As a leader, your worst nightmare comes true the day your “rock star” employee gives their notice. Not only do you lose the person, but their experience, business acumen and the relationships they’ve built with internal and external customer are also at stake. It can take months, or even years, to recoup the loss of a single valued team member.
With the United States experiencing full employment, available skilled talent is scarce. When organizations can’t find people on their own, they may turn to the next best thing – YOUR employees. If you haven’t made the effort to create an engaged employee culture, your top employees may be ripe for the picking.
How do you keep your best employees from becoming someone else’s? Here are three strategies:
Acknowledge the Achievers
Identify and focus on your most productive employees. Don’t “reward” them by giving them more work – make sure they have the tools, tips, and technology to do their job. Take the time to find out how they do what they do, and use their efforts as benchmarks to inspire the rest of your team. Implement “stay interviews” to discover what keeps your employees motivated at work, as well as finding out what would cause them to leave.
Pay your Performers
Give your employees the opportunity to earn additional income by going above and beyond. Make sure to include everyone in your bonus system – even those whose work is difficult to quantify. When everyone is paid the same, no matter how much they contribute, it is demotivating to the people who are making the effort to excel.
Train your Top Talent
Develop a clear career plan for your engaged employees that keeps them challenged and helps them grow – both personally and professionally. Advancement within your organization doesn’t have to be a step up the corporate ladder. A lateral move which gives your employee opportunities to learn a new skill, try something different, and do something they love, can go a long way in improving the skill level of your entire team.
Taking the time to craft a program which recognizes and rewards excellence is worth the effort. You’ll see long term payoffs in terms of increased morale, productivity and profitability.
