Re: On Finding, Hiring, Inspiring and Keeping

[SamCG]

My best job was eventually ruined by various circumstances. The company, however, was excellent.

• Free lunches
• Free drinks
• Profit-sharing plan
• Bonuses twice yearly
• Relatively flat hierarchy; within Compliance limits you could talk to anyone in the company
• up-to-date hardware
• Health care paid by company, not employee
• Excellent parties

The company was employee-owned, which may have had something to do with it. People were not fired frequently, and left very infrequently.

My second-best job wasn't in IT. It was at a movie theater. It offered:

• Free movies
• Free popcorn
• Young ladies who were very open and affectionate and wore short skirts
• leading to excellent parties

This leads me to believe it's either the free food, or the parties, that make or break a workplace. However, "get the right people" has a strong ring of authenticity.

[apotheon]

That is an excellent comparison! Kudos! It really points out some of the finer details of why the first example was a good one. In general, it's more important to know why some strategies work than to have a laundry-list of previously successful strategies. Don't ask yourself what workplace characteristics are conducive to good workers: ask yourself why those characteristics work. The details can change, but the underlying reasons those details were good at one time remain the same. While you didn't specifically point out the underlying reasons per se, you certainly pointed out that the underlying reasons aren't dependent upon the form they take.