For managers and leaders, having high-performing employees means spending less time and energy micromanaging teams, recruiting, training, and putting out fires. Identify Their Skills And Goals. We got a call from Blanche, who was concerned about a team leader in her department. Looking for the perfect way to engage and recognize everyone at your company, from your best performers to the new hires? I know some of you are thinking that as an officer of the company John was doing the right thing. How to spot high-performing employees. A necessary starting point here is to have a one-on-one with your high performer to discuss long-term goals.
Leaders, my challenge for you today is to objectively assess how you are treating your top-performers. Instead, what will be much more meaningful to your high performers is to look for frequent and specific opportunities to recognize the value of their work. In a Glassdoor study of over 2, 000 American workers, participants reported using only 51% of their allotted time off in the past year. A major part of what makes high performers so great is that they aim high and keep an eye on the future. These achievement-oriented hires are usually highly flexible, adaptable and self-driven. She took her "star" to a nice little spot off-site, where she humbly apologized. Think about the backwards logic here. Jean Martin and Conrad Schmidt shared the secret in their Harvard Business Review article, "How to Keep Your Top Talent": It may seem obvious, but the solution is for senior management to double (or even triple) its efforts to keep young stars engaged. You should also consider whether the additional tasks you have taken on are detracting from your designated workload, or if you are feeling overworked.
You may also want to include them in the hiring process within their department or team and see who they recommend, as they may pick up on other high performer qualities in candidates. Keeping that talent is even harder. There's a saying amongst recruiters about High Performers—"A Players hire A-Players, but B-Players hire C-Players. " Why is it vital to engage high performers? To retain your top performers and keep them happy, you need to understand their motivations, their likes, and dislikes. In addition to wanting to be recognized for their outstanding contributions, your top performers want constructive feedback. Make it beneficial for employees to adopt them.
What We Used to Reward Highly is Now Just Expected. That helps keep things fresh and exciting and prevents them from jumping ship to a more exciting shop. But they also know that they have the skills to get those needs met elsewhere if your company isn't providing enough. In so many ways, your high performers dictate how work is done in your organisation. This happened to our client Bella a few years back.
They're more active on LinkedIn. Take some time to consider — do your employees feel a sense of purpose? I have been so stressed out and feel like I'm worthless. This is also a good time to let your boss know if you feel you are being taken advantage of by colleagues, if they are the ones primarily coming to you for favours and tasks. Don't overload them, though, or burden them with the tasks that no one else wants to do. You're not meeting their expectations for benefits. To put it simply, they're a model employee. Adam's declaration took you by surprise. No one likes to feel like work is being taken for granted. "Adam turned the recruiter down, but he said that the call got him thinking.
Everyone loves high performers. High potential employees don't have the best performance record yet, but as their name suggests, the potential is there. Knowing your role will help you to determine whether you're actually being taken advantage of, or if you're just not used to what you are doing. If your leaders are doing a poor job in mass you can only look inward, and upward. You're punishing your top performers by ignoring them, even if it's unintentional. If a colleague asks you to do something to help out every once in awhile, chances are this isn't an attempt to take advantage of your hard work and willingness to help. So let's look back to Paul's story, through the lens of his employee lifecycle, for improvement cues. "This manager told me what the job pays, and it's two-thirds of what I'm earning now. Our client Theo told us that in his first year on the job, he landed his company's first patent and they gave him a $5000 bonus for doing it. Karie Willyerd mentioned in "What High Performers Want at Work" that "[t]enure-based or compensation strategies with little differentiation between high and low performers are likely to alienate your high performers the most. It's easy to be blinded by an A-Player's track record for success in one role and to assume that success will translate into a new role. …you have a high-performer on your team.
They aren't just "entitled" millennials who want a pat on the back. They're afraid to lose someone making huge contributions to their department - but guess what? For a High Performer, the only thing worse than having a Micro-Manager for a boss, is a boss who does nothing.
While social norms tend to discourage frank conversations about pay, Deborah Jacobs points out in Forbes that "[i]f your company tries to keep you from comparing salaries or benefits with colleagues, it may be breaking the law. Recognize their accomplishments. Research has shown that "meaningful creative work can increase work satisfaction and engagement, and by extension, employee performance and retention. " He could have been honest. Stay up to do date on the latest best practices that drive higher performance. In fact, it could easily backfire. This will only lead to them feeling either taken advantage of or burnt out.