Add career insurance to your benefits package. (Human resources).

Do your association staffers have jobs--or careers? Are your employees among those majorities who tell pollsters they'd rather be fishing or sailing--or just about anywhere but hard at work in your office?

Every association CEO and manager faces the challenges of retaining quality staff and keeping them all pointed in the same direction: achieving your association's mission and exceeding your members' expectations. The Salt Institute, Alexandria, Virginia, a trade association representing a worldwide membership of producers of sodium chloride--common salt--is no exception. What may set us apart, however, is our staff, which reflects our organization's high degree of employee retention. While every one of our five employees is fully vested in his or her pension plan, it takes more than a competitive compensation package to retain employees for the longterm. Our approach is to encourage growth and development for each employee. We do this in a comprehensive way based on crafting job descriptions and quarterly goals for each employee with our board-approved mission and strategic plan in mind.

Here are some of the ways that we implement this concept.

1. We negotiate goals during evaluation interviews I conduct with each employee every calendar quarter. These goals unite the missions of the organization and the employee. Specific tasks are drawn directly from the strategic plan.

2. Each employee's goals include a personal growth goal. That may be the development of a new skill, relationship, or experience that adds value to what they bring to the job.

3. Quarterly goals are then enmeshed with personal growth and development. This process is even more important than the specific goals. Growth-oriented people deal actively--and successfully--with change; they exude self-confidence; they accomplish more.

4. We consider personal growth of individual staffers as a viable evolutionary alternative to revolutionary change. We often hear that for our associations to survive, revolutionary- organizational transformation is required--as when a government is overthrown for failing to evolve in a changed milieu. Sometimes revolutions solve the problem; other times, they create chaos. Our experience suggests that by incrementally changing each staff member, this approach equips them--and the association--with the tools and the attitudes required to thrive on future challenges.

Leaders know achievement demands teamwork. Teams work together when they have a compelling vision and perceived ability to achieve that vision. The ability to achieve goals is enhanced as individual staff members commit to developing their personal skills and abilities. Staff members recognize this as good career insurance no matter who they work for--and they'll want to keep working for you.

Submitted by Richard Hanneman, president, Salt Institute, Alexandria, Virginia (staff size: 5; annual operating budget: $1.5 million.) E-mail: [e-mail].