Happy writers key to good pages.

Are you lying awake at night worrying about keeping your staff? Respect and reward them ...and share the perks.

an editorial page editor,

You are honored and happy to have landed one of the most rewarding jobs in the universe. You hope your page makes a difference in the world (or at least at City Hall) - and, who knows, maybe it does. You appreciate, respect, and admire your staff; indeed, you're grateful to have one at all, given the all the layoffs you've read about. You lie awake at night wondering how to keep them - and how if they were to disappear you'd struggle with the finer points of hospital financing, the intricacies of local tax policy, or the pros and cons of biotech corn (not to speak of how to operate the Mac or deal with Accounts Payable).

Might they get fed up with newspaper salaries and head for PR - or maybe try a speechwriting stint? Might they feel trapped in their cubicles when their most likely promotion destination - your office - is occupied by someone not much grayer than they? Will they get bored with the daily routine of penning yet another screed on campaign financing, trimming yet another letter on abortion, laying out still another op-ed page in one of four or five variations on a theme, or cranking out one more column on the mayor's lack of pizzazz?

There's always potential opportunity in loss, you tell yourself. But what if you've hired (or inherited) well and really want to keep your writers and editors, your designer, your secretary (if you're so blessed), and your political cartoonist? What then?

It makes me nervous to hazard ideas, for I'm in that very position yet don't always live up to my best instincts. However, it's clear to me that some ways of managing an editorial staff do help develop and retain talented people - and that too few editors have mastered them. So here goes.

First, the basics: Pay them as well as you can (you're an advocate by profession, remember, so use those skills on your boss).

Articulate your department's vision to your publisher and press for what you need to fulfill it. You may need a larger degree of freedom to set editorial policy, a budget large enough to allow staffers to travel more, enough money to hire a cartoonist, support to expand your pages. Go for it.

Create an environment where expectations are high and creativity is rewarded, where views are heard and good work is noticed, where laughter erupts and movie tips are shared.

Respect the complexity of your employees' lives. This means being flexible about doctor's appointments, bus schedules, counseling sessions, and tardy plumbers.

Give them autonomy. To the extent feasible, let your writers decide how much time a given editorial requires and when it should run. Encourage them to write about issues that excite them -- and never ask them to write an opinion they don't hold.

Respect their expertise. That means listening extra carefully to the person whose beat is being discussed. It means learning enough yourself to probe their reasoning. And once your editorial position is determined, it requires backing them up when the phone calls come in -- whether from the publisher or the public.

Help them escape the daily grind. Vary work routines; change lengths and styles of editorials. Do a few enterprise projects each year. Encourage writers to get out and about -- to tramp around the wetland, walk along the polluted river, visit the controversial development site. Send them across town, out of state, out West, abroad. Their credibility will rise; their editorials will brim with lively quotes and vivid writing. Let them write columns when the mood strikes.

Encourage them to stretch intellectually. Push them to delve into a new subject area or spend a little extra time on a complex issue. Encourage them to moderate a debate, give a speech, write a book, apply for a fellowship. Send the op-ed editor to API, the letters editor to NCEW. The others will have to help cover, but their turn will come.

Trust them -- to do the ethical thing, to work hard, to make sound decisions, to catch typos, to close the page. Some would say "trust but verify," but I think you should just plain trust them; it will bring out the best, journalistically and otherwise.

Encourage experimentation -- with design, with writing, with packaging letters, you name it. Make it "safe" to try something different. Your job is to save them from themselves if the experiment doesn't work; until then, let 'er rip.

Make decisions without fear or favor. Relish stirring things up, and let your staff know you do. If you print a cartoon that generates controversy, defend your decision -- and your cartoonist -- without defensiveness. Ditto for editorials and columns.

Edit with a scalpel.

Express delight when you're delighted with a stunning illustration, a clever turn of phrase, or a popping headline.

Don't have to be "right," don't take all the credit, and do take some of those calls that begin, "What idiot wrote the editorial about ...?"

And don't claim all the perks.

NCEW member Susan Albright is editorial page editor of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. She served as NCEW president in 1999.