For an ambitious manager who wants the best results, it is common sense to always give the task to your best employee; they naturally become your ‘first choice’ and more often than not, they deliver. Unfortunately, like everyone else, they only have 24 hours in a day and by giving them most work, you run the risk of overloading them.
Eventually they will burnout; feel disgruntled and demand higher compensation which you may not even be able to meet along the way. So how can you use your best players without running the risk of overloading them? The answer is simple, DISTRIBUTE THE POWER.
Empower and equip all (or at least most) of your employees to perform at the level of your star players to the extent that either one of them can do the same job with as much efficiency or excellence as the next person.
What are your best options?
PEER WORKING
Among the most effective methods of achieving this is to implement peer working where you pair up your “superstars” with junior staff for on-the-job training. The juniors’ role in this time is to mirror the workings of the expert staff down to the last detail every day. In a very short time, the juniors will be able to take up the tasks of the seniors in their absence and still deliver the same or even better results
CERTIFICATION
Certified recognition as a competent employee pushes your workers forward on the lane of efficiency and also boosts their personal confidence irrespective of how talented their counterparts are. Internally, you can develop a company certification programme to help employees improve the skills and competencies essential to the organization or any current projects you may be running. Your company can set bronze, silver and gold standards for participants and then grade projects accordingly, with the most important projects needing a gold standard project manager.
If professional credibility is of high importance in your industry (and it usually is), then external Certifications relevant to your employees’ job positions are also highly recommended. Keep in mind however that the more recognizable a certification is, the better chance you stand at getting the best out of the employee as well as enhancing your company’s authority in your industry for example, if you are in construction, engineering or manufacturing and you enroll for city and guilds accredited technical training courses you would not only empower your workers to perform better but also open up your company to take on global projects because city and guilds is respected and well-known world-wide.
So there you go, two proven ways to shield yourself from overloading your best workers; unless you want to risk losing them.
Have you tried other methods that have worked well for your team? Share your experience with us
