Executive Briefing

Top 5 Strategies for Motivating & Retaining Top-Performing Employees

September 2009
2009 Profiles International, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Top 5 Strategies for Motivating & Retaining Top-Performing Employees. Copyright 2009 by Profiles International. Printed and bound in the
United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of the report may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means
including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the publisher.
Publisher
Profiles Research Institute
Dario Priolo, Managing Director
5205 Lake Shore Drive
Waco, Texas 76710-1732
Profiles International
(800) 960-9612
www.profilesinternational.com

Acknowledgements
CEO, Co-founder, Profiles International: Jim Sirbasku
President, Co-founder, Profiles International: Bud Haney
Editor-in-Chief: Dario Priolo
Managing Editor: Carrie D. Martinez
Creative Director: Kelley Taylor

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Top 5 Strategies for Motivating & Retaining Top-Performing Employees

Introduction
The success of your organization is directly affected by the people you employ. Having
the right people with the right skills in the right jobs can result in a significant
competitive advantage.
All too often, employers overlook the importance of retaining talent. In addition, their
inability to compete for talented employees will soon become evident as they recognize
the challenges associated with hiring replacements:

New hires do not have the skills or knowledge required for the position
The new hire is talented her but skill set does not match the position
The company experiences high turnover or loses talent to competitors
New hires do not fit within the company culture and create conflict in the
workforce

As fewer workers with the required skill sets enter the job market, companies must find
new ways to develop, motivate, and retain talent. This guide will provide you with the
Top 5 Strategies for Motivating and Retaining Top-Performing Employees:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

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Employee Orientation
Performance Evaluations
Occupational Assessments
Succession Planning
Terminating an Employee

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Top 5 Strategies for Motivating & Retaining Top-Performing Employees

1. Employee Orientation
Employee orientation is an important part of the hiring process, but it is often the most
neglected. It is designed to reduce first-day jitters and to introduce the employee to the
work process as quickly as possible by familiarizing him both with his job and with
company operations, policies, procedures, and products.
When done properly, orientation sessions can instill positive attitudes about the
organization, ensure quicker productivity, reduce the likelihood of problems from
misunderstandings and misconceptions about company policies, and improve
communication among employees.
The more effort you put forth to get employees started right, the more likely they are to
stay and become great employees.
The main objectives of an orientation program are to:

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Make a good impression starting on the first day

Make new employees feel welcome and at ease
Explain what the company is about and explain the policies, procedures, benefits,
and programs
Show the new employee the products and services, even if they are not part of
her immediate department or job description

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Top 5 Strategies for Motivating & Retaining Top-Performing Employees

2. Performance Evaluations
Frequent communication with employees concerning performance is essential to
employee morale and performance. Positive communication can motivate and reinforce
outstanding performance. Prompt discussions of problem areas will help prevent those
areas from becoming major problems later.
Employee performance evaluation data is traditionally used to determine wage
increases and promotion decisions, but this data is also used to determine training
needs, to determine the need for skill inventories, to validate selection procedures, and
to document information regarding terminated employees.
A good performance evaluation will:

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Provide a direct link between the jobs requirements and the standards used to
measure performance
Give each supervisor a means of determining the type of management guidance
and development needed by the employee
Provide direction to the employee to assure that the employees efforts are
channeled in the best direction for the company
Give each supervisor the means for analyzing an employees performance

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Top 5 Strategies for Motivating & Retaining Top-Performing Employees

3. Occupational Assessments

Occupational assessments have become essential tools for managing a successful

business. They provide the information that executives and managers use to make
better human capital decisions. Its not enough just to have a hiring process that selects
good people. Positioning people optimally within the company is even more important.
Companies hire the best people they can find, but they are often careless when they
position their employees. Some employees may appear to be qualified, of course, but
unless their personal attributes match those required by the job, performance results
may be disappointing. The more leaders know about their people, the more likely they
are to maximize their human resources and get the greatest return for the company.
Employee performance can sometimes be improved through training, and training
often takes the one size fits all approach. But experience shows that people learn in
different ways and at different rates. When everyone receives the same training, its
almost certain that more than half of them wont get it.
The results of occupational assessments can provide the answers to many of the
questions leaders have about how best to coach, train and motivate their people.

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Top 5 Strategies for Motivating & Retaining Top-Performing Employees

4. Succession Planning
Ensuring the long-term success of your company is crucial, and succession planning can
help you do just that. Managers are using smart succession planning solutions to
identify employees who have the potential to be promoted and to accurately chart the
employees course to promotion.
Why recruit outside your company for talented people when you can develop the
ones you already employ?
If you want to ensure your companys long-term success, you must think about career
tracks for your existing employees. One of the keys to developing a leadership pipeline is
understanding the competencies, skills and weaknesses of your existing workforce.
When you have that information, you can match those in your pipeline with duties and
responsibilities that maximize performance, employee morale, and company success.
Succession planning solutions will help your business develop an organization-wide view
of your existing employees leadership competencies so that you can build and create
succession plans that will help your employees visualize their futures in the company.

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Top 5 Strategies for Motivating & Retaining Top-Performing Employees

5. Terminating an Employee

Termination is usually a very touchy subject. The decision to discharge an employee for
any reasontheft, misconduct, unacceptable job performance, excessive absenteeism,
intoxication, etc.should not be made hastily or without deliberation. Indefensible
terminations can leave an employer vulnerable to wrongful discharge law suits and can
have an adverse effect on morale throughout the workplace. One way to avoid making
unjustified discharges is to build safeguards into the disciplinary process.
The exit interview is a standard separation procedure in most organizations. Many
employers are hesitant to conduct exit interviews because, they say, the separating
employee either will refuse to discuss any critical issues for fear of jeopardizing chances
of a reference or exaggerate the circumstances to justify his/her actions that led to the
termination.
Wrongful discharge is one of the leading causes of EEO audits and lawsuits. The
termination of an employee may result from a number of circumstances. The reasons
may be misconduct, unacceptable performance, poor economic conditions, or other
circumstances (production cutbacks, plant closing, reorganizations or mergers, the
elimination of positions). If termination is for cause, the actual termination should be
the culmination of a reasonable process of discipline with ample and documented
groundwork demonstrated along the way.

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Top 5 Strategies for Motivating & Retaining Top-Performing Employees

Summary
1. Employee Orientation

Ensure quicker productivity and promote

communication

Instill a positive attitude about the organization

3. Occupational Assessments

Assess personal attributes to see if they match

both the job requirements and the company
culture

2. Performance Evaluations

Increase employee morale and performance

with frequent communication through the use of
evaluations

Identify problem areas to prevent them from

becoming major problems later

4. Succession Planning

Ensure the long-term success of your

organization by creating career paths for your
current employees

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5. Terminating an Employee

Avoid making unjustified discharges by building

safeguards into the disciplinary process

Conduct an exit interview

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Top 5 Strategies for Motivating & Retaining Top-Performing Employees

Products of Interest

PXT The ProfileXT is a total person assessment that has a myriad of uses. It measures job-related
qualities that make a person productivethinking and reasoning style, behavioral traits and occupational
interests. These qualities in an individual directly affect her productivity, and the productivity of her
entire team. An added benefit? The ProfileXT provides 10 reports from one fifty-minute assessment:
individual report, placement report, succession planning report, candidate matching report, coaching
report, job analysis report, sales placement report, sales management report, summary reports and
graph reports.

Profiles Performance Indicator Management Reports are like instruction manuals, filled with essential
information about your people. The reports help you get new employees to full productivity quicker,
encourage employees to engage in personal growth activities that enhance their job performance, and
help your managers increase their effectiveness as leaders and motivators

Profiles CheckPoint SkillBuilder is an organized, self-paced, self-study employee development system.

The SkillBuilder combines CheckPoint Feedback, the right job activities and job knowledge, and a
Personal Action Plan for accountability with a customized coaching guide. This links the participant to a
third-party coach for reinforcement and follow-through.

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Profiles International Who We Are

Profiles International helps organizations worldwide create high-performing workforces.
Through our comprehensive employment assessments and innovative talent management solutions,
our clients gain a competitive advantage by selecting the right people and managing them to their
full potential.

Where We Are
Profiles serves 122 countries
around the globe and has
material in 32 languages.

Contact Us
Profiles International
www.profilesinternational.com
(800) 960-9612

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