Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 812, Losing Employees to Other Companies.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 812.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles California, United States of America.
Our website is eslpod.com.
You know that, of course.
You also know that if you become a member of ESL Podcast, you can download a learning guide.
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It's the way of improving your English faster than anything else.
Our dialogue is about when someone who works for a company gets hired by another company and leaves.
This happens all the time, especially to good employees.
Let's get started.
That's three in six months.
What's three in six months?
That's three of this company's employees who have been hired away by other companies.
First, there was Lamar.
I wasn't surprised that headhunters were interested in Lamar since he was clearly a rising star.
Yeah, Lamar was a tough loss.
His unique set of skills is hard to duplicate.
You're telling me we haven't been able to find a replacement After Lamar, there was Soraya.
Soraya is a classic case of brain drain.
There are great jobs in McQuillan land with lucrative pay and a low cost of living.
I'm not surprised Soraya took that job.
Soraya was very talented.
We couldn't match the offer she received, and she took the better deal.
And today, Melinda tells me that she's probably going to accept an offer from a startup that's made her an offer she can't refuse.
Not Melinda, too.
You know what?
I think I'm finally catching on.
Maybe we should be putting out feelers for better job offers ourselves.
No, not you too.
Before long, I'll be the only one left here.
I thought you'd help me talk Melinda into stains.
No, not me.
You know what they say.
If you can't feed them, join them.
Our dialogue begins with Diego saying to Natalie, that's three in six months.
Natalie says, what's three in six months?
Diego says that's three of this company's employees, people who work for the company who have been hired away by other companies.
To hire H-I-R-E away someone is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to give someone who was working for one company a job at another company.
So company A says to one of the employees or workers at company B, we'll give you a job here.
Why don't you come here?
They hire that person away from the other company.
Diego says, first there was Lamar.
Lamar's a man's name.
I wasn't surprised that headhunters were interested in Lamar since he was clearly a rising star.
A headhunter H-E-A-D-H-U-N-T-E-R one word is a person whose job it is to find people, qualified people for usually high-level jobs.
There are companies that do nothing but go around and find good employees for other companies.
And that's what a headhunting company does.
That's what a person who works for that company called a headhunter does.
My brother, for example, was headhunted.
He had a headhunter contact him about working at another company.
And then he moved to another company and then he got headhunted again. and so on.
So sometimes companies will hire you away.
They will take you from one company and bring you to their company.
And they often do that by hiring professional.
Really, what they are are scouts that look for good employees.
Diego said that Lamar was clearly a rising star.
A rising star is someone who is doing very well and has begun to get a reputation.
People begin to know about that person.
They respect that person.
And a lot of people say, wow, that guy, he's real good.
No one ever says that about me, not at my company anyway.
Natalie says, yeah, Lamar was a tough loss.
A loss.
L-O-S-S is when, of course, you lose something, you no longer have it.
Tough is an adjective meaning here difficult, so it was a difficult loss.
It was hard to lose Lamar.
His unique set of skills is hard to duplicate.
Something that is unique, U-N-I-Q-U-E, is one of a kind.
It is unlike anything else.
There's only one of that thing.
Natalie thinks that Lamar's set of skills, the things he was able to do, is hard to duplicate, is hard to copy, is hard to create again.
Diego says, you're telling me.
That expression, you're telling me, means yes, I understand, I already know.
We haven't been able, Diego says, to find a replacement.
A replacement for a person or a thing is something new that you use instead of the thing that you lost or the thing that is old and doesn't work anymore.
If you have an old car, you might have to get a replacement, a new car, something that you can use instead of the old car.
Diego says, after Lamar, there was Soraya.
Soraya is a classic case of brain drain.
A classic case means a perfect example of something, an ideal example of something.
For example...
The way that Derek lied to his sister is a classic case of dishonesty.
It's a good example or a great example of someone who is not honest.
Brain drain D-R-A-I-N is the situation where the most intelligent hardworking, best educated people leave where they are and go to a different place.
Usually, we talk about this in terms of people leaving one country and going to another country, going from India to the United States or from the United States to China, whatever it is.
It's when one country typically loses the best of its workers, the best of its students, sometimes to another country.
Diego says there are great jobs in McQuillan land, which is obviously another country.
A very nice country, I think.
With lucrative pay, these great jobs have lucrative pay.
Lucrative, L-U-C-R-A-T-I-V-E, means making a lot of money, very profitable.
This sales campaign, this sales effort was lucrative.
We made a lot of money.
Sometimes jobs can be lucrative and that's why Diego says that there are great jobs in McQuillan land with lucrative pay, meaning you get paid a lot of money and a low cost of living.
That means it's cheap to live in this different country.
Diego says, I'm not surprised Soraya took that job.
Natalie says Soraya was very talented.
We couldn't match the offer she received, and she took the better deal.
To match M-A-T-C-H means, in this case, to do something at the same level or extent as someone or something else.
I can never match the performance of great singers when I sing their songs here on the podcast.
I can't match that level.
I can't be at the same level.
Natalie says that her company could not match the offer, meaning the amount of money the other company said they would pay her.
And so, Soraya took the better deal, the better offer, the better job.
Diego continues And today Melinda tells me that she's probably going to accept an offer from a startup that's made her an offer she can't refuse.
A startup...
Thank you so much for having me.
This startup offered Melinda an offer she can't refuse.
This expression, an offer you can't refuse, is something that is so good you cannot say no.
It's so attractive, it's so desirable that it's impossible to say no to it.
It became popular in a movie called The Godfather many years ago, when the star of the movie, Marlon Brando at least this is what people think happened in the movie.
I don't know if it actually happens in the movie.
I think it does.
He says, I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse.
I'm going to give you such a good situation, you're going to say yes.
But there's a little bit of comedy there because, of course, if you're Marlon Brando and you're a gangster, someone who does illegal things, you may not be able to refuse, because if you do he'll kill you.
So that could be happening too, but not in our dialogue.
No one dies in our dialogues, usually.
Well, cats sometimes die, but usually no one dies in our dialogue.
Natalie says, not Melinda too.
You know what?
I think I'm finally catching on.
To catch on is a phrasal verb, meaning to begin to understand, especially something that other people around you already understand.
Natalie says, To put out feelers means to let other people know that you're looking for a job.
You don't go and knock on their door or email them and say you just let people know who you think may be hiring in the future that yes, you'd be interested perhaps in working for their company.
That's to put out feelers.
F-E-E-L-E-R-S.
Diego says, no, not you too.
Before long, or very soon, I'll be the only one left here.
I'll be the only one still at this company.
To talk someone into something means to convince or persuade someone to do something, often something that they may not really want to do.
Natalie says.
This expression, which is normally pronounced if you can't beat them, join them.
Where we kind of drop the TH sound of them means that if you are in a situation where the people who disagree with you or who are your enemies are stronger, it's best to just stop fighting and instead join them.
Do what they are doing.
Give up your position.
Give up your opposition.
So if you can't beat them, if you can't defeat them, then you should join them.
You should become one of them.
You should become part of them.
That's the idea.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
That's three in six months.
What's three in six months?
That's three of this company's employees who have been hired away by other companies.
First, there was Lamar.
I wasn't surprised that headhunters were interested in Lamar, since he was clearly a rising star.
Yeah, Lamar was a tough loss.
His unique set of skills is hard to duplicate.
You're telling me.
We haven't been able to find a replacement.
After Lamar, there was Soraya.
Soraya is a classic case of brain drain.
There are great jobs in McQuillan land with lucrative pay and a low cost of living.
I'm not surprised Soraya took that job.
Soraya was very talented.
We couldn't match the offer she received, and she took the better deal.
And today, Melinda tells me that she's probably going to accept an offer from a startup that's made her an offer she can't refuse.
Not Melinda, too.
You know what?
I think I'm finally catching on.
Maybe we should be putting out feelers for better job offers ourselves.
No, not you, too.
Before long, I'll be the only one left here.
I thought you'd help me talk Melinda into staying.
No, not me.
You know what they say.
If you can't beat them, join them.
We're lucky here at ESL Podcast that our rising star, Lucy Say, has not been hired away.
Thank you, Lucy, for your scripts.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
