Not Just the High Potentials
I was meeting with a colleague the other day who mentioned that her organization was only providing opportunities to grow professionally to high potentials. When I asked her why that was happening she mentioned that budgets were still tight and the organization was mainly concerned about ensuring those high potential employees were retained. Big mistake – and my colleague knew it!
So let’s discuss why you want every employee in your organization to have opportunities to grow professionally and personally. The best organizations want to retain all their employees, not just those who they believe can move into leadership roles. An organization needs employees – good, well trained and engaged employees – at all levels of the organization for the organization to be a success. Focusing only on your high potentials will mean that you may have increased turnover at the lower levels. That’s a problem.
How do you do this? Certainly you can offer the opportunity to attend workshops, seminars and conferences. But let’s look at other options.
Providing all employees stretch assignments is a great way to help them build new skills and increase their knowledge. Let’s assume that your company does an annual customer appreciation event. Why not have members from various departments join the team working on such a project? This gives individuals an opportunity to work on a key project in your organization and teaches them a variety of new skills. And it gives them the chance to have some visibility with individuals they may not have the chance to interact with otherwise.
You might also offer the opportunity for individuals within a department to work together to suggest improvements in how the work is done. I have found that many of my clients never bother to ask employees how they might do the job better and you’ll be surprised how many employees have thought of ways to increase efficiencies and effectiveness in getting the work done! What a great way to give these individuals visibility with the executive team in your company than by having them work on ways to improve how work is done!
And one more idea…why not offer individuals the opportunity to learn about other departments. Some employees never really understand what goes on outside of their own business unit and never have the opportunity to learn how others work and what they contribute to the business. Have employees spend a few weeks working in another department to learn about the business from different perspectives. Another great way to expand skills and build knowledge of the organization!
Your ideas? How might you offer opportunities for everyone in your organization to grow? Please share in the Comments field below. Thanks!
Hi Gogo,
Excellent thoughts on factors organizations are not truly considering. What a shame! Employees make or break an organization. Engaged employees are required – not an option! – for an organization to reach its goals.
Thanks again for your thoughts, and thanks for reading!
Best,
Gina
Gina,
Glad to hear it. In my zeal (or haste) to address Sheryl’s challenges, I forgot my thoughts on the excellent insights above. You are absolutely right in pointing out how big a mistake this “selective empowerment” really is.
Here are a few other factors these organizations may not truly be taking into account.
1. Morale & Employee Engagement – It can’t be great for organizational morale for so many employees who may have the greatest need for more coaching to be passed over in favor of the “more accomplished” few.
Many employees respond to this sort of dichotomous organizational posture by just disengaging. The bodies are still there, but the energy-creating, idea-suggesting spark is gone. Such a situation threatens overall productivity in the long run.
2. Organizational agility & resilience – One of the cornerstone realities of the idea age is the relentless complexity and increased competition that organizations have to deal with.
Smart companies are building knowledge organizations that act as “smart swarms” knowledgeable enough to recognize new signals from the market (or the competition) and engaged/empowered enough to send those signals from the bottom to the top where strategic decisions are made, or to act semi-autonomously.
The organization your colleague describes can hardly be prepared in this manner.
Gina, thanks for the great articles and contributions, I enjoy them much.
Gogo
Many thanks for your reply to Sheryl. I am actually talking with her later this week to brainstorm some options on what she might do. I will most certainly point her to your comment if she doesn’t see it before then. You provided some absolutely wonderful suggestions for her! Thanks again!
Best,
Gina
Sheryl,
I read your note to Gina but couldn’t help but empathize with you. I don’t know what Gina’s reply will be but I want to share a little bit of advice.
First, don’t forget what you have going for you… “a well-trained, highly competent exec admin”. You can always trade some of those skills in exchange for in-kind services and training in the areas you hope to learn (SEO, online/software skills, webinars and collaboration, etc).
Second, think about a target audience that might find your current skills most valuable, and create a content curriculum addressing their needs. There are numerous platforms for sharing that content at little or no cost (think Facebook pages, LinkedIn groups, youtube videos, and blogs.
You may be able to turn your current matrix of knowledge, skills, and experiences into an information business or a service business (coach, adviser, freelance admin, consultant).
I hope you found this helpful.
Hi Sheryl,
I can certainly appreciate your frustrations. I sent you an email at the email address you provided. Let’s arrange a time to talk and brainstorm some options.
Best,
Gina
Gina, good afternoon. I’m so frustrated right now, I hope this reply is somewhat coherent. Up until two years, I was a well-trained, highly competent exec admin, working at a very well known international tech corp. located here in Dallas, but as a contractor, promised a “long term” position. Unfortunately, our entire marketing division was eliminated, and I have been unemployed (except for a 12-week contract posiiton) since Jan. 2009. My question is this: 2 years out of work is a lifetime in the tech world, and I am wondering what I need to do to keep up software/business processes/marketing skills. I’m not sure where to turn; unfortunately, admins seems to be at the bottom of the corp. totem pole, at least in my experience. I want to acqauire and maintain software skills, SEO and online skills, webcasts/webinars, collabortion sofware, etc. I want to be the best admin ever – but am also short on funds after two years of no income. I need some good, sound advice – I read you a lot and am very impressed – as well as some career direction. I’d really love to go back to college, but at this point, that’s not feasible.
Looking forward to hearing from you….
Sheryl Fowler
Plano, Texas