When the first edition of “Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em” came out, it was a mega hit. My co-author Sharon Jordan-Evans and I were thrilled. Then we started getting feedback from managers who said, “Your book is great, your training was great, but why is the responsibility always on our shoulders? What roles do the employees play in their own careers?” And we slapped our own foreheads, gob smacked by our stupidity and realized…they were right! We said - let’s put some of the responsibility for engagement into the heads and hearts of employees and help them understand how to get what they want at work without moving to new pastures.

A family is commonly defined as “a group of individuals united by blood, marriage or adoption…” But that same definition goes on to include individuals united by “other close association, contact or familiarity.” This may be why employees often refer to their work unit as “my work family” – and why their managers might do well to think of their employees as “my talent family.”