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94 Retaining Top Employees

Ferrari for one week—pretty good public recognition
with that perk!)
• They must be motivational. (A Ferrari for a week might
not thrill everyone. Match your perks to your employ-
ees.)
• They must involve team building and accountability to
qualify (if these are issues with your better employees).
• They must build trust among the employees. (Don’t
position company freebies like T-shirts and mugs as
perks or try to pass off
Customize Your Perks unwanted gifts or airline
There are some great Web miles that can be
sites that will customize a high- redeemed only between 4
quality employee perks program for p.m. and 5 p.m. two days
your organization. Search under a year. For top employees
“employee incentive programs” to find
in particular, such ges-
out what’s available.At the time of writ- tures will have a negative
ing,www.xylo.com is a good example.
effect on trust.)

How to Design Your Compensation Plan
After you’ve established the retention-related goals and the
reward categories for your compensation package, the next
step is to design the package itself. In this section we’ll look at
how to gather the data you require to design your plan.
Perform an Internal Audit
The first thing to do is to audit the current compensation situa-
tion. This is often an eye-opening exercise!
There are four sources for the information you require:

• Consult personnel records. These will show what each
employee is receiving by way of compensation. You
should view this information only as a starting point.
• Check the last performance appraisal and/or periodic
review. You may well find that some adjustments you
made to the employee’s compensation package haven’t
yet reached personnel documentation, particularly if