Page 224 - Retaining Top Employees

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212 Retaining Top Employees

um-term, nebulous, and hard to appreciate amid the pressures
of day-to-day operational activities. To remain enthusiastic, you
need to be able to see added value in the short term.

Adding Value for Others
Finally, make sure the entire retention process adds value for
everyone else in the organization. Your retention activities will
be constricted and eventually die if they fail to add value for
those who are involved on the periphery and who have the
power of making the process succeed or fail.
If, for example, an orientation program takes up so much of
your assistant’s time that he’s falling behind in his core duties,
something needs to be altered—either the program design or
your assistant’s duties. Similarly, if your skills coaching program
is consuming so much of the computer lab time that other man-
agers are complaining, you need to either redesign the coaching
program or use different resources.
You might find a chart like the one in Figure 12-1 helpful in
establishing the added value of your retention activities.

Retention Added Value Added Value Added Value Added Value
Program to the to Top to Others
to Me
Element Organization Employees Involved

Figure 12-1. Added value chart

Using Points of Leverage in Your Organization
After making an appropriate change in mindset and ensuring
that your retention strategy adds value, the next step is to
establish and use four effective points of leverage within the
organization: