Leigh Branham, SPHR, is Founder and Principal of Keeping the People, Inc., Mt. Juliet, Tn., a talent management consulting firm which helps organizations analyze root causes of turnover and employee disengagement, then develop and implement employer-of-choice strategies.

His previous experience includes serving as Leader of the Talent Management practice for Right Management Consultants’ Heartland region.

Leigh has authored or coauthored four books on employee engagement and retention, including:

• Keeping the People Who Keep You in Business (AMACOM Books, 2001), named as one of the top three books on employee retention by Harvard Management Update.

• The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave: How to Recognize the Subtle Signs and Act Before It’s Too Late (AMACOM Books, 2012, 2nd edition), based on 21,700 anonymous post-exit surveys and 4,000+ verbatim comments from voluntary departed employees in 17 different industries. Selected by business bookreview.com as one of the top 30 business books of the year.

• Re-Engage: How America’s Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times, co-authored with Mark Hirschfeld, McGraw-Hill, 2010), based on 2.1 million employee engagement surveys from 10,000 employers and reveals six universal drivers of employee engagement that characterize the best places to work in America regardless of industry, size, or geographic location.

• Don’t Take That Job ‘til You Read This Book: 9 Lenses to Look Through Before You Leap, (Amazon, 2023), coauthored with Mark Hirschfeld).

Leigh received a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Vanderbilt University, has two Masters’ degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has 30 years’ experience in human resource consulting and speaks frequently on the topics of employee engagement/retention, career development in organizations, employment practices, workforce trends, leadership, and management development. Leigh is recognized internationally as an authority on employee engagement/retention, and has delivered presentations and management training in China, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Canada, Malaysia, and Singapore.

More recently, Leigh has developed two employee engagement workshops--Driving Employee Engagement...One Employee at a Time (for leaders), and Keeping Yourself Engaged (for all employees), including certification training for in-house trainers. He has also lectured and conducted executive education workshops for graduate business school candidates and programs for attorneys and physicians.

He has been interviewed on National Public Radio, published in The Harvard Business Review, and quoted in Business Week, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, and many others through The Associated Press, as an expert on employee retention. He periodically publishes a quarterly e-newsletter—Keeping the People Report.

Leigh is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and has achieved certification from SHRM as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR).

Leigh Branham in his own words:

"If there is one thing that I've learned in my business career and in my research into what works to motivate, engage, and keep the right people, is that good management, a positive culture, and caring leaders are far more important than pay and benefits. I get tremendous satisfaction from helping leaders and managers identify and implement the employee engagement practices that best align with their business objectives, talent marketplace, and current workforce."