'We don't individualize work experiences enough': HR researcher on retaining top performers
Do you have “thriving stars” on your payroll?
That’s the term McKinsey & Company has given to high performers at an organization who are the least likely to quit. These thriving stars should be given fewer projects to work on to allow them to add value to the workplace, according to the report, which identifies six employee archetypes along a spectrum of workplace satisfaction, with “thriving stars” topping the list.
“At about four percent of an average organization, these super-engaged workers not only perform at high levels themselves but also appear to spread their positive engagement and commitment to others,” says the report.
HRD spoke with human resources professor and researcher Marie-Hélène Budworth of York University to find out how HR can support thriving stars – and potential thriving stars – in their organizations.
Lack of meaningful work tops list of dissatisfaction for employees
Lack of meaningful work and low compensation tied as the most costly source of dissatisfaction for employers, McKinsey’s data identified. Which makes providing meaning to employers crucially important for increasingly strapped organizations.
This is true for thriving stars, too, said Budworth, explaining that giving high performing employees space and opportunity to work on projects that are meaningful to them is essential to keeping them engaged.
“Especially in organizations that are clearly hierarchical, or where the goal is movement through some sort of leadership track, there can be this tendency to put off meaningful work,” Budworth said. “That can lead people who are high performers, or who are identified as the stars – it can lead to disengagement because they're never actually doing the work that they want. Instead, they're always preparing for the work of the future.”
Open conversations with thriving stars and involving them in the process of choosing which work they are assigned to do can improve motivation and lead to long-lasting employee relationships, Budworth said.
“Having people engaged with meaningful work now, through things like having a bit of autonomy over the work that you do, or through asking people what they want, what types of projects really charge them and energize them, and helping them to do more of that thing, can be ways of engaging this particular segment of your workforce.”
Managing thriving stars within a team for employee engagement
Supporting thriving stars can’t mean excluding the other members of a team, Budworth stressed; this is where management skills come into play, by treating employees as individuals and recognizing each of their unique skills and strengths.
“The skills of a manager, to me, is being able to communicate with everybody you're working with and that you're supporting, so that they can feel like individuals,” Budworth said. “So, everybody will be treated slightly differently, not in terms of inequities, but based on skill sets, based on their interests, based on the type of work they want to do. If you're managing people well, then you are addressing the individual needs of your employees and you're looking at them all as individuals, not as one collective who you have to worry about treating exactly the same so that one person doesn't get jealous of another.”
Putting too much focus on narrow pathways to leadership can be detrimental to thriving stars’ growth, said Budworth. Instead of “prescribed” goals and markers of success, employers should instead be identifying employees’ unique offerings and skill sets that they already carry.
“There's real opportunity to take advantage of the reasons why we hired these people, and the reasons why they are stars,” Budworth said. “That actually puts more onus on us as leaders and managers, to spend more time figuring out, ‘how do I help you thrive?’”
Thriving stars and engagement: the flower that’s going unwatered
High performers can be seen as low-maintenance by managers who are focused elsewhere, but this can result in thriving stars becoming “the flower that’s going unwatered,” Budworth said. This can mean poor performance and loss of motivation in employees who once had potential to shine.
“It's really easy to have people look like they're going to be successful at the very beginning, who could have possibly been successful, had the circumstances allowed it, but we overwork, we ignore, and we don't individualize work experiences enough, again and again,” she said.
“It's having open conversations about priorities, and what we need to do, and what we want to make room for, and also doing a bit of the work of managing upward. So you as a director, need to be able to talk to leadership about how the types of things that you're encouraging your people to do and what your purpose is, how you think it's helpful and come up with evidence as to how it's serving everybody.”
