Contented Cows Still Give Better Milk: The Plain Truth about Employee Engagement and Your Bottom Line

By Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden

How to foster happier employees for a healthier bottom line

Managers could learn a lot from a message echoed by generations of dairy farmers: "Contented cows give better milk." This book is not, repeat, not a management tome. In this fully revised and expanded edition to a book which absolutely, positively makes the case that treating people right is one of the best things any business can do for its bottom line, Contented Cows Still Give Better Milk offers sound, practical advice for those who know that their reputation as an employer is as important as bandwidth.

• Offers updated case studies and new examples from on-site research in a number of real organizations, as well as inspiring examples of companies that know how to do it right . . . and few that didn't
• Fad-free prescriptive advice informed by the authors' combined four-plus decades of training and consulting with thousands of managers and employees, conducting employee engagement surveys, and translating the attendant learning to management audiences in a form they can appreciate and use
• Coauthor Bill Catlette's Bottom Line Leadership Seminar has helped thousands of managers become more effective leaders

Direct from the horse's . . . actually cow's mouth, this fully revised and expanded second edition will teach readers that having a focused, engaged, and capably led workforce is one of the best things any organization can do for its bottom line.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: May 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781118334010

Reviews for Contented Cows Still Give Better Milk

[markdeo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very sound and enlightening Leadership/ Management book. Great insight into "employee relations" and "productivity". This book is very honest and straightforward. If you are person willing to take a serious look at yourself for change, this book will be a tremendous guide for you. It is very logical, and should be very easy to grasp even for Managers who are set in their ways.

[donitamblyn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

How could Southwest Airlines achieve 23 consecutive years of record revenues and profits while other airlines were hemorrhaging red ink? How could GE produce refrigerator compressors at a cost substantially less than its foreign competitors, despite an unfavorable cost differential of $15 an hour? This fascinating book suggests an answer. In 1996, authors Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden noticed that every single one of the top 15 companies listed in Fortune’s “Most Admired Corporations” were also widely recognized as exceptional places to work! Hmmmm.... Catlette and Hadden conducted a study of such companies over a ten year period, with interesting results: Compared to their top competitors, the “Contented Cow” companies consistently enjoyed big financial gains in every important way--productivity, revenues, and growth. The book is not without its flaws. For example, Wal-Mart is listed as one of the "Contented Cow" companies--a designation that Barbara Ehrenreich's NICKEL AND DIMED: ON (NOT) GETTING BY IN AMERICA certainly puts the lie to. Still, CONTENTED COWS makes a strong case for the connection between sound human resource management and successful financial management--a connection far more direct than many managers think. So in my opinion this book is highly relevant for today's globalized-and-outsourced Corporate America.