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The following appeared in a report to shareholders of Watchweek, a popular news magazine:

Over the last few years, Watchweek has had trouble retaining employees, and few employees are being promoted to higher management positions from within the company. To improve employee retention and advancement, the board of directors recently hired a new Managing Editor, Norman Wyman. For the past few years, Wyman has been the Creative Editor at Pattycake Publishing, a leading publisher of children's books. Mr. Wyman plans to employ a new management philosophy that he developed while at Pattycake Publishing: he gets employees actively involved in their work through an increased use of interactive computer technologies and collaborative group projects. This approach encouraged creativity and resourcefulness in Pattycake Publishing#8217;s employees, and it will surely convince more of Watchweek'semployees to stay and advance within the company.

Watchweek, a popular news magazine, has recently had trouble retaining employees. In addition, instead of promoting internal employees to higher management positions, the company has had to fill the positions with people from outside the company. The company hopes to resolve these problems by hiring Mr. Norman Wyman as a Managing Editor. Though this approach could benefit Watchweek, there are several flaws in the magazine's argument that Mr. Wyman's qualifications and tactics will succeed in improving retention.

One problem with the argument that Mr. Wyman is qualified to fix the problem of retention at Watcheweek concerns his qualifications. Wyman previously worked at a leading publisher of children's books where he developed a new management philosophy. While the philosophy might have been successful there, it is very possible that it will not effectively transfer to Watchweek. The personality and work styles of employees at a children's publishing company and a news magazine are likely to be very different. Wyman's plan involves getting employees actively involved in their work through interactive and collaborative means. This aligns well with a children's publishing company where creativity and forward thinking is required. However, it might not transfer well to a news magazine where employees are focused on reporting facts.

Another problem with the plan is that it does not address the root cause of the problem plaguing Watchweek. The plan does not try to figure out why employees are leaving jobs at the company. It also does not investigate why internal employees are not being promoted to higher positions. By figuring out why these problems are occuring in the first place through research and surveys of employees the company would have a much better approach to fixing the problem.

There are many ways that Watchweek's plan could be improved in order to effectively retain employees. One way would be to focus on improving the hiring process. By ensuring that hired employees are qualified not only to do the jobs they are hired to do, but also a position above that, Watchweek would automatically increase the likelihood of internal promotion. Another way this plan would be improved would be to survey employees to see if and why they are dissatisfied with any aspect of their jobs. This would allow the company to pinpoint why employees are not staying with the company.

Overall, though hiring Wyman could increase retention and internal promotions at Watchweek it would be more beneficial for the company to research why these problems are occuring in the first place. By researching why these problems are occuring the company could evaluate whether or not Wyman's tactics and philosophy would be successful at reaching their goals. In conclusion, Wyman's tactics, if aligned correctly, could potentially improve the company's retention.

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