systematicHR

Jay Shepard is one of my favorite new bloggers – a bit because he’s actually interesting, but also because (like Thomas at Vendorprisey) Jay makes up great phrases like “gruntled employees.” In Jay’s recent post on protecting trade secrets (Jay is an attorney) it occurred to me that most HR professionals really don’t care much about this topic other than it goes somewhere in the employment contracts, HR policy manuals, and might be something talked about during exit interviews.

While Jay’s list offers excellent protections, the title of his site actually offers the best protection of them all. If “disgruntled” is unhappy and disengaged, then “gruntled” would be happy and engaged. I’d suggest that while Jay’s list of 10 common sense tactics are must do activities, the strategic approach would be to not worry about trade secrets so much and attempt to “gruntle” your employees (that is engaged them if you haven’t caught onto the lingo yet).

Your ablsolute best bet in securing the trade secrets your organization creates is to ensure that your employees have a vested interest in your organization, a sense of pride in their work, and and understanding of how this work moves the organization towards its mission statement. Appropriately rewarding your employees for the innovations that lead to trade secrets is also important.

As you think about the different areas of HR, knowledge management, etc, don’t forget just how far reaching your employee engagement activities go. Yes, engaged employees are more productive. They help you recruit better people. They are more vested in the organization’s future and so much more. So while you’re doing everything else that’s on your desk, go engage your employees. Use the best of talent management. Create a bulletproof employee value proposition. The little headaches (like leaked trade secrets) will minimize.

In the meantime, go read some of Jay’s stuff.