reputation needs big bucks thrown at it and needs to change its message constantly to attract the right kind of people.

• Don't look for long-stay talent, learn to manage a fluid workforce: employees who may well have three or four mini-˜careers' in your business at different times of their lifestyle/workstyle existence.

• That somewhat bizarre idea, employee branding, is consigned to where it should be - the garbage can. You can brand your business, your products, your service, but not your people. They belong to themselves, not you. Remember they want to be THEMSELVES at work- their lifestyle/workstyle demands it. Advice: don't stick labels on talent, they don't really want it and they won't thank you for it. If they feel good about your business they'll let you know and they'll tell others on their own terms - not yours.