Retain High Performing Employees
Building a high-performing team requires more than just finding the right people for the job. It involves creating an environment that promotes collaboration, encourages creativity, and fosters a sense of purpose and belonging. In this post, we’ll explore some practical steps you can take today to hire, retain, and motivate the high-performing team your business deserves.
The ability to attract, retain, and motivate high-level talent can give a company a competitive edge in its market but it’s difficult to get right and many businesses can struggle to find, onboard and ultimately retain a high-performing team.
But why does talent matter?
It might seem obvious but the key is in the detail of how talent and retention can have a positive impact on your business. There are so many benefits to finding, nurturing and retaining the right people, for the business and for your people. We only have time to list a few of the reasons but hopefully, they’ll provide you with a greater understanding of the benefits of improving your recruitment and retention strategies before we get into the nitty-gritty of how you can actually go about doing so.
| Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| Increased innovation | High-level talent often brings with it fresh perspectives, ideas, innovation and creativity, helping you to drive innovation in your business. |
| Improved performance | In addition to improving innovation, high-level talent can also help to identify and implement improvements that can increase your company’s efficiency and productivity. They’re likely to be skilled problem-solvers who are able to identify areas for improvement and develop strategies for optimizing processes and workflows. |
| Increased productivity | Highly motivated and driven talent can increase productivity by serving as role models and mentors for other team members. When top performers set high standards for themselves and others, they can inspire and motivate other team members to work harder and strive for excellence in their roles. This is useful for nurturing a culture of high performance. |
| Enhanced reputation | Having a team of top performers can also help to build your company's brand and reputation by serving as brand ambassadors for your business. Raising awareness of your company, attracting new clients or customers, and building a positive reputation within your industry. |
| Reduced employee turnover | High-level talent often seeks out challenging and rewarding work environments, where they can use their skills and expertise to make a meaningful impact. These individuals are often highly motivated, driven and are looking for opportunities to grow and develop their careers. When high-level talent is attracted to a business, they’re more likely to stay with the company long-term if they feel that their work is meaningful and rewarding. They are looking for opportunities to take on challenging projects, contribute to the success of the business, and make a difference in their field. If they find that their work isn’t meeting these expectations, that’s when they may become disengaged and start looking elsewhere. |
| Leadership capabilities | With high-level talent often comes strong leadership skills and the ability to inspire and motivate others. When high-performing team member has strong leadership skills, they tend to contribute to a culture of collaboration, where team members are encouraged to share ideas, provide feedback, and work together to achieve common goals. |
How to Hire, Retain, and Motivate a High-Performing Team
A business has three decisions to make when faced with a choice – build, buy or borrow. Building talent internally involves time and is costly, particularly if you cannot retain good people after you have trained them. If you don’t want to build, then you could buy. That is go to market either directly or through a recruitment agent. In this case you are paying for someone else’s training and if you use a recruitment agency you also pay for a service.
Once you have made this investment you need to turn your mind to retaining. Here are some ideas:
A 5-Step Process for Recruitment and Retention Success
Step 1: Diversify, Identify, Qualify and Recruit the Right People
Hiring the right people is critical to building a high-performing team. To do this, your hiring process should be structured, consistent, and well-planned. This process should go beyond just identifying candidates with the necessary skills and experience. It should also focus on identifying candidates whose values, beliefs, and behaviours align with those of the business. This alignment is crucial in creating a team culture that is focused on achieving common goals and values.
To ensure that the hiring process is successful in identifying candidates who align with the business, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the company’s values and culture. This includes identifying the core values that drive the business and the behaviours that support them. With this understanding in place, hiring managers can design interview questions that help identify whether candidates share the same values and behaviours as the business.
In addition to values and behaviour, diversity and inclusivity should also be considered in the hiring process. Companies that prioritize diversity and inclusivity can benefit from a range of perspectives and experiences. This not only creates a more innovative and creative team but also helps to broaden the team’s understanding of customers and markets.
Step 2: Develop and Implement a Strong Onboarding Process
The onboarding process is a critical part of welcoming new hires to the organisation and setting them up for success. You should introduce new employees to the company culture, and team members, and provide an introduction to your company’s goals and values. An effective onboarding process can help to ensure that new hires feel welcome, engaged, and supported as they transition into their new roles.
To provide new hires with the necessary training and support, the onboarding process should be structured and comprehensive. Consider providing ‘Induction sessions’, training modules, and job-specific coaching as part of the team member’s onboarding. Induction sessions can provide an overview of the company’s history, mission, and values, as well as an introduction to key policies and your core operating procedures. Your induction training modules should mainly provide an awareness-level understanding of critical topics, such as product knowledge, customer service, or technical skills, depending on the nature of the role with more detailed training to be provided in time.
Assigning a designated trainer or ‘job buddy’ to guide them through their first few weeks, providing them with regular feedback and check-ins, and offering opportunities for networking and collaboration with other team members can all help to demonstrate your commitment to supporting your new starters. By providing this level of support, new hires are more likely to feel comfortable and confident in their new roles, and less likely to experience feelings of isolation or uncertainty at work which is much more likely under new employment in an unfamiliar environment.
Introduce your new starter to key and senior team members, provide them with opportunities for team-building activities, and foster a sense of shared purpose and mission. By building strong relationships with colleagues, new starters are more likely to feel invested in their work and feel a greater sense of purpose, belonging and community within your organisation.
Step 3: Foster a Culture of Collaboration
A high-performing team requires a culture of collaboration. Team members should be encouraged to share ideas, provide feedback, and work together to achieve and exceed common goals. Leaders should set clear expectations and foster an environment of open communication and trust to promote the psychological safety of employees. Your team should feel comfortable taking risks and sharing their opinions without fear of negative consequences. This can involve creating a safe and supportive environment for sharing ideas, asking questions, and seeking feedback.
Step 4: Provide Regular Feedback
Providing regular feedback is an essential aspect of motivating and retaining a high-performing team. Feedback can help team members to understand how their work is being received, and identify areas for improvement. It can also help to build a culture of continuous learning and development, by providing opportunities for growth and improvement.
Feedback should be both positive and constructive. The idea is to use positive feedback to reinforce positive behaviours and practices that are already working well, while constructive feedback can help to identify areas for improvement and provide guidance on how to make changes. When providing feedback, it’s important to be specific, timely, and objective, and to provide actionable steps that team members can take to improve their performance to provide clarity while preventing confusion.
Step 5: Recognise and Reward Performance
Recognition and rewards are essential for motivating and retaining top talent within a business. When team members feel recognized and valued for their contributions, they are more likely to be engaged, productive, and motivated to continue performing at the high level that you need them to. It’s important to remember that recognition and rewards don’t necessarily need to be monetary in nature. In fact, non-monetary rewards can often be more effective in boosting employee morale and motivation.
Aside from monetary rewards like bonuses, there are many other ways you can recognise and reward team members for their hard work and contributions. Public recognition, for example, can be a powerful motivator. This can be in the form of an email, a company-wide announcement, or even a small trophy or award. The key is to ensure that the recognition is specific and tied to the behaviour or achievement that you want to encourage.
In addition to public recognition, providing development opportunities can be a great way to reward top performers. This can include training, mentoring, and coaching, as well as opportunities to take on new and challenging projects. These opportunities not only help team members grow and develop their skills but also show them that you are invested in their success and growth within the company.
If that’s too much then, you can borrow – contract in services. Technological advances has meant that the market is now not geocentric but rather global.
