Page 199 - Retaining Top Employees

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The Role of the Manager, Part 2 187

Get Virtual
The single,simplest tool for keeping in touch with your
alumni is a “shared space” on your corporate intranet or the
Internet.This is a closed,password-protected site that only your alum-
ni (or anyone else you authorize) can access.You can use it to send
newsletters,plan and schedule events,have discussion boards,and even
post photographs.
Colleges and universities are already doing this to a great extent;
you can see hundreds of examples by keying “alumni intranet” into
your favorite search engine.
To start an alumni intranet,you don’t need any technical skills. Just
look at the “point and click” tools provided by sites such as
www.intranets.com or www.communityzero.com.
• Ask alumni to talk with current employees who are feeling
unhappy and considering leaving.
• Invite alumni to speak once a year to your top performers
as a group and to facilitate a discussion on how they can
achieve their personal goals in the year to come.
• Ask alumni to join your top performer retention working
group as an “outside director.”
• In all of these cases, involving someone outside the
organization has much more credibility than enlisting
someone currently
employed by the
What About Their
organization.
Current Employers?
Won’t your alumni’s cur-
Manager’s Checklist rent employer throw a fit at this
for Chapter 10 degree of involvement? Well,yes—if
you ask any one ex-employee to do
❏ You must act as a rep- all of the suggested tasks. But not if
resentative of the you spread the requests around a
organization with your group of alumni,so no one person is
top employees. overburdened.You’ll find that this
process is self-filtering: the alumni
❏ Leadership is a key won’t agree to do more than either
role that you must they or their employers would be
play. comfortable with.