I get LinkedIn invites from time to time. Although I’m not a huge user of LinkedIn, I see its merits in its ability to basically get straight to the nitty gritty of someone’s work experience. After all, I like recommending friends for jobs, but not as much as I like recommending people who are actually competent at what they do.

I notice often that employed people often do not put their company affiliations on their profiles. I can see why you might do this in Twitter or in Facebook, since those can be used for business use as well as for very personable exchanges.

LinkedIn, however, is very business oriented. If a person doesn’t list their company on their profile, there’s a good chance they are looking for another job.

If you are an executive and you think your company culture is good, do yourself a favor. Search for your employees’ LinkedIn profiles and see what they list. Look to see what they are looking for on LinkedIn. Are they looking for business development or sales opportunities, or are they looking for jobs?

If your company is either a small part or no part of their profile, that person isn’t happy with you and wants to leave. That’s not the attitude you want in an employee.

Here’s the huge caveat: that doesn’t mean you should fire that person.

Why? Because simply dismissing an unhappy employee is a great way to miss an opportunity for how you can make your company better. That seems very wasteful. An honest and open dialog can fix the problem and can make both your employee and you very happy.

[Editor’s Note: This post was originally published at Michelle Greer’s personal blog, and is re-published here with permission. –mrh]