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5 Actions To Keep High Performing Staff Longer · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Every manager wants to keep their high performing staff longer.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: High performing employees deliver a lot more value for relatively little more pay.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Attract and keep enough high performing staff in your team, manage them well, and you are likely to have at least good team performance, which is great news for you, the manager leading the team.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: As we all know, keeping high performing staff is a challenge.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: They are the ones that get regular calls from recruiters.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: The high performers are the ones that find it easiest to find another job and leave.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Per Harvard Business Review, a high performer can deliver 400% more productivity than an average performer.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: That is like having four people on your team rather than one, which is exactly why keeping high performers for longer is a big deal for you.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I have five actions or approaches you should take to keep high performing staff longer.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: How well you put each into practice determines how long you keep high performing employees.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: First, think and create partnerships.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, proactively create regular development opportunities.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Third, provide lots of honest structured feedback.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, minimise distractions and pain points.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And fifth, pay them well to make leaving harder.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I share lots of practical tips that I have road tested in many top companies over a 20-year management career.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: At the end, I also share vital tips to keep the rest of your team happy, which is necessary for high overall team performance.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles, and if you're new here, Enhance.training shares people management expertise, resources, and courses teaching you how to build high performing teams.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have lots of free resources and webinars available to add more depth to your knowledge or save you a ton of time.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So do visit us at Enhanced.training to make use of these.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: The first approach to keep high performing staff longer is to think and create partnerships.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Achieving a great team performance is a lot easier with a couple of high performers in the team.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: You need them probably more than they need you.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: After all, finding and attracting another high performing employee to join your team is not easy and it is costly, you know, in terms of your time as well as the cash cost.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Treating your high performing staff as partners will firstly make them feel more valued and appreciated.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, you will utilise more of their talents and skills.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Third, you having the partnership mindset will help create more development opportunities for them.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, they will get more autonomy and responsibility.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there are plenty more.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the actions you can take to treat them as a partner rather than an employee are.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, give them goals to reach and problems to overcome and let them work out how to achieve those goals or solve those problems.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, regularly ask for their opinions, their insights and their solutions.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Third, carefully manage their workload but not their work.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, undertake problem solving with them as an equal.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Think and create partnerships with high performing employees.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: The second action to keep high performing staff longer is to proactively create regular development opportunities.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: High performers need and love the opportunity to learn more and increase their skills.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is a key characteristic that makes them high performers in the first place.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Good development opportunities are probably the most attractive reward for high performing staff.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Creating regular development opportunities in practice for high performing staff is hard work for managers.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is not nearly as easy as most managers hope.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: After all, your team still needs to deliver the core repetitive work needed to reach team goals.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the best ways to develop your high performing staff are firstly, regularly mentor and coach high performers in one-on-one meetings.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Think of all the skills and experience you have.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: In which of these areas does it make most sense to develop your high performer?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Second, ask around the business and look out for projects that your high performers could contribute to.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Fight on their behalf for them to join the project teams where it makes business sense.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Third, help them build relationships across the wider business on a personal and professional level.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Introduce them, bring them along to meetings, invite them to your peer lunches or coffees, persuade them to attend company social events, anything where they might meet other people they don't normally interact with in their day jobs.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, as regularly as practical, rotate some of their responsibilities and activities.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Always have a plan to expand their skills and experience.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, ask your high performers to teach others.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Teaching others is a great way to learn yourself, plus it passes on their valuable skills.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Constantly and proactively look out for ways to further develop the skills, knowledge and experience of your high performing employees.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: The third action to keep high performing staff longer is to provide lots of honest structured feedback.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: We need feedback to improve.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: The more feedback we get and the better the quality of that feedback, the quicker we can improve.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of high performers have a growth mindset.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: That is, they'll mentally turn any feedback you give them, positive or corrective, into an opportunity to learn.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid to tell them how they need to improve as well as tell them what they're doing really well at.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Research has shown that you need to give positive feedback at least three times as much as corrective feedback to keep your employees happy.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is a surprisingly high bar.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Think back on your last week, have you managed three times?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, to improve the quality of your feedback, make it very specific.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about decisions, actions, behaviors and results, not about them as people.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone can change the former fairly quickly.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Receiving corrective feedback on how you are as a person is not going to make you happy or motivate you.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Give feedback regularly, honestly, directly, and with diplomacy and empathy.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth action to keep high-performing staff longer is to minimize their distractions and pain points.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Removing problems that your team is facing is one of the best ways to leverage your time as a manager.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: In the process, you make your team a lot more productive, happier, more motivated, and you create goodwill and trust towards you.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: As mentioned earlier, a high performer can deliver 400% more productivity than an average performer.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Remove the problems of one person, and the team and performance improves as if you'd remove the problems of four people.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: A brilliant use of your time.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Make the time to find out what problems your team is facing and in particular your high performers.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Ask questions, dig into the reasons behind the problems and work out what you can do to fix them.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Common problems that reduce team and high performer productivity are, firstly, difficult, disruptive, or poor performing team members.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Problem people have a big negative impact on most teams.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Take action quickly to resolve people's problems.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, unclear goals, which usually happen because there are too many competing goals.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Make it really clear which goals have priority.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Constantly keep repeating your message.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Third, organizational conflict.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is where different parts of the business or different teams have conflicting goals or conflicting responsibilities.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sales and finance is a classic.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do your best to minimise the organizational conflict experienced by your team.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, excessive admin or low-value tasks.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Invest your time to remove as many low-value tasks from the team as possible.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: This usually requires persuading stakeholders to do something differently.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Alternatively, invest in automation and software to do as much of the work as possible.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: When you start looking, you will find lots of small opportunities and some bigger opportunities.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do everything you can to minimize team distractions and pain points.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: The fifth action to keep high performing staff longer is to pay them well to make leaving harder.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: With high performers delivering up to 400% more than the average employee, paying them more than average makes a lot of business sense.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: In practice, politics and a sense of fairness are big barriers to being able to pay high performers enough to make it much harder for them to leave.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Typically, employees get a salary for X hours of work.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Most employees don't see the difference in results that those hours create.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, from a fairness perspective, similar level employees want similar pay regardless of output.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: How you pay high performers more matters.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Push high performers pay above the average as much as fairness allows, and then think about bonuses and other variable pay linked to results.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do not pay everyone the same, or your high performers will be the first to leave.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: One other point: be proactive in increasing the pay of your highest performing staff.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Increase it before they ask.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your best staff will leave soonest, reducing your team performance by way more than any money saved.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And as promised, I just want to talk quickly about getting the balance right.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Managing high performers is a careful balancing act.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: If your actions and approach alienate the rest of your team, team performance overall is likely to drop, which is bad news for you and your team.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Once a team's performance starts dropping, people start leaving and performance drops even further, even faster.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I suggest that everything you do for and everything you offer to your highest performers, you try to do for the rest of your team too.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: This creates a fair and level playing field where everyone gets development opportunities and feedback.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: You help everyone by removing problems and you proactively look at pay versus the market and fight to get your team paid fairly.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Give the best opportunities to your highest performers.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Spend more time thinking about and giving better quality feedback to your high performers.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Prioritize solving the problems your high performers are struggling with first.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: As a manager, I think you must give better rewards for better performance.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Doing anything else sends the wrong message and team performance will suffer.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Work hard at getting the balance right.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, in summary, as mentioned, high performing employees deliver up to four times more.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Getting effectively four people instead of one is going to really improve the performance potential of any team they're in.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: In my experience, managing high performing staff is harder and more work than managing poor performing staff.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Putting in that work is a brilliant way to increase your team's performance and essential for keeping high performing staff longer.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions on five actions to keep high performing staff longer, please email me at support at enhanced.training and I'll get back to you.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.