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While free lunches, company picnics and casual-dress days are still appreciated by IT employees, experts and many employees these days consider a strong company with a stable work environment and room for personal growth more important.

"If employees are treated well, they will treat the customers well, and then the profits will come," says Ipswitch founder and CEO Roger Greene, whose company's turnover rate for all employees is only 9 percent.

At Capital One Financial Corp., IT employees generate not only IT ideas but new business ideas as well, says Capital One IT recruiting specialist Mark Andrews. The IT department helped the sales and marketing group devise the company's e-commerce strategy, for instance.

Software developer Relativity Technologies, meanwhile, is growing quickly despite the economic downturn. Vivek Wadhwa, CEO and founder of the company, attributes some of this progress to the company's focus on what's important for both the company and employees to succeed. Besides throwing impromptu parties and instituting a casual-dress policy (ties are cut off if they are worn in the office), one of the more interesting perks Wadhwa offers is a $1,000 prize for employees who quit smoking.

Relativity covers the cost of nicotine gum, patches and other smoking-cessation therapies as well. "While stopping smoking obviously improves an employee's health, I also see smoking as a productivity drain," says Wadhwa, because of the lengths smokers must go to to find a place to light up in an era of smoke-free buildings. Of the 12 smokers at Relativity's headquarters when the program started, seven have quit.

Keeping 'Em Happy Click here to enlarge

Questra also picks up 50 percent of the cost of a laptop for its employees for personal use (telecommuters and travelers get company-issued equipment) and is planning to do the same with PDAs. "We also reimburse up to 50 percent for health-club memberships for all employees because we realize the need for balance in our employees' lives," says Leo Naioti, vice president of human resources of Questra.

What's more, healthy employees take fewer sick days, so offering them health-club memberships helps keep them at work, experts say.

Questra also offers paid, week-long orientations for new employees, a mentoring program and weekly technology training sessions.

Capital One, meanwhile, pays part or all of university tuition fees for its employees who want to continue their education. "We also have our own internal training facility for IT folks, called the IT University," Capital One's Andrews says. "It offers not only IT-centric courses but also general business and management courses."

Talk, Talk, Talk

While most companies rely on perks, a growing number of analysts say the most important thing a business can do to retain its valuable IT talent is to ensure that members of its executive team are working toward the same business management goals.

Lencioni's main tip for retaining talent is to "communicate like crazy." It may sound trite, he says, but many employers fail to understand that smart employees value information. "Many of the best and brightest leave their jobs because they don't know what's going on or what's important," he explains. When exciting IT projects dry up and there's no new work, and management doesn't explain the slowdown or change, for instance, those IT workers may look elsewhere for jobs, he says.

Some company execs, meanwhile, are taking communication with their IT staffers very seriously. At e-business software supplier Comergent Technologies, CEO Jean Kovacs hands out paychecks to each of the approximately 100 staffers at the company's headquarters. She also thanks each person for something he or she did in the past two weeks that helped contribute to the company's success. Most employees appreciate Kovacs' personal touch and seeing that their contributions to the company actually count, says Bill York, co-founder and CTO of Comergent.

York's theory is that experienced IT workers know it's important to work on something that has an impact on the company. He tries to hire new employees who will define themselves by what they contribute. He prefers to hire IT workers who've had experience actually shipping product, for instance. The company also pushes teamwork rather than "top-down" heavy management. "We strive to make sure everyone has bought into the plan, so if a mistake is made, no one is really blaming the leaders," York says. "We instead try to understand what we've learned from the experience."

It's these subtle yet powerful efforts that keep IT workers in the fold. Most companies can no longer offer lifelong job security, but they realize keeping their talent happy is key to an organization's growth and ongoing success in any economic climate.

Barbara DePompa Reimers is an independent writer/editor who contributes to a wide range of technology and business magazines and online media. Send your comments on this article to her at bdepompa@aol.com.