Page 171 - Retaining Top Employees

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The Role of the Manager, Part 1 159

Doses of Vitamin “C”
Make sure that your top employees get the opportunity to
meet a C-level board representative in a town hall,question-
and-answer environment at least each year,preferably every six
months,and ideally once a quarter,to ensure that they have an
overview and an understanding of the organization’s overall goals and
where they fit in.
Use this event as an opportunity to check in with your employees
individually about how you and they understand their task and project
goals and to clear up any area of concern,ambiguity,or misunder-
standing regarding their goals and their strategic importance.
operation and the organization’s overall strategic objectives.
When Juanita gives Joe his sales quota for the year and
challenges him to make at least 15% of that quota from
new pharmaceutical accounts, she asks the VP of
Marketing to meet with Joe to explain how the sales goal
and especially the pharmaceutical goal align with the orga-
nization’s overall strategy. Joe feels more motivated to
work to make his quota and meet the challenge when he
understands his role in the big picture.

Performance Management

After onboarding and setting goals, your next responsibility to
your best performers is to ensure that you manage their perform-
ance related to those goals in a way that promotes retention. As
with setting goals, it’s important to recognize that performance
management is not an optional step with top employees. (We
encourage performance management with all employees, if pos-
sible.) As we’ve said frequently, those who perform well require
effective performance management to excel, thrive, and develop
in a way that will keep them with your organization.
How does retention-related performance management differ
from any other performance management? Let’s look at the
retention implications of the three essential elements of per-
formance measurement: