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210 Retaining Top Employees

is to ensure that each element adds value. That’s important in
reducing potential stress and friction.
This is particularly so after the “honeymoon period” that all
such initiatives go through. At first, senior management is
enthusiastic about your retention activities. Then, after some
time, someone asks, “What is this actually achieving for us?
These hiring practices, this expensive orientation program, the
revamped compensation and rewards packages, all this men-
toring and coaching—what’s it getting for us?”
To answer such questions, you’ve got to show not only that
your retention strategy has reduced turnover of top performers,
but also that each element of your retention strategy adds
value. In this context, the concept of adding value means that
each event, activity, or process in your retention strategy should
result in a net gain for the individuals involved and/or for the
organization, rather than a net consumption of resources. If any
element doesn’t add value, then it should be stopped.

Adding Value for the Organization
The first step is to review each element of your strategy to
ensure that at each step there’s clear, demonstrable added
value for the organization. For example, if you’re implementing
an orientation program or an “employee of the month” award,
in what ways will it help the organization meet its goals?
The answers in many cases will be obvious: the orientation
program will ensure that the employees do their jobs better and
the “employee of the month” award will raise performance lev-
els. In other cases, it may be harder to identify the value, such
as with raising compensation levels, for example, or instituting a
non-skills-related mentoring program.
Identify and list the ways in which each retention element
adds value at the organizational level. Keep your list handy and
add to it as other thoughts occur: at some stage you’ll find it
essential in defending your retention strategies.