Leaders: 4 Ways to Tend to Your Top Talent

Training Your Top Talent

As the leader of your team, your many commitments to multiple groups probably keeps you extremely busy. 

However, if your daily distractions cause you to neglect your top talent, then you could be setting a stage for singing the blues.

Understanding Your Top Talent

The top talent within a company is aware of their worth and of their competitive advantage. If they feel underappreciated and unengaged, you can bet they’ll start exploring employment options elsewhere.

Luckily, with just a bit of effort you can keep your best satisfied, motivated and on as a member of your team.

Here are four ways to tend to your top talent, servant leadership style.

4 Ways to Tend to Your Top Talent

1) Put Them On a Scale

One of the easiest and innovative ways to tend to your top talent is to simply put them on a scale. In your own style ask this:

How are you feeling about your job on a scale of 1-10?

Chances are your employee is not going to fall on one of the two extremes; instead, numbers between 3-8 are much more likely.

The beauty of this practice is that it calmly and casually opens up a conversation between you and your top talent.

  • What kinds of things are making them feel a 4? 
  • How can we turn that 7 into a 9? 

This is a great activity to gauge an employee’s satisfaction while opening up negotiations for improvement.

2) Find Flexibility

The popularity of flex work does not seem to be going anywhere. In fact, companies that refuse to entertain this important component of today’s workplace are cutting themselves off from attracting more top talent.

Reducing the stress of commutes and family commitments can result in a happier, more loyal, and therefore, productive employee. When you think about the pains you’ll experience trying to compensate for- and replace your top talent, offering some work time flexibility could be a small price to pay.

Still feel uncomfortable about the whole out-of-sight idea?

Discuss your concerns openly with your employee. Scheduled Skype meetings, weekly wrap-up reports, and monthly visits to the office could be all you need to warm up to the popular concept.

3) Encourage Growth

Regardless of the industry, there seems to be one thing that top talent employees crave: growth. …And we’re not talking about a growing paycheck.

Your top talent is your best and brightest for a reason; chances are they embrace education, new ideas and industry trends.

Feed their appetite for advancement by supporting their educational endeavors. Whether you allow time off to attend an industry-related seminar or pass on that cutting-edge podcast that can’t be missed, employees will lock into a position that encourages and inspires their professional growth.

4) Challenge Them

It may seem like setting new goals and presenting challenges to your employees is an ideal based-out on a business’s reality. Of course, you’re busy, but if you get so consumed with your business’s daily operations, by the time you look up you’ll be seeing your top talent walk out of the door.

These challenge conversations are not a luxury, they are a necessity.

Your top talent craves opportunities to prove themselves. See what project challenges you can present them with. Allow them to fall, tumble and get back up again. If you want to keep top talent around you’ve got to keep them from getting bored.

So give them something to work toward and a measurable obstacle to overcome. Regardless of how great your best employee is, just like any team member, there is always room for inspiring improvement.

So, how do you tend to your top talent? Do you properly put them on a scale and weigh their value? Do you provide the modern flexibilities needed to keep them around? Do you encourage growth and challenges them enough to satisfy their natural ambitions? I would love to hear your thoughts!

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Kelly Gregorio works at Advantage Capital Funds
She writes about Entrepreneurial Trends and Leadership Tips
Email | LinkedIn | Twitter | Web | Blog | Skype: k.gregorio1

Image Sources: unconfirmedbreakingnews.com

L2L Contributing Author

3 Comments

  1. Anil Saxena (@anilforbiz) on February 18, 2014 at 7:09 am

    Great advice for leaders.



  2. maconsultancy on February 18, 2014 at 8:03 am

    Reblogged this on Web Marketing Services London.



  3. Antonio Simancas on February 24, 2014 at 5:19 pm

    Reblogged this on Network of thought.



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