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42 Retaining Top Employees

You may have picked up this book because of a concern
about a group of employees you’ve already identified. In that
case, you’ve got a great starting point—although you should
complete this section anyway, to make sure you haven’t missed
anything.
But maybe you’re just concerned in general that “we should
be doing something about keeping our best folks.” If so, here’s
a four-step guide to identifying where you should focus your
employee retention activities.
The squeaky wheel. The simplest way (and the most common)
to see where to begin focusing your retention activities is to lis-
ten to what your fellow managers and the senior executives are
saying. If every time you bump into your CEO or a divisional
head, you hear, “You have to do something to keep more of
your corporate account sales managers,” well, there’s a pretty
good indication right there. Sometimes oiling that squeaky
wheel is the most obvious
Don’t Stop with starting point!
the Squeaky The obvious gap. Like the
Wheel
squeaky wheel, this key
If you have a “squeaky wheel”—a per-
retention group is usually
son (or group of people) already
identified as a key retention group— not difficult to spot. This is
don’t stop there. Use the remaining the group of employees in
three points in this section to check which there are always
for other key retention groups to outstanding unfilled posi-
include in your employee retention tions. This key retention
strategy.The squeaky wheel may get
group stares out at you
the grease,but it may not be the only
from the organization
wheel that needs it.
chart with “TBA” (“to be
appointed”) as the most
common entry. It’s hard to find people to fill these key positions
(we’ll discuss reasons later in the chapter) and, when you do,
it’s hard to keep them.
Note: These first two categories often overlap, but not
always. It’s important to watch for the situation where they don’t