Page 167 - Retaining Top Employees

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The Role of the Manager, Part 1 155

ship between employee
Party of One?
and manager. Orientation If the only “team” for your
is notoriously poor at pro- new employee to meet is
viding opportunities for you,it’s advisable to do at least some
dialogue; it’s most often a of the introductory activities with
monologue from the people in the departments with which
organization to the the new employee will be interacting
most frequently.Avoid overwhelming
employee. In any case, it’s
your new employee,however: your
hard to have a dialogue
goal is to help him or her become
with an organization: you
comfortable.
can really dialogue only
with another person. As that new employee’s manager, you
have both the responsibility and the resources to have an effec-
tive dialogue with him or her.
Does this mean that you and your new employee must
spend hours together, weeks on end, talking and talking? In most
cases, no. Appropriate dialogue will consist of three elements:

• An early discussion regarding the new employee’s hopes
and aspirations and personal goals for his or her time
with the organization.
• The interaction already undertaken to achieve acclima-
tion and integration.
• A period of three to
four weeks when
you should seek out Use All the Tools at
Your Disposal
your new employee
Your early dialogue with a
at least once a week
new employee need not be all face to
and discuss any face. (Indeed,that may be impossible
issues or concerns for any or all of it.) Use all the com-
that have arisen. munication tools at your disposal:
telephone,e-mail,and videoconfer-
Expectation Management
encing. Many organizations are begin-
Your final onboarding ning to use instant messaging to great
responsibility is to help success,particularly for employees
manage your new employ- frequently on the move but with
ee’s expectations. access to laptops or PDAs.