Who Else Wants to Motivate and Retain their Star Employees?

It seems incredibly simple, eh? "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule feels so universal that it might be a remedy for all human relations. Simply act toward everyone the way you would prefer to be taken care of and everything will flow wonderfully, right?

Just a second... Something is amiss...

Does your twenty-five year old big shot salesman want the exact same things out of their job that your forty year old accounting clerk does? Is your technical staff hoping for the same opportunities and rewards as your secretary?

Obviously, their needs are quite distinct, however quite a few bosses use a one-size fits all approach when rewarding their most important staff. When a big project is done, everyone is awarded an identical thing, whether you give them dinner or a gas card. Providing the same thing to everyone is what's fair, right? But is it actually fair to the top employees?

Retain the Most Valuable Performers

Too few business owners know that the 80/20 rule applied to their staff indicates that only 20% of their staff are delivering most of your entire business' success. Further, nearly every management book recounts studies comparing the productivity of the top team members to the least competent (yet still useful) team members. The distinction between the top and bottom have been reported as broad as one hundred to 1. The nearest these statistics ever seem to get to one another is about 4:1. But how much more does this extraordinary variance in value wind up costing?

Assuming that your yearly salary for the company's least competent employee is $30,000, how much does it cost for your top staff? Since a lot of the costs for staff are fixed, they don't go up in relation to base salary. For the intent of this examination, let's use some worst-case numbers, $60k. Assuming that your $30k employee generates $30k of value (otherwise they'd be gone, right?). If your top employee is a measly four times as productive as the worst, they deliver far more value for how much more they cost.

If your business invests in more classes for the bottom-rung staff, costs immediately go up, but without any assurance that productivity will similarly go up. Consider, also, how much of your salary is factored into the "cost" of this moderately competent employee? Probably none. Management costs are usually invisible, factored away as overhead. It certainly feels like you're being productive - trying your hardest to bring along the strugglers, hoping that they eventually rise above their shortcomings. Consider how much of your time is spent with either of these employees:

• The self-managing dynamo who, with speed of a bullet train, handles customer complaints, delivers defect-free results, and even cleans up after himself in the break room


• The new guy who has a few interpersonal issues, occasional product defects, problems following instructions, and shows up late on Mondays because of his occasional hangover

• Do they want cash?


• Do they want more demanding responsibilities?


• Do they want some time off to appreciate their children?


• Would they rather have more mentoring?


• Do they simply want to be praised at a company get-together?


• What rewards have they received previously that really made them feel appreciated?

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