External Job Postings—What's the point?

Conventional wisdom suggests that if you want to keep employee turnover low, you should minimize your staff’s exposure to external job postings. Monster.com? Blocked. Jobing.com? Not during working hours. Kijiji? Craiglist? Don’t make me laugh.

Unfortunately for all the would-be office-dictators out there, hiding opportunities doesn’t make them go away. You can insist on non-compete clauses in contracts, but a number of high-profile cases show that these aren’t alway effective.

Instead of suppressing their value, why not embrace your team’s talents? Let them know how much they’re worth to you. Show them that if they want to leave, there are opportunities out there for them.

Researchers in the Netherlands studied whether employee’s perceptions of their own job prospects affect their intention of staying with a company. And guess what—they do.

Staff who believe that there are a lot of opportunities for them in the job market are more likely to report that they intend to leave (for example, “If I could, I would quit today.”).

It isn’t all bad news, though. Highly employable staff also report higher life satisfaction, and better job performance. This is especially true when there is a corporate culture of high expectations.

The researchers believe that ultimately, knowing that they’re employable reduces workers’ stress levels, which helps keep them productive.

So the choice is yours: If you want nervous workers sticking around year-after-year, go ahead and block job ads.

If however, you want hard-working and effective staff, who will leave when they stop being helpful, or when the right opportunity comes up, embrace external postings. Share them in a message list. Post them on the wall.

Give your rotten apples the chance to leave on their own—it’ll save you the headache of terminating them later.