In every workplace, an organisation will have a top performer. This star employee will often reflect much of what your company stands for and will exceed expectations time and again. These employees will often move up the company hierarchy quite quickly and will often demonstrate abilities that are incredibly desirable for your company’s future. However, how do you best manage one of these star employees so that they feel valued and do not leave the organisation in search of improved appreciation elsewhere?
As an HR professional, advising managers of these star performers and how to best manage them can be a slippery slope. Giving these star performers too much appreciation can result in complacency and inflated egos which can thus end in disaster for the company. However, avoiding the acknowledgement and appreciation of those star employees is likely to result in these individuals moving on from the company as they seek to find appreciation elsewhere.
So, as an HR professional, how can you best support your managers so that they appropriately reward those star employees? In reality, it comes down to each employee specifically. It is important to identify the wants and needs of each employee specifically. What are their aspirations? What do they do in their spare time? What do they enjoy? How do they feel? Would they be better suited within another sector? It is important to have answers to all of these questions so that you can ensure you are providing these employees with the best possible outcome.
Providing an incentivised structure to your workplace that encourages rewards for high achievements is a great way to both acknowledge success and to provide something for these employees to work toward. This should all be based on exactly the kind of people these employees are as different people find reward from different forms of appreciation.
In reality, these acts of appreciation need to be tailored to each person in order to best suit their needs. These star employees need to be understood on a personal level so that they feel appreciated and valued within their company and want to continue to work there, as opposed to having an inflated ego or seeking to find better appreciation elsewhere. Your best bet as HR is to advise your manages to reward these employees monetarily and within relation to what the employee is achieving.
