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Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around

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Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around

Every manager should make employee retention a priority and regularly inquire, “How many of my star employees would leave my organization if they could?”

Employee turnover can be expensive. Managers must find and hire replacements, invest in training the new employees, and wait for them to get to up to speed—all while suffering productivity shortfalls during the transition. The more talented an employee, the higher the cost of replacing him/her.

Here’s what you need to do to keep your star employees around.

  1. Identify them. Find key attributes that distinguish top performers from average performers. Then rank your team against these attributes and identify those employees who are critical to your organization’s short- and long-term success.
  2. Perform salary and compensation research within your industry and offer an attractive-enough benefits package. Beyond a particular point, compensation loses much of its motivating power. Consider flexible work arrangements.
  3. Understand what your star employees value and help them realize their values and regard their work as meaningful, purposeful, and important. Often, the risk of losing employees because their personal values don’t correspond with the team’s values is far greater than the risk of losing them because of compensation.
  4. Get regular feedback from your star employees. Ask, “What can I do as your manager to make our organization a great place for you to work?” Let them tell you what they need and what they like and don’t like about their jobs. Adjust their assignments and their work conditions accordingly.
  5. Invest in training and development. Give star employees opportunities to develop their skills and increase their engagement and job security. Hold frequent and formal career discussions to determine employees’ goals and aspirations and coach them.
  6. Give your star employees the autonomy, authority, and resources to use their skills and do their jobs in their own way.
  7. Keep them challenged and engaged. Make work more exciting. Set aggressive, but realizable goals. Move your star employees around into positions in the company where they will face new challenges and develop critical skills. Employees would like to be challenged, appreciated, trusted, and see a path for career advancement.
  8. Appreciate and give honest feedback regularly. Make timely and informal feedback a habit. Don’t disregard employee performance until the annual review. Help employees feel confident about your organization’s future. Earn their trust.

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How to Promote Employees

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How to Promote Employees

Job Promotions Can Be Stressful

A job promotion is generally cause for celebration and gratification. However, it can be a source of deep anxiety for many employees: they tend to suffer additional mental strain and are less likely to find time to go to the doctor. Research at the University of Warwick found that “the mental health of managers typically deteriorates after a job promotion, and in a way that goes beyond merely a short-term change.”

Promote Employees Who’ve Shown Some Evidence of Success

Before you decide to promote an employee, ask yourself the following six questions about the candidate. The more affirmative answers to these questions, the better the chances for the promotion to succeed. Examine and resolve any “no” answers before considering the employee for other job transitions.

  • Is the candidate performing her current duties well enough to justify a promotion?
  • Can she hand over her current responsibilities to a new person?
  • Does she possess a sound understanding of the fundamentals of a business and have the requisite operating experience?
  • Is she keen to take on a new job? Is she familiar with the responsibilities and priorities of the new job? Is she willing to make decisions and be accountable for results?
  • Is she qualified and experienced enough to do at least part of the new job? Is she adequately trained or ready to be trained in the new job’s requirements?
  • Are her interpersonal skills adequate to work with employees, customers, suppliers, peers, and bosses in the new job?

Idea for Impact: If employees are not entirely prepared for new assignments, you are unintentionally setting them up for stressful transitions, bitterness, or eventual failure. Beware of the perils of promoting people too quickly.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Ready for a Promotion?
  2. Don’t Push Employees to Change
  3. Seven Real Reasons Employees Disengage and Leave
  4. Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around
  5. Seven Easy Ways to Motivate Employees and Increase Productivity

Don’t Assume Conversations with Human Resources Will Remain Confidential

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Do Not Assume Conversations with Human Resources Will Remain Confidential

Human Resources (HR) can be a great resource to help you secure a promotion, be a better manager, and even deal with an employee grievance/claim.

However, if you’re having a serious problem with a manager or a colleague, don’t pour your heart out to your HR person and ask that no action be taken. You cannot count on the confidentiality of your discussions. While your HR person intends to help you, he also has an obligation as well to helping your manager and your colleague deal with you.

Similarly, do not discuss any career-transition plans (switching to another job within your company, resigning, job hunting, or retiring) with HR. HR is obligated to keep your manager informed about any prospective issue concerning staffing or anything that might affect organizational goals.

Human Resources and Confidentiality

HR has no lawful obligation to maintain confidentiality in anything you discuss. You may expect your HR person to remain confidential to the greatest possible extent. However, remember that the HR person’s primary loyalties and responsibilities concern the organization’s business needs. He is duty-bound to investigate employee complaints and involve other levels of management, especially in case of possible discrimination or harassment concerns.

Expect your HR person to pass on any information that’s in the organization’s best interest, even after promising confidentiality. HR should never mislead employees about the level of confidentiality they can expect. Such HR people aren’t behaving ethically and, over time, tend to lose employees’ and managers’ trust.

Go to HR for guidance on solving people problems or for help with organizational policies and procedures. See a reliable friend or a trusted peer to confide problems and challenges. Do not share anything with HR that you wouldn’t share with your manager.

Idea for Impact: HR is obligated to act on serious issues they learn about, whether or not you want them to. Therefore, never assume that conversations with HR will remain wholly confidential. Be discriminating in what you disclose to HR.

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Performance Appraisal Systems “Don’t Meet Expectations”

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Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews » Douglas Max and Robert Bacal Across the corporate world, the annual performance appraisal system has been reduced to a perfunctory exercise to “do what HR needs and check-the-box,” and produce paperwork to weed out the laggards and reduce liability against discrimination lawsuits. So much so that one company I know recently distributed copies of the book “Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews” to hundreds of its managers to help “use relevant phrases and standardize the vocabulary” and “ease the whole process.”

Empirical evidence suggests that, taken as a whole, the annual performance appraisal system has failed to “meet expectations.” It produces no durable improvements in employee behavior and seldom assists the employees meaningfully with career development. Nor does it have a discernible impact on organizational development. Thanks to a system that is highly subjective and easy to game, this annual ritual has become a stressful exercise for managers and employees alike.

At many companies, performance appraisals center too much on filling out forms. The actual performance appraisal meetings tend to be uncomfortable encounters for both managers and employees. Much time during these meetings is devoted to disputing the self-evaluations of employees, summoning up their failings, and defending the employee rankings previously determined by a “consensus” process administered by HR. Besides, during the ranking process, managers tend to overstate the accomplishments of their own employees and put down other employees—after all, managers do not want to incriminate themselves and admit failure in managing employees as successfully as their managerial peers might assert.

Performance appraisal systems do not meet expectations

Core to this problem is that most managers fail to understand that employee performance management is about establishing relationships and ensuring effective communication about how employees, managers, teams, and organizations can succeed and create enduring value.

Performance management should not be limited to just once a year during the annual performance appraisal. Helping employees to reflect on their performance and learn from their mistakes, and coaching them should be part of the everyday interactions between employees and their managers. This way, the employees can solicit feedback promptly, know where they stand, and make small ongoing improvements. The managers do not have to wait until the appraisal time and then make an extraordinary attempt to convince their employees to correct themselves. The constant communication can eliminate any surprises for both the manager and the employee during the formal performance appraisal exercise.

As part of this informal practice, the managers can keep a diary on employee performance. Recording significant and relevant examples of an employee’s performance (achievements and shortcomings) can help the managers write objective performance summaries. In addition to diminishing the recency bias, the awareness that a manager might write up opinions may persuade an employee to pay attention.

For now, HR can develop a “Performance Improvement Plan” to overhaul the performance appraisal system and truly help improve individual and organizational performance.

More Ideas for Career Success

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  4. [Rating Errors] Beware of the Recency Bias
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Four Telltale Signs of an Unhappy Employee

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Telltale Signs of an Unhappy Employee A skilled manager understands how to get work done through her staff under all circumstances. She makes herself available, delegates effectively and provides appropriate feedback. She works hard to sustain an effective work environment in which her staff feels motivated and takes pride in their achievements.

The skilled manager accurately discerns what her employees think and how feel about their work; she also assesses their happiness on the job. She recognizes unhappy employees through these four noticeable behavioral changes over time:

  • Tardiness: The unhappy employee tends to arrive late, leave early and takes longer breaks. He is often elusive and hard to pin down.
  • Disdain: The unhappy employee can be grouchy, whining, or may complain excessively. He tends to be oversensitive: he sulks at even the slightest criticism, gets defensive, or accuses supervisors of picking on him.
  • Indifference: The unhappy employee cannot focus on his responsibilities. Consequently, his work tends to be disorganized and incomprehensible. His workload is a struggle. He fails to update management on a regular basis, rarely has a say in important matters, and resists new assignments.
  • Aloofness: The unhappy employee is inclined to distance himself physically, socially and emotionally from his coworkers. He is likely to be uncooperative and refuses to accommodate others’ requests.

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‘Stealth’ Layoffs and Employee Morale

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Stealth layoffs on Wall Street and employee morale

‘For Wall Street Workers, Ax Falls Quietly’

Last month, the New York Times reported about ‘stealth’ layoffs in the financial services industry. The story refers to a trend of Wall Street firms downsizing their workforces by laying people off without formal announcements. It appears that, at these firms, managements rarely discuss layoffs in meetings or formal communications to preclude negative publicity. As a result, employees cannot easily identify what divisions are targeted for layoffs or whether they’ll stay or go.

Here are excerpts from the “For Wall Street Workers, Ax Falls Quietly” story.

  • Some bosses hardly say a word after people are fired. At Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, for example, the first clue that someone is gone can be e-mail messages that are returned to senders from a former colleague’s inactivated corporate address.
  • Some Lehman Brothers investment bankers found out their jobs were in peril when they saw cardboard boxes and dumpster bins in the hallways in March.
  • And when Bank of America dismissed some bankers recently, it told them that their annual bonuses had been almost wiped out and that their personal belongings would arrive in the mail.
  • “Nobody knows who is coming in; nobody knows who is going out,” said JoAnne Kennedy, who was laid off by JPMorgan Chase this year. “They want to keep it all as quiet as possible.” In January, when Ms. Kennedy was temporarily out of the office at JPMorgan because of surgery, her boss called to say her job had been eliminated. She did not return to her office and ended up asking the bank to send her the photos of her son that she kept on her desk. [Note: Reorganized]

Impending Layoffs Initiate Distraction and Poor Employee Morale

Portait of Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, with the caption 'Big Ben, We're Totally Screwed' After about five years of terrific across-the-industry performance and sky-high compensations, the financial services sector is presently reeling in a downturn—triggered by the sub-prime crisis, credit crunch and stunted returns in capital markets. Under present circumstances, Wall Street firms can justify downsizing their workforce. Still, the trend of ‘stealth’ layoffs amounts to unfair treatment of employees. Ironically, it is likely that these very companies publicly pride themselves on the talent of their workforce and boast “our people are our most important assets” in annual reports.

The practice of ‘stealth’ layoffs establishes an environment of mistrust and apprehension. Employees cannot focus on their work, speculate on ‘who is next,’ and prepare themselves for a potential dismissal. Employees may even hesitate to take vacations for fear of returning to a dismissal. The end result is poor morale and possible defections of talented people to competing firms.

[Image above: A portrait of Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, with the caption ‘Big Ben, We’re Totally Screwed’ in reference to the sub-prime crisis. I photographed this portrait across from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in November ’07. The artist had placed this portrait on auction at eBay.]

Layoffs are Never Easy

Dismissals, Layoffs, Downsizing Often, business decisions entail some pain. Layoffs are never easy—for executives of a large organization facing the need to downsize by thousands or for a manager trying to dismiss one of his/her employees. Habitually, managers dread the prospect of facing employees being dismissed. Formal top-to-bottom communication and candid conversations with affected employees are obligations of the management. Employees being dismissed rightfully deserve to hear a respectful and honest assessment of the reasons for layoffs. They merit an offer for support through the transition and in pursuing employment elsewhere. This is the essence of true corporate character.

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  5. A Majority of Formal Training Doesn’t Stick

General Electric’s Jack Welch Identifies Four Types of Managers

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Jack Welch's Four Types of Managers

Four Types of Managers

Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of General Electric Jack Welch, Chairman and CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 2001, described four categories of managers in General Electric’s year 2000 annual report.

Type 1: shares our values; makes the numbers—sky’s the limit!

Type 2: shares the values; misses the numbers—typically, another chance, or two.

Type 3: doesn’t share the values; doesn’t make the numbers—gone.

Type 4 is the toughest call of all: the manager who doesn’t share the values, but delivers the numbers. This type is the toughest to part with because organizations always want to deliver and to let someone go who gets the job done is yet another unnatural act. But we have to remove these Type 4s because they have the power, by themselves, to destroy the open, informal, trust-based culture we need to win today and tomorrow.

We made our leap forward when we began removing our Type 4 managers and making it clear to the entire company why they were asked to leave—not for the usual “personal reasons” or “to pursue other opportunities,” but for not sharing our values. Until an organization develops the courage to do this, people will never have full confidence that these soft values are truly real.

Live by Corporate Values

Keep the company values front and center in people's mind Organizations face the challenge of developing and sustaining a culture that is both values-centered and performance-driven. They begin by developing mission and value statements that, in due course, become little more than wall decorations because the organization’s leaders and managers fail to uphold these values.

Nothing hurts morale more than when leaders tolerate employees who deliver results, but exhibit behaviors that are incongruent to values of the company. For instance, an organization that thrives on teamwork will suffer, over the long term, if a manager habitually claims all credit for his team’s accomplishments.

Idea for Impact: Core Values Matter!

As a manager, drive accountability. Hold employees responsible for their behaviors. Reward employees for proper behaviors and publicly discourage behaviors that do not uphold values. Do not make exceptions—exceptions signify your own indifference to the upholding of values.

As an employee, understand that an essential requirement for your success in your organization is your fit. Your behaviors must be congruent with the character and needs of your organization. Even if you are talented, you will not fare well if your behaviors are inconsistent with the values of your organization. Reflect on your behavior. On a regular basis, collect feedback from your managers, peers and employees. Seek change.

Keep the company values front and center in people’s mind.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Hiring: If You Pay Peanuts, You Get Monkeys
  2. Seven Real Reasons Employees Disengage and Leave
  3. Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around
  4. To Inspire, Pay Attention to People: The Hawthorne Effect
  5. Don’t Push Employees to Change
Here’s a prayer to help you deal with annoying people. Learn from the Stoics!