There is enough space for more than 2?

Companies want high-performance employees. It has always been like this.

But when we check statistics, Gauss distribution says that around 15% of the population is at level. That’s the reason why, managers struggle to attract top talent, to keep it, and to motivate it.

What companies need to do is put better effort into identifying top performers, reward and develop them according to their impact, and tailor the rest of the organization to put the top performers in the right place.

But there is enough space in a team for more than 2 top performers? How many growth opportunities can a company generate for them nowadays?

The reality from the last year showed a lot of companies who needed to reduce budgets. Of course, top performers were the highest cost for a company, but they can sustain an entire project and companies didn’t want to let them go. On the other hand, from the employee perspective, I hear a lot of “I am a senior. This a junior task. I don’t want to do it”. And even if the company wants to retain them, they don’t want to do tasks that are not on their level of expertise, things don’t make them feel challenged.

The lack of projects and limited plans of growth for companies put them in a difficult position of not having a lot of opportunities to provide for top performers.

So, I came back to my starting question: there is enough space in a team for more than 2 top performers? One of them is eligible to be the next leader of the team. The second one is his “right hand”, the person who can replace him during vacation, the one who can take his place if the first one leaves the company.

My advice for a top performant employee is to assess objectively his growth possibilities and to discuss with his manager what are his plans with him. You should make your plans and check if they fit with the company’s. If not, it is your role to work on your growth, as I said in a previous post.

If a place doesn’t offer you the possibility to grow, start something new on your own.

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