How to retain STAR employees: part 2

Ask any HR professional, and they’ll tell you good employee retention doesn’t just “happen.” It takes deliberate strategy and continual improvement. In Part 1 of our “How to Retain STAR Employees (Self, Team, Atmosphere, and Recharging)” series, we looked at how management of “Self” sets the stage for a healthy company culture. Now we turn our attention to the “Team,” the group of qualified IT professionals you’ve hired to fulfill your organization’s mission.

Team: Get the best on board

If you want the best possible team to work with, start at the beginning: the hiring process. Retraining team members who aren’t a good fit is challenging for all involved, so make sure you’re getting the best on board by improving your hiring process. By adopting this mindset, you’ll ensure better employee recruitment and retention.

We believe there are three components to getting the right people on the team:

1. “The Ideal Team Player” by Patrick Lencioni
2. Philosophy
3. Outcome Formula

Find the right mindset

At IT Nation 2017, author and employee retention expert Patrick Lencioni will offer input on how to identify, hire, and support essential team members. According to his book, “The Ideal Team Player,” great employees are humble, hungry and smart.

Humble: Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less. Employees who exhibit this trait will be better team players.

Hungry: Do they have a passion to learn? Will they go above and beyond? If employees are willing to trade in meaningless things for meaningful ones, goals and objectives will be met more readily.

Smart: A high IQ is great, but a high EQ, or emotional intelligence, is what makes an ideal team player. Those who are aware of how their actions affect others’ emotions can communicate more effectively and efficiently.

Focus on philosophy and formula

Do you know what drives your team? Their internal currency? Discovering this can result in better performance and less burnout. As Simon Sinek said, “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress; working hard for something we love is called passion.”

Once you’ve built your ideal team, and are focusing on what drives them, be aware of those who can drain the energy you’re working so hard to create and maintain. In John Gordon’s “The Energy Bus,” he introduces a helpful formula to determine how to identify “Energy Vampires.”

E + P = O (Events + Perception = Outcome): In other words, you can’t change events, but a change in your perception can drive a positive and opportunistic outcome.