Page 156 - Retaining Top Employees

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144 Retaining Top Employees

Expectation Management
The second way in which a successful orientation program will
improve retention in the medium term is by affirming the new
employee’s expectations of personal and career development.
As we’ve seen, high-caliber employees tend to select
employers not solely on the basis of the compensation pack-
age, but also for the learning and development experience.
During recruitment, your new employees will have heard a
lot about what your organization has to offer them in this regard
and they will have based their decision to join you largely on
those promises and the expectations that those promises built.
Your orientation program is the first opportunity your new
employees have to see how the organization will deliver on its
promises. A poor or insufficient orientation program will cause a
crisis of expectations that can have fatal consequences for the
future of the relationship.
Table 8-2 shows how a database development company
worded its employee orientation program objectives to ensure it
positively managed new employees’ expectations:
Retention
Orientation Program Objective
Imperative
Expectation This program will ensure that all our employees begin
management their employment with [us] with realistic working
expectations by:
Replicating realistic working conditions as closely as
possible
Encouraging debate and discussion about individual
expectations over the next 18 months
Pairing of all employees with buddies, and
Mandating attendance by all company recruiters
Table 8-2. “Employee expectations” orientation program objective

What expectations are your new hires bringing to the organi-
zation when they arrive? Speak to the person in charge of your
recruitment activities. Find out what “story” recruiters, recruit-
ment ads, your Web site, and other publicly available materials