Do you punish your best employees by taking them for granted or assigning them the most difficult tasks?
Your favorite employee: she does her work well, takes on extra assignments, is creative, and is rumored to have turned water into wine. She's so fantastic that you give her no second thought, while you focus on your problem workers. But careful: it still requires effort to retain your best employees.
I worked as a hotel housekeeper. Shortly after I began, the head of housekeeping discovered something wonderful: I worked twice as quickly as the rest of the maids. How was I rewarded? I was given twice as many rooms to clean in the same amount of time (and same minimum-wage pay). But wait-there's more. If I only cleaned 19 of my rooms by check-in time I was scolded, whereas the girl who did only 8 rooms was told she had done a great job.
It will come as no surprise that I quickly left that job. And it should go without saying that this scenario is the quickest way to alienate your best employees, yet it happens frequently. You punish your hardest workers for the very reason you value them most.
It may seem impossible to avoid this-clearly your best workers will be assigned the hardest work. Someone has to wait on the children's birthday party for no extra tip, and Peter is the employee who will complain the least. Managers know it isn't fair, but their top priority is that the work get done.
Solution: Follow a difficult assignment with something easy or rewarding. For Peter, whose hair is covered in bubble-gum from the birthday party, tell him "The next large party with the automatic gratuity goes to you." If a maid cleans twice as fast, give her extra breaks or a raise so she feels appreciate instead of taken advantage of.
Rewarding the best employees with easier assignments and less work will encourage the problem employees to succeed. If they know that slacking off leads to toilet-paper duty in the restroom, you'll bet your horse that the following week they'll work just a bit harder. Yes, they'll complain about the TP-patrol, but aren't they complaining anyway?
Also be careful not to compliment the bad employees when they're still doing less than what is expected. Yes, it's great to acknowledge improvement, but it will irritate your stellar employees who do their best every day without so much as a nod.
Don't take your good employees for granted, and they'll have your back for years to come, bubble-gum-hair and all.
