ESSENTIALS MANAGEMENT If you’re happy, you’re not even looking at other jobs. Employers otfen forget that looking for a job is an exhausting process, and people only consider that route if they’re truly not content where they are. “If you’re really happy at work, you’re not interested in going down that road. You want to go home. You want to have dinner with your friends. You don’t want to ifgure out how to arrange your work schedule to take an interview. Nobody wants that if they’re already satisifed.” THIS IS HOW YOU KEEP PEOPLE Recognizing and protecting against employee departures is only one piece of the puzzle. The best retention strategy involves more than protecting against employee disaffection. You have to be proactive about cultivating happiness and good will. Below, Guthrie speaks to the strategies startups can employ, beyond the coarser (albeit necessary) foundations of money and equity. Build a community with purpose. First and foremost, you have to create a community where people want to spend a great deal of their time. “I’ve seen environments where people are so engaged in the product and with one another that they really do feel like they’re part of something bigger and important,” she says. Your goal should be to make people feel like, ‘We’re all in this together and have a huge opportunity as a team. As head of HR and Operations at student network ReadyForce, Guthrie saw a team become incredibly bonded — to the extent that many are still good friends even though some eventually moved to new companies. This type of community enhances talent and collaboration and makes it very diiffcult to leave.So how did ReadyForce do it? The same three people would interview everyone for a particular role so that they were comparing apples to apples. Then they would convene and show thumbs up or thumbs down. If there was disagreement, they’d talk about why and foster healthy debate about candidates. “This really forced everyone to form an opinion and be thoughtful about 122