Too little too late: Losing your star performers

They’re the most loyal employees you have. They’re your hardest workers. They understand both quality and quantity, producing the best results and the most results. They’re always willing to learn and teach. They represent your organization with pride. They’re coworkers love them; your customers love them; you love them. They’re your star performers.

But, why would you wait until they have one foot out the door to get them to stay? So many leaders and organizations make this very mistake all too often. Specifically, I see leaders and organizations overlook five specific areas.

1. Training and Development
This starts with hiring practices. It is a misconception that many recruiters and hiring managers have that just because you hire someone who is extremely qualified, it means that they will require less training and development. This is far from true. If anything, they might have different needs when it comes to the areas in which they need further development. Richard Branson says it best: “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

That’s what development is all about: growing our people, helping them improve their current skills and develop new ones. One of the most heartbreaking stories I heard was from an exceptional coworker about why she left a company. She said she begged the company to pay for her to take a class and they kept putting it off, year after year that she would ask. Finally, she saved enough money to pay for it herself. When she put in her notice, they asked her why she was leaving and she said, “On several occasions spanning several years, I gave this organization the opportunity to invest in me. I wasn’t asking to go back to school for a degree or to attend an outrageous number of conferences each year. I asked to have one class paid for so I could learn one new skill. The organization told me that it could not afford it. So, I invested in myself and now, I can’t afford to offer up my new skill to an organization that wasn’t willing to invest in me.”

2. Career Growth
Career growth can mean many things. It can mean simply investing in training and development of your staff. It can also mean providing new opportunities for people, whether it’s a lateral movement or upward movement within the organization.

Give people a chance especially if you already know their potential. Some organizations make it impossible for their employees to move up internally which is why they have high turnover and onboarding becomes the busiest process in the organization.

3. Meaningful Recognition
Problem? Yes. The problem here is that organizations assume that people like to be recognized the same way, which is not true. Some people enjoy being the center of attention while others prefer a more subtle form of recognition.

What does this mean for leaders? It means that leaders need to get to know their employees. It sounds like a daunting task but it’s worth the investment. If you customize and personalize your recognition programs and decisions, your staff will feel truly appreciated and special. If there’s only one or two generic ways of recognizing people, the recognition loses its meaning and value.

4. Playing Favorites
Misconception: rewarding your star performers equals playing favorites. This happens the most probably during performance review time. Managers give everyone the same rating because they don’t want to have tough conversations and because they don’t want staff to think they’re playing favorites.

High performers hate this! They feel like their time, hard work and results are for nothing when their lower performing peers are receiving the same review rating and/or raise and not expected to improve performance. If they’re not recognized for being better, they’ll either stop being a star performer or they’ll leave, neither of which are good for an organization.

5. Salary
While many believe this is the number one reason why people leave organizations, it is not. However, it still is important. The biggest mistake I see leaders make is throw money at their star performers as they’re heading out the door. If your employees have already accepted another job offer and are giving you two weeks notice, it’s probably not the most ideal time to offer them a raise. If you truly value them, you would have given them a fair raise a long time ago.

The most embarrassing thing about watching leaders do this is that they either look so desperate because they’re essentially begging the employee not to leave or they look silly because they actually believe it’s going to work. It usually doesn’t.

Attaining star performers is an opportunity. Retaining them is a privilege earned by grasping the opportunity to do everything in your power to provide them the best possible work environment in which to thrive. Lesson learned? Don’t fall into the trap of losing your best employees because you did too little too late.

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Accountability without support does not work

As an HR professional, I could not agree more that we need to hold employees accountable for their performance. In fact, I find that leaders don’t do this enough. However, the biggest problem I see leaders make when it comes to accountability, besides the fact that they don’t do it enough, is that they try to hold people accountable without ever providing the proper training or support.

If your team is not meeting expectations or you’re not meeting your numbers for the month, why not start by asking what you can do? Too many leaders look first to blame their staff – they’re not working hard enough, they’re not competent enough, they don’t care about their work enough. Well, sometimes, it might be because they have not received enough resources, guidance, technology or training.

Next time your team falls short, don’t look for blame but instead, look for areas where you can help. If you don’t know where the problem is or how to help them, ask. Ask for feedback from the staff. They usually know exactly where they need help and what would help them do their jobs better.

Leaders should take ownership in improving and developing their teams to be successful. Once you do that, then you can set clear expectations and hold people accountable. Only when you have done everything in your power to make your team successful can you realistically hold them accountable for performance.

Invest the time in your people and it’ll pay off. Not only will you develop a strong team that way but you’ll boost morale. People will want to work for you and do their best every day because you invested in them and believe in them.

Once you’ve done everything to make your team successful, you can hold them accountable. As a leader, you have the power to give employees encouragement, tools/resources and independence to do their work, make decisions and succeed. If you don’t give people the tools to do their job effectively/efficiently, you can’t expect fast/accurate results.

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Why workplaces should have an alumni network

Almost every college and university in the world has an alumni network for their graduates to stay connected to the school and to each other. Why haven’t businesses followed this concept?

No matter how great you are, how independent you are or how confident you are, you do not reach success without people. Put the ego aside and think about all of the wonderful employees who have made your business a success, including the ones who have left to pursue new careers and opportunities.

Remember, not every employee leaves because he/she is fired or because he/she hates the company. Many people leave organizations because of personal reasons, professional opportunities elsewhere that they just can’t pass up or other priorities. Often times, they leave with mixed emotions, knowing how much they love the organization and its people.

So, why are we just letting these people go and not staying in touch with them? Business isn’t just about revenue anymore. It’s about relationships.

Developing an alumni network for your workplace is one of the best ways to build relationships. Everything gets reviewed online these days. Employee satisfaction is no exception. With sites like Glassdoor, your current and previous employees are rating their satisfaction with working at your organization.

Maintaining and engaging a strong alumni network allows you and your business to improve in areas of need and continue doing the things you do well. Alumni feedback is just as important as the feedback you receive from current employees. It allows you to see trends in employment and employee satisfaction.

Engaging alumni also keeps them in your recruiting pool. For example, if a phenomenal employee left for a better opportunity, you can keep engaging them so that when an opportunity becomes available at your organization, they’ll know right away and might just consider coming back. You save time and money in recruiting, hiring, orienting and training because they’ve already worked for your organization, know the people and understand the culture.

There are also other ways to keep good employees around besides keeping them employed. Alumni can also be customers, business partners, donors, board members or volunteers. Forgetting about your employees who have left your organization is too common of a mistake that organizations make.

I wrote a recent post called Leverage relationships to reach success to encourage jobseekers to build real relationships with people in order to find new opportunities. It works both ways. Organizations need to leverage relationships with alumni to reach or maintain success.

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Ditch the screen, pick up an improv class (Part 3 of 3)

I was at the SHRM conference earlier this year and attended a session about how a company out east requires all of its employees to take an improv course. In fact, it’s part of the orientation process for new hires. I was fascinated by the idea and got to thinking about comedy, improv and leadership.

Instead of spending Friday nights checking out the latest movie flicks at the theater or on Netflix from your couch, sign up for an improv class. It’ll not only be more entertaining, but it might just make you a better leader.

Improv comes from the word improvise or improvisation, which is something exceptional leaders do well. Taking an improv class will teach you more than just improvising but it will also allow you to bring a whole new kind of culture to your team or organization, one full of laughter, energy, and candor.

Do you ever have an employee say something to you that is so rude, unexpected or otherwise, shocking? You stare at them like a deer in headlights, not knowing how to respond. Well, improv will teach you how to be more comfortable with yourself so that you become more comfortable with others.

This is a lesson that I have learned over and over again and still continue to learn. Improv has helped me develop the tact, the wit and the self-confidence to overcome situations that would normally make me feel extremely uncomfortable.

How is that possible, you ask? It’s not just about laughing and fun. Improv classes push us out of our comfort zones. It forces us to respond in the moment to unexpected scenarios and comments in front of an audience of peers and strangers.

Improv is the future of leadership development and communication skills training. We now have five generations in the workforce. Are you and your organization’s leaders ready to respond to all of them, build a culture for all of them and engage all of them into your work and organization? Consider using improv training to help prepare your organizations for the future.

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