High-Potential Employees Increasingly Disengaged
Posted December 14th, 2010
If you’ve been lax in appreciating your employees, especially those who could be considered “high potential,” you may have put yourself at risk at losing them once the job market comes back.
The Corporate Executive Board recently surveyed 50,000 workers across the world and found that “high potential” employees increasingly are disengaged and looking at another employer or opportunity when they make their next career or employment move. (High-potential employees were identified as such by their employers.)
Twenty-five percent of these top employees said they planned to leave their current employer, the survey found. That number is up from 10 percent in 2006.
So, as the job market slowly warms, here are some ideas (as given by the CEB) as to how to 1) identify your high-potential workers and 2) engage them and thus possibly keep them around.
- To identify your potential top performers, start at the very beginning: at the interview. Use assessment tests to gauge an applicant’s abilities, goals and engagement so that you may get some idea of his or her potential for leadership and growth.
- Pay these top performers a salary appropriate to the value of the work they bring you, as appropriate. Recognize them for their efforts, as well.
- Give them stimulating and challenging work, or you risk their disengagement. If you identified them as potential leaders in your preliminary assessment of them, start developing those qualities as soon as possible via seminars, education and opportunities to lead.
- Finally, bring your high-potential employees in on your company’s strategic planning sessions. Engage them with your ideas as to how you see them playing a role in your firm’s future. In other words, help your top-future workers start picturing themselves as members of your team five, 10, etc. years from now and that will help them be members of your team five, 10 or more years from now.
When you’re looking for your next high-level, high-performing technology, construction, scientific, manufacturing, and green professionals for your Bay Area company, contact Bayside Solutions. We will source, check and place top workers for your temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire needs. Contact us today.
