Page 229 - Retaining Top Employees

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Summary: Making It All Work 217

events you’ve proposed
Pilot Your Activities
are not very exciting? Is it One great way to find out
because the same idea the ease of implementing
was tried a few years ago any part of your strategy—with mini-
and was an embarrassing mum disruption and without risking
failure? Identify the root that the entire strategy will be labeled
cause and deal with it a failure—is to pilot the activity first.
To test a social events calendar,for
before proceeding with
example,try just a few events with a
implementation.
few people. If that works well enough,
Processes vs. Events then roll out the entire calendar.
Second, try to put in place
processes, not just events. This means designing not just each
specific element of your retention strategy, but also the support-
ing structure to ensure that the event can be repeated without
the need for your intervention.
For example, let’s say you decide to implement a mentoring
program for your top employees. You’ll engage in a series of
events: setting the program objectives, identifying protégés and
mentors, matching them, getting them launched on their rela-
tionship, and monitoring their progress. Make each step a
process. For example, write a simple memo detailing your
method for matching protégés and mentors, to save someone
time and effort the next time around, and file the forms and
documents you use to track the mentoring relationships, for
future use.
At each step, ask yourself, “If I weren’t here tomorrow, is
there enough documentation that anyone else could readily step
in and manage this strategy?” If the answer is “No,” then you’re
probably implementing events rather than processes and the
longevity of your strategy is at risk.
Warp and Woof
Third, to ensure longevity of your retention strategy, try to make
it as much as possible part of the “warp and woof” of the organ-
ization. The more your strategy sticks out as something distinct
and separate, the more difficult it is to sustain it over time. On