Regardless of your opinion about the new health care bill, one thing is for sure: come 2014 when all Americans are required to have health insurance, those employees who have stayed in abusive or dead end jobs due to the golden handcuffs of health insurance are planning a grand exodus.

If you're a business owner that has leaned heavily on your health benefits to keep employees, I recommend a different strategy. Golden handcuffs as a general rule are fairly manipulative. And no one wants to be a prisoner - even in a golden cell.

The best strategy is simply one in which employees stay at their jobs because they value their workplace. Their workplace is valuable to them. As employers, we place a monetary value on employees - Joe contributes X and receives $. Employees are doing the same thing - the question is, as a workplace what do you contribute to your employees that is valuable to them? Yes, a paycheck. And yes benefits.

But what about personal pride? meaningfulness? opportunity? laughter? fun? learning? growing? camaraderie? community? appreciation? personal validation? beauty? interesting challenges? This is the true value that a company can contribute to their employees. One that leads to the opposite of handcuffs - self-realization, warm fuzzies and an overall sense of good feeling - happiness. And time and time again, employees have shown that they will choose this value over $.

New Strategy: provide your employees a valuable workplace and avoid all prison references.