Question: We”™ve got a couple of employees we don”™t want to lose who can”™t grow where they are. What do I do?
Thoughts of the day: Figure out the talent you”™ll need in the future. Look for keepers among your current employee pool. Keep employees for the right reasons. Figure out the fit through a variety of means.
Every business owner needs to carve out time to work on the business, planning how to meet the company”™s future needs. What kind of work will the company be doing? What jobs will people need to fill? What skills go with those jobs? What jobs will go away?
Play out alternative scenarios:
Ӣ Scenario A: If the economy expands versus if the economy contracts. Might call for stronger sales and marketing skills to know which way the wind is blowing and to sail ahead of it.
Ӣ Scenario B: One product or service takes off; another one dies off. Might mean more research and development tied to stronger production skills in a new area, and fewer employees assigned to work on the services that are in decline.
Ӣ Scenario C: Expansion equates to investment in infrastructure at the same time cash flow dries up. Probably calls for greater finance skills.
Ӣ Scenario D: Steady growth, more employees, more complex regulatory environment. Shines the spotlight on increased legal and human resources ability.
Think about how your company will deal with an aging workforce, changing demographics and the need for workers to have a college level education. Brainstorming what your company is likely to need in the future gives you time to prepare.
Start with your current base of employees. Look for high achievers, steady producers, and people you can count on for honesty, integrity, hard work and foresight. Talk with employees about the need to build talent for the future and challenge them to participate in that process.
Get people to engage in their personal development. Use mentors to show people what the future can look like, trainers to help build skills, and coaches to work through the challenges along the way. Regularly take time to talk with employees about both the here-and-now of the business and what the future is likely to hold.
Find out why employees see themselves as connected to your company. Build on that as you consciously develop the company”™s culture. Ensure the values of growth and opportunity are part of the company”™s mission.
Set key performance indicators that are good for the business and that reward people for making improvements: productivity, research and development, loss ratios, waste rates. Measure how much people are taking on ownership responsibilities. Look for increasing amounts of time off for the owner. Reward reasonable risk taking and ability to solve the right kinds of problems.
Be intentional with training. Talk about it at every review. Ask big picture questions:
Ӣ What do employees need to know down the road, and where can they go to get that education?
Ӣ What training resources are available inside the company?
Ӣ How does the company support people who seek education outside the company: funding, reimbursement for results, time off to study, recognition for accomplishments?
As employees grow, figure out how they get promoted. Not all promotions have to be vertical. Giving employees a chance to rotate through other areas of the business can be eye opening for the individual and the company.
As employees grow, it can be hard for peers to adjust. Have a formal promotion/reintroduction process, as if the employee were new to the company. Make a major announcement. Review responsibilities and benefits that go with the new assignment. Hold a networking session for the employee”™s new peer class. Assign a mentor to oversee the transition.
Think about the money and effort that went into training an employee for a new position. If this were a new hire, the company would carefully introduce the employee to the company, ensure the employee understood his/her responsibilities, and watch over integration with superiors, peers and subordinates. As an existing employee shifts into a new role and new responsibilities, be equally as formal: Behave as if this were a new employee.
Andi Gray is president of Strategy Leaders Inc., strategyleaders.com, a business-consulting firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurial firms grow. She can be reached by phone at 877-238-3535. Do you have a question for Andi? Email her: AskAndi@strategyleaders. Visit AskAndi.com for an entire library of Ask Andi articles.
