Don't Reward Great Work With Nothing but More Work

Organizations have developed an interesting reward system for highly capable employees.

You did a great job on that project?

Here's another one.

You're great with customers?

Could you help with this difficult account?

You're good with people?

Can you train the new employee?

You're dependable?

Can you cover for someone who's behind?

The requests make sense individually. High performers earn trust, and managers naturally give important work to people they know will deliver.

But eventually a talented employee may notice something.

The reward for being excellent is becoming increasingly busy.

More responsibility. More problems. More people relying on them.

But perhaps the same authority. The same opportunities. The same conversations about their future.

At some point, "We trust you with more" can begin to feel remarkably similar to "We expect more from you because we know you'll put up with it."

That's not development.

More Work and Growth Are Not the Same Thing

Marcus Buckingham has spent decades studying what allows people to perform at their best. One of the themes throughout his work is that people thrive when they can use their strengths and do work that gives them energy.

Good managers learn what their strongest people are good at, what kinds of challenges energize them, what they want to learn, and where they hope their careers will go.

Then they look for opportunities that connect those things with work the organization actually needs.

That's different from simply increasing someone's workload.

Growth might mean giving an employee a project they've never led before. It might mean letting them present to senior leadership. It might mean giving them authority to make decisions they've previously brought to you. It could mean mentoring another employee, learning a new part of the business, or taking responsibility for solving a recurring problem.

The difference is direction.

More work adds weight.

Development builds capability.

Sometimes You Have to Help Someone Outgrow Their Job

This is where retention becomes uncomfortable.

Managers don't want their best people to outgrow their roles because their best people are difficult to replace.

If Sarah is exceptional at what she does, keeping Sarah exactly where she is can feel like the safest option.

It's also probably not Sarah's long-term plan.

Liz Wiseman writes in Multipliers about leaders who stretch people and create opportunities for them to grow into greater capability. That kind of leadership carries some risk.

Develop someone well enough and they may become qualified for an opportunity you can't give them.

But consider the alternative:

What if you don't develop them and they stay?

Now you've retained an increasingly disengaged employee whose capabilities have outgrown the work you're asking them to do.

That's not much of a retention victory.

Ironically, people often become more loyal to managers who are willing to help them grow beyond their current role. They recognize that the manager isn't trying to trap them in a position because they're useful there.

They're being invested in.

Your Best People Are Watching the Standard Too

Development isn't the only thing that matters.

High performers notice the environment around them.

They notice when someone repeatedly misses deadlines and nothing happens. They notice when they're asked to fix someone else's work. They notice when the same people volunteer while others disappear. They notice when "accountability" is something everyone talks about but few people experience.

Eventually they learn an unpleasant lesson:

The standard isn't really the standard.

Retention isn't only about how you treat your best employees. It's also about the team you're asking them to remain part of.

Talented people generally like working with other talented people. They want teammates they can depend on. They want a manager who notices when the load becomes unfair.

Nobody wants excellence to become the reason they're carrying three other people.

Give Great People a Future

Think about your strongest employee.

Now look at what you've given them over the past year.

Has it primarily been more work?

Or have you given them more capability, authority, exposure, challenge, learning, and opportunity?

Those aren't the same thing.

Your best people don't necessarily need a promotion tomorrow. But they do need some reason to believe they're going somewhere.

Have the conversation.

Ask what they want to learn next. Ask what kinds of problems they'd like to solve. Ask where they hope their career goes. Then look for an experience that moves them one step in that direction.

The goal of retention isn't to convince talented people to remain exactly where they are forever.

It's to create an environment where staying still allows them to keep moving forward.

Your best people need a future, not just more work.