Page 135 - Retaining Top Employees

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Recruiting for Retention 123

The New Hiring Change Your
Model(s) Point of View
If your mindset is deter-
As we saw in Figure 7-1,
mined by the old employment con-
the second main difference tract thinking,you view every good
between those organiza- employee who leaves as a failure,an
tions that are merely indication of a retention problem. If
recruiting and those that you adopt the realities of the new
are recruiting for retention employment contract,you’ll under-
is that recruiting for reten- stand that some employee turnover is
expected and healthy.
tion involves understanding
(and using) the fact that
there’s more than one hiring model.
Under the old employment contract, there was in essence
only one hiring model—that of the core employee. An organiza-
tion would hire people and those employees would stay with
that organization for so long as the status quo prevailed.
However, as we’ve noted (p. 120), in the last 15 years, demo-
graphic and economic factors have rendered the old employment
contract less and less rele-
vant. Fewer employees Core employee An
want to be “core,” “life- employee of the organiza-
time” employees; in fact, tion who works only for
many feel uncomfortable in that organization,at its place of busi-
such an environment. This ness,undertaking such tasks as direct-
ed by his or her employer. Core
discomfort—a lack of “fit”
employment can be full- or part-time.
with the employer—is a
major contributor to
employee turnover. As we’ve seen in earlier chapters, people stay
where they feel at home and employees typically won’t feel at
home (and will therefore eventually leave) if the basis on which
they’ve been employed is inappropriate to their needs.
In response, organizations seeking to recruit for retention
have developed other hiring models, reducing the centrality of
the core employee concept and reflecting more accurately the
needs of their prospective employees.