In fact, 51% of employees said they’d accept a lower wage if their work contributes to something “more important or meaningful,” found a recent survey by Kelly Services.

So how can managers at your company make employees stick around, even if Payroll’s not cutting bigger checks?

Give employees more control

People enjoy their jobs more when they feel valued and in command of their own work.

To ensure employees feel this way, make sure their managers allow them to weigh in on important decisions — and give them complete autonomy over certain tasks, as well as the opportunity to take on more challenging assignments.

Keep them in the loop

Giving employees updates on the big picture makes them feel valued and important.

A few ways that work:

• Explain management’s decision-making strategies to employees
• Invite staffers to important meetings, and
• Provide workers with documentation and other proof of the company’s success.

Give them chances to grow

No one wants to believe he or she will be doing the same tasks five years down the road.

If your employees don’t see any opportunities on the horizon, chances are they’ll be updating their resumes before long.

To avoid high turnover, offer:

• education and training opportunities
• career-path advancement
• team participation, and
• cross training.

A recent survey by Gartner asked IT pros to rate which benefit was most important to them, and most likely to keep them in their current jobs:

1. Job security
2. Company-funded training and certification courses
3. Flexible work hours, or
4. Recognition from upper management.

The results: 35% said job security was number one. Training and flexibility came a close second and third, respectively, with 32% and 31% of the votes.

Very few (2%) feel recognition is most important.

These days, job security can’t be easily guaranteed, and there’s little room in most companies’ budgets for extra training. But flexibility is a cheap benefit that can be offered in many cases. And going the extra mile to provide training could worth it in some cases to retain top-performing employees.

Approx. 81% of employers are maintaining their current flex options, according to a recent report by the Families and Work Institute.

In addition, 13% of employers are actually increasing flex-time options.

And only 6% of companies are reporting that they are reducing flexibility options.

Another way companies have tried to stave off layoffs in the past year: by offering reduced workweeks to employees. Nearly 26% of companies have turned to this strategy.

One tactic many companies remain leery of, however — telecommuting. Why? The amount companies spend to maintain a mobile workforce is comparable to what some employers pay per employee for healthcare coverage, revealed a recent Runzheimer International study.

According to a recent survey by Robert Half International and CareerBuilder, more than one-quarter (28%) of employees are planning to ask for a raise as soon as the economy improves.

Additionally, just about half (49%) of those surveyed said pay raises will be the most effective retention tool after the recovery.

Some other key findings from the survey included:

• 40% of hiring managers said pay increases would be their company’s primary means of retaining top performers, and
• 20% of employees said the most effective retention tool would be better benefits and perks once the economy improves.

The top benefits and perks participants cited: technology upgrades, followed by tuition reimbursement or subsidized training.

Some of your top performers may simply be biding their time until the first clear signs of recovery — then walking right into the arms of the competition.

At least that’s what an Adecco Group study found. According to the study, 54% of working Americans are likely to look for new jobs once the economy rebounds.

And one group in particular is most likely to bolt. Seventy-one percent of Gen Y workers, those ages 18-29, are likely to look for new jobs once the upturn starts.

Rather than waiting until valued employees are regularly leaving early for “doctor’s appointments” in a suit and tie, get together with staffers more often to see how they’re doing. These informal chats may help to clue you in on a major problem — before it’s too late.

In addition, here are proven ways to retain top performers on the cheap.

An ever-growing percentage of employees have MySpace, Facebook and/or Twitter pages. Sometimes these sites reveal things that go on behind employers’ backs.

When is it legal for employers to snoop around? Unfortunately, there are few clear-cut answers yet. It’s an emerging area of employment law that’s likely to become a battleground of litigation. Some experts have predicted that guidelines won’t become clear until a case winds up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Until then, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and the employee privacy laws of your state are your frontline guide.

The issue can be divided into two categories: investigating job applicants via Facebook or My Space searches and investigating suspected misconduct by current employees.

Different sets of employment law and privacy standards apply to each. Here are some  rules of thumb:

Screening job applicants

A presentation at the recent SHRM conference in New Orleans revealed that about half of the HR/benefits managers in the packed room at least ocassionally use the Internet to screen job applicants. But only one person in the room lets applicants know about such searching via a waiver signed by the job applicant.

While few companies are doing it yet, requiring Internet search waivers after conditional offers of employment are likely to emerge as a best practice within a few years.

Regardless of whether you use waivers, there are several issues to keep in mind:

• Site users have the right to restrict access to their pages (including both written and photographic material) via strict privacy settings. Employers attempting to gain access are bound by the sites’ terms of use, and using false pretenses to gain access (e.g., creating a false account) is very risky.
• Even if you gain access without a problem, the site can reveal all sorts things that could compromise compliance with existing employment laws — the site user may write or depict things that reveal medical conditions, past benefits claim disputes, religious beliefs, and other info that courts frown on employers using as part of a hiring decision.
• On the flip side, the site can also reveal issues that clearly pertain to hiring decisions, such as bragging about sick-time abuse, padding a resume, etc.
• In some cases, there can be issues about the authenticity of a site or the accuracy of the information. This can require further investigation, potentially creating extra work and hassle with little practical gain for an employer.

Bottom line: If you use the Internet for applicant screening, you may discover a little too much information about an applicant. Generally, you can only use info that pertains specifically to predicting someone’s job performance.

Company computers are company property

What about when the investigations involve alleged bad behavior by an employee and/or their co-workers. The Internet is a central part of many young employees’  lives, and they frequently interact with co-workers (on and off the job) via social networking sites.

In many cases, employees post this information from computers at work. This creates a legal landmine for what employers can and can’t do to gain access and potentially use information about conduct that’s detrimental to the company.

In general, courts have ruled that employees do not have an expectation of privacy when they use company computers. Many firms have workers sign an Internet use policy that acknowledges the company may monitor workplace Internet use.

But that doesn’t mean there are no limits to employer use or investigation methods. For example, an employer can’t demand an employee reveal his or her password to a social networking site in order to look at the embarassing party photos a supervisor overheard two employees talking about in the break room.

What about if an employee badmouths his or her employer on a page? This raises a host of complicated issues of intended access (i.e., ease of access to people outside the employee’s network), confidentiality of “inside” information and potential harm to a company.

In such cases, it’s best to consult an attorney before taking action.

Blogs vs. social networking sites

For legal purposes, there’s a difference between what an employee writes on a blog and on a social networking site.

According to the SHRM presentation, Twitter and other blogs are more often fair game for employers because the information on a blog is intended to be read by anyone. By their nature, blogs make information public.

On the flip side, social networking sites are generally designed to be seen only by friends and colleagues whom the user approves to see it.

(Percentage totals do not add up to 100 because some respondents said they tried more than one approach.)

• Hiring freezes: 66%
• Wage freezes: 63%
• Layoffs: 60%
• Decreased benefits: 31%
• Furloughs: 18%

Some comments by the respondents:

“Concern among employees about being laid off, even though we are doing well and have communicated that many times.”

“Reassigned employees to new positions involving cuts in pay and, in some instances, benefits. More on the way.”

“Employees are borrowing against or withdrawing from 401(k)s at a higher rate than normal.”

“More motivational activity and employee-relations efforts. Employees are seeking a good and encouraging word.”

“We’re streamlining; all employees must do more with a tighter budget than last year’s. Managers must work harder to keep employees engaged, focused and positive.”

Threatened with a shutdown and job losses, factory workers at a French electronics plant took what could be considered a unique approach to fighting the shutdown: kidnapping plant managers, including the HR manager.

The workers at the plant — run by U.S. company Molex — got word that they’d be hit with job losses. The staff responded by rounding up the plant managers and locking them up until, union officials say, they get assurances that the plant will remain open and keep everyone employed.

No word from the locked-up managers, but a union representative reports:  “We are continuing our action. The first night of detention went very well.” (Easy for him to say.)

The ploy apparently isn’t a new one in France. French workers at other cutting-back companies such as  Sony, Caterpillar and 3M have responded by kidnapping managers and predicating their release on company promises to retain jobs.

And here’s the worst part: In all three cases, it worked. The companies agreed to stall cutbacks in exchange for the release of the managers.

All but three of the 98 major metro areas studied showed a drop in the share of jobs located within 3 miles of downtown areas. And that was true even when the overall number of jobs in those areas increased slightly during from 1998 to 2006. Detroit, Chicago and Dallas had the most job-location shifting away from the city center.

The trend likely will continue, for at least two reasons:

• With the threat of new union legislation looming, employers realize that suburban dwellers generally are less union-friendly than city-dwellers. So there are fewer welcome mats for labor organizers in ‘burbs. That means lower labor costs, too.
• Real estate is often cheaper outside the city core. So workers want to live in the suburbs and employers want to locate there to take advantage of lower per-square-foot costs.

A look at the U.S. Department of Labor statistics reveals who’s taking the worst hits — and if you’re hiring in one of these industries, you’ll have a lot of choices from among people who are job hunting:

Auto and auto-related. No surprise here. In February, manufacturing jobs got slashed by 168,000, bringing losses over the last year to 1.2 million. In Michigan, the heart of the auto industry, the unemployment rate has hit 10.6 percent, the highest of any state in the nation.

Financial services. This sector lost 44,000 jobs in February. Companies found themselves with a glut of traders, analysts and marketers who made a living during the housing boom. And we all know what happened with that. Many labor analysts say this industry will be reshaped — and downsized — for years to come.

Retail. Just pick up the newspaper and you’ll see the ongoing list of retailers who are closing shop, mainly because consumers no longer have access to easy credit — and money. Retailers  dropped 39,500 jobs in February, and a total of  more than 500,000 in the last 12 months.

Other. Some of the other worst-hit industries in February: transportation and warehousing, 49,000 jobs; employment services, 88,000 jobs; and hotels and restaurants, 32,000 jobs.

The bright spot: Health care added 30,000 jobs in February.