Episode #25: Five Steps To Retaining Your Stars

In the war for talent, high potential employees are one of any organisation's most valuable resources. They have what it takes to succeed, tackle difficult projects, and eventually function as a leader within your organisation. However, if they are not engaged or properly motivated, they will often times leave in search of more challenging or fulfilling opportunities.

What we don’t want to see are our highly trained people going across to our competitors. The dainishinsotsu phenomenon, where new employees out of university are departing 3-4 years into the job, will potentially grow to epidemic proportions

Let’s explore five ways to keep your high potentials engaged and productive.

1. Throw down a challenge. High potential employees are personally motivated to be better and they need to be continuously challenged. More importantly, they want to be actively involved in decisions that impact the success of the organisation. We all own the world we help to create, so let them be part of that construction team. High potentials embrace challenges and are ready to take them on in order to make a positive difference. Channel their natural abilities and deputise them to take the lead on difficult projects.

Don’t forget to give them praise and recognition. Often, they are highly independent and self-motivated and we think “Oh, they don’t need praise”. They don’t need it, but they want to hear it.

2. High potentials learn most effectively by doing, and this will ensure they retain the information and skills they learned. We need to transfer knowledge and insight into results. So, linking the learning process with the production process is a win-win for everyone. The team feel they are making progress, as they see the fruit of their input implemented, as they learn new skills and the organisation benefits because we are growing the team’s full power.

3. Promote collaboration. Create a series of "innovation team projects" comprised entirely of high potentials and assign members to have the opportunity to lead one of the teams. Set the expectation that each high potential innovation team leader will facilitate the discussions and that their teams will offer at least one new idea, process improvement, or recommendation.

4. Offer rotational assignments. Enable your high potentials to gain functional experience across a wide range of areas within your organisation. Allow them to learn a variety of different skills and see how each contributes to the success of the organisation. Challenge them to report at the end of their rotation, what they will do differently now, as a result of that learning experience.

5. Provide virtual learning options. By bringing a dispersed group of high potentials together through technology, they are able to collaborate to work on critical projects. Create opportunities for them to work with each other and get face time with executives to maximize productivity and engagement. Create connections between leaders within your organization, regardless of distance, and track their progress on challenging projects or problems.