Prepare for Lift-Out

Many companies worry about losing individual employees.  However, this article in BusinessWeek Online highlights the concept of a "lift out."  A lift-out is defined as the practice of a company hiring a whole group of employees from another company.  We’ve all heard the comment that no individual is indispensable but now companies have to worry about the possibility of an entire department disappearing overnight.  A department is indispensable. 

How do you avoid a lift-out?  In order for a lift-out to be possible the relationship within the group of employees needs to be better than the sum total of the relationship each individual has with the company.  In order for the entire group to make the decision to leave, each person in the lift-out group has to feel their relationship as a team is better, stronger, and more rewarding, than their relationship to their company.  In addition, since it conventional wisdom today says people leave managers, not companies, the relationship the manager has with the group has to be pretty bad to get all the folks in the group to move at once.  Creating a great relationship with the managers of important company functions has to be on any Executive’s to-do list.