How to make sure your best employees don't get burned out.

Three easy tips on retaining your best employees.

By: Nayana Sen, MBA PMP

How do busy people learn? All your employees are busy, you know this. The reason you know this is because if they are busy, it means business is good. Business must be good! Here is a word of caution, be-careful not to burn out your best employees. We are talking about people, not robots (hopefully). Here are 3-easy tips on retaining your best talent.

1. Employee growth is company growth. Growth means different things for different people. For some it's about promotions and money, for others growth is about continuous learning and development. The worst thing any company can do is to keep employees in the same position year after year. If you can't afford to promote your employees, at least figure out how to keep them from getting bored. Offer them more challenging opportunities or get them promotion-ready by helping them acquire new skills. You don't want bored employees, that are just getting through the day. You want employees that are happy and willing to do more for the organization.

2. Teach them to delegate and let-go.

If you’ve been working on a post and want to come back to it later, save it as a draft. You can Publish it at anytime, just head to n more responsibilities, but eventually they will stop caring. It is inevitable because people have a breaking point, whether they know it or not. Good leaders teach their best employees how to delegate. Initially, they will fight you on this because they believe it's easier just to get the work done by themselves, rather than asking for help. What happens when said best employee decides it's time to find another job? Your best employees will not tell you they are burned out, instead you will find out once that resignation letter is in your mailbox.

3. Publicly acknowledge their work.

It is one thing to give someone a good performance review, and it is another to publicly acknowledge a person for their work. Make it a point of finding ways of commending all your employees, especially the ones that are the unsung heroes of the office. Everyone wants to be appreciated for their work, it's basic human nature. Many companies only acknowledge employees when they do something big that brings in revenue for the company. A company cannot operate without people to do work behind the scenes. Make sure to thank the behind the scenes folks from time-to-time.

Until the next blog post...keep on!