Page 45 - Retaining Top Employees

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The Secret’s in the Swing 33

asking questions. You’ll understand more and more about the
likely effect of your retention-related activities by asking those
directly involved—the employees. Every time you ask a rele-
vant question of an employee and receive a valid answer, it’s
like pitching a golf ball onto a tricky hillock and seeing how it
runs. Interviews are your equivalent of “walking the course.”
You must incorporate these into your retention-related activities.
(We’ll describe how to use interviews in your retention planning
in Chapter 3.)
In Chapter 3 we’ll examine in detail what it means to “picture
the shot”—how to visualize and plan the exact retention strategy
that’s right for you.

Club Selection: Deciding Which
Retention Tools to Use

After visualizing the shot, a golfer selects the appropriate club to
achieve the result visualized: a driver for the tee shot, a putter
for the green, a sand wedge for getting out of bunkers, and so
on. To retain top employees, you must choose the right tools to
achieve your goals. The possibilities are numerous: compensa-
tion schemes, crèches, pension plans, cars, bonuses, fresh
paint, coaching, 360-degree assessments, barbecues … to
name just a few.
How can you decide which tools are exactly right to achieve
your specific retention goals? The answer is twofold:
1. Benchmark against the results other organizations have
achieved with a specific tool, so you can estimate the
result likely in your organization.
2. Pilot-test a specific tool, so you can observe the outcome
directly in a controlled environment, before implementing
it throughout the organization.
In Chapters 4 through 6 we’ll take a detailed look at how to
select the right tools for your retention goals, the specific inter-
ventions to produce the results you want.