Keeping your star managers engaged and preventing them from leaving for pastures new is a constant challenge.
Over 35 years I’ve lost count of the people I’ve trained and also those that seized amazing opportunities and never looked back. But with everyone of these stars (you know who you are), I had to inwardly battle and get creative with strategies to prevent them getting bored and moving on. The problem is that money (wages) rather than knowledge influences career decisions and to get around this I constantly needed to balance the growth of an individual with the growth of the business and try and tie them together.
An example of this would be an F&B manager I worked with. He absolutely fulfilled his roll to a fantastic standard and there was little else within the hotel to challenge him. Thinking about this (he was looking to leave) I decided to open up a new front around fine wines and spirits (which suited our demographic market development) and began throwing national and international qualifications around this process. The result was that I ended up with one of the most qualified F&B managers in the country, we drove higher revenues and this manager benefitted from an increased salary, as well as a genuine passion for his specialist subject.
In this example, I couldn’t give this individual a higher position, but I could provide a really nourishing width of knowledge to secure their future, both with me and within their own career goals.
There are many other examples like this, many, but what is key is that you should never take your stars for granted. Every healthy, flourishing plant needs a new pot from time to time! Make sure they continue to floruish with you.
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