The Secrets to keeping your High-performers Around for A Long Time

In every organization, big or small, some employees outshine others. And while it takes all kinds of people to make the world go ’round, your star-employees are your company’s greatest asset. They’re productive, efficient, out-of-the-box thinkers and innovators, and good for your bottom line! If you want what’s good for your company, you need to keep these employees engaged and happy with your company for the long haul.

Knowing that their departure would wreak havoc not only on the bottom line, but on the rest of your team’s productivity and efficiency as well, here are a few strategies to keep your high-performing employees from looking for jobs elsewhere.

Keep Them Entertained

The key reason your high-performers stand out above all others is that they are curious, proactive, and extremely witty – in short, they are always up for a good challenge.

A high performer’s greatest enemy is boredom and tedium. Satisfy their need for always having something new and interesting to do by keeping their hands busy with a constant stream of interesting projects and assignments. Looking for out of the box ways of marketing your products via social media or need innovative ideas on how to cut costs on your packaging while also making it greener? Give the job to the high performers in your company and watch them shine.

Give Them Visibility

Humans have an inherent need to feel acknowledged and recognized whenever they do something good, and your high performers are no exception. Since they are highly critical to your success, give them the visibility that they crave by inviting them to participate in management offsite meetings, lead high-profile teams, or pitch ideas to clients.

Foster connection between the high performers in your organization and encourage them to put their heads together on important projects and then present the results to your executives. Don’t waste away your high performers with mundane tasks or behind the curtain work that doesn’t let them bask in their moment under the limelight.

Show Respect for Employees’ Ideas

If one of your employees comes up with an ingenious idea, make sure you show them the respect that they deserve. Instead of swatting their idea aside if you don’t immediately understand it, make sure to spend a few minutes chatting with the employee to learn more about the effectiveness of the idea and how the organization might best implement it.  Even if some of their ideas may not appear to be best suited to the situation, it still falls on the company leader to proactively listen to the suggestion, provide honest feedback, and encourage the flow of innovative ideas.

Offer Flexibility

You can’t make every employee’s job perfect but what you can do is to enhance employee engagement in some ways, such as providing more flexible working hours for those juggling family responsibilities and homeschooling with their jobs. Meet up with your most high-performing employees and devise a plan carefully tailored to meet their motivational factors. Especially due to the changing lifestyles in the COVID days, you need to tailor your strategies to cater to all employees. For instance, you can ask your high-performers their needs and responsibilities, and try to develop possible flextime strategies and seek feedback from your workers.

Provide Clear Expectations

This is a no-brainer for good leaders. You need to provide your employees with clear expectations the first time around when assigning a team member new projects, so that there is no room for confusion, stress, and frustration, and everyone is happy with the end results. Not to mention, when employees clearly know what is expected of them, they will be better able to exceed your expectations. When your top-performers don’t know how they will be assessed, they won’t be able to give it their best.

Invest In Their Futures

High performers are anything but complacent. They aspire to keep learning and going forward, which is why the best way to retain high performers is to provide them with plenty of opportunities for growth and development. Instead of overlooking their hard work and efforts, constantly remind them that there is room for growth and advancement. If they believe that they have hit the glass ceiling, they won’t be motivated to put forward their best foot. There are a few ways to invest in their future. For instance, some companies offer tuition or reimbursement to their top-performers for continuing education classes, while some organize seminars and workshops to allow their high-performing employees to hone their skills. Keep them abreast of any opportunities within the company that will enable them to grow, if you truly want them to stay engaged and motivated.