Star Retention and Perfecting Turnover

Funny how quickly things change: employee retention has been a hot topic for businesses for so long, but within the last few weeks we’re hearing business leaders say that employees are staying put for longer and they’re getting lots of applicants.

My observation is that even in times of great change, some things don’t change at all. You might remember a pandemic that was world-changing, and then it wasn’t. Even when it was at its height, a lot of things stayed the same.

The thing that has stayed the same and isn’t likely to change is finding and keeping star performers. They take a long time to develop, and they leave a big hole when they go which takes time to fill.

Here’s a couple of thoughts:

The key to keeping star performers lies with your managers: do they have the skills to avoid micromanaging but still be a good coach? Do they strike the right balance between the two so that their star performers feel challenged and valued in equal measure?

Coaching skills can be learned, and it’s not just for dealing with under performers. Really good coaches inspire even better results from star performers, but they have to be very deliberate and open-minded in how they approach coaching conversations. As a coach you can start the conversation, but you really must be all ears to see the possibility for either helping them confront a blind spot or pursue an opportunity they didn’t see.

In our view the primary role of a manager is like that of a sports team manager – who do managers use and who do they lose (to put it bluntly). So, what should you do when you’re not sure whether you should use or lose longtime team members who are losing their star power?

A couple more ideas:

Ask those longtime staff to coach newbies and mid-level performers. It’s a lesson I learned in the real estate industry – nothing reinvigorates an old realtor like training a newbie. As they say, if you want to learn, teach.

The other option is a sideways move. We tend to think that the only path worth taking is to the top. That’s why we keep promoting people who have great technical skills even if they have no people skills. They’ll probably be just as interested in being redeployed to a new technical role where they’ll learn some new things and develop more skills.

In our Active Manager Program, we talk about the art of helping people stay climbing the learning curve. When they get to the top, redefine their role so they restart at the bottom of the learning curve. The idea is to give them new challenges before they start slipping back down the curve.

The keys here: Knowing who to use and who to lose is a difficult decision, and possibly a costly mistake. Well-trained managers deploy strategies like the sideways move, and they learn how to strike the balance between coaching and letting their team figure it out.