In an earlier column you suggested that organizations devote more resources to marginal employees than they do to talent. I’m trying to understand how this is a problem. Aren’t supervisors supposed to help struggling employees turn their performances around? Why devote that limited time and energy to good employees who don’t need the help?

This question goes to the heart of today’s workplace changes and invites us to examine the role of the supervisor. I’ve been saying that we’re transitioning from a buyer’s job market (more job seekers than jobs) to a seller’s market. When there are more job vacancies than job seekers, talented employees have more options than ever before. Headhunters will call with tempting offers.

Employers need to have their talent answer those calls with an engaged mindset: the belief that the grass isn’t greener somewhere else. What creates an engaged mindset? Mostly it’s determined by the employee’s feeling about her relationship with her supervisor. Anyone who feels that there are problems with that relationship will listen to the headhunter’s pitch very differently than someone who feels that the relationship is a good one.

The headhunters are much less likely to be calling your marginal employees. It’s a question of moving product. Headhunters can move your good people faster than your less than good people. When it comes to turnover, your talent is more at risk than your other employees.

I’m not suggesting that supervisors stop trying to improve performances that need to be better. At a minimum this still needs to be done in order to document efforts to fix performance issues. But I’m also not suggesting that talent doesn’t need supervisory attention. It does, but obviously not of the performance-fixing kind.

It’s often been said that people don’t leave companies, they leave supervisors. This is true. It’s the number one reason why people change employers. People don’t do this on a whim. Changing employers requires a lot of adaptation, and adaptation is stressful. Employees think long and hard before they jump. But if key employees have given up on the relationship with their supervisor, they’ll leave.

The number two reason why good employees leave is that they couldn’t see a career path for themselves inside the organization. They believe that in order to pursue their career aspirations they need to work somewhere else. And another employer is only too happy to take them in.

So the supervisor’s role with talent is to know what the employee’s career interests are. This isn’t hard; all you have to do is ask. It’s very unusual for talented people not to be able to articulate what future challenges they’d like to take on. To retain them, supervisors need to help them see that they can pursue their career interests without leaving the organization.

As an analogy, think of grocery shopping. If you’re a weekly grocery shopper, how many different stores do you visit? Probably as many as it takes for you to get what you need. You don’t decide to do without something just because you only shop at one grocery store. You get your need met by going elsewhere. The store that didn’t have everything you wanted loses a sale and perhaps more.  The second store gains a sale and perhaps more.

No store can stock every item that you might conceivably want some day. So they’re always at some risk of losing your business. They manage that risk by stocking what you and others buy most of the time. And no supervisor is so perfect that no talent will ever leave. But if good employees believe that the organization has what they want (because supervisors asked), the risk of losing them is minimized.

I’m stressing the importance of the supervisor’s role in retaining talent. There’s really no way around this. Talented employees view their relationship with their supervisors as the most important relationship that they have at work. (You’re more apt to find that less talented employees have friends who are more important to them than their supervisor – or their work, for that matter.)

Human resources departments are better equipped to help supervisors avoid lawsuits from disgruntled ex-marginal employees than to help develop the organization’s talent. They have external counsel services to help keep everybody on the right side of the law. They have performance improvement plans for marginal employees. If, however, you were to ask their help in developing talent, they’d probably suggest sending them on a course. And that would be that.

I’ve also written earlier that every supervisor is, in fact, an investment manager. The organization charges supervisors with the responsibility of maximizing the return on the investment the employer has made in the productivity of the employees who report to them. Investments that aren’t paying off certainly need attention – – and then they need a decision. Managers of financial investments don’t pour more resources into unproductive investments ad infinitum. They don’t hesitate to minimize losses by divesting. Supervisors of people investments have a responsibility to make those decisions, too.

Managers of financial investments devote considerable time and attention to investments that are performing well. Why? Because they know that good performance isn’t guaranteed. So they stay on top of changes that might spell trouble for the investment’s future good performance. Supervisors of people investments can do this by creating and sustaining engaging employment experiences, not just jobs, for their talent.

My book, Getting Engaged: The New Workplace Loyalty, outlines what the elements of engaging employment experiences are. This column touches on one of them: seeing a career path within the organization. Engaged organizations help supervisors out by having succession plans that identify future leaders and provide the career guidance that retains them. But first supervisors need to perform the simple act of asking. How tragic to see a key employee resign because nobody bothered to find out what he wanted in a career!

To submit a question for a future column, or to comment on a previous one, please contact editor@charityvillage.com. No identifying information will appear in this column.

Tim Rutledge, Ph.D., is a veteran human resources consultant and publisher of Mattanie Press. You can contact him at tim_rutledge@sympatico.ca or visit www.gettingengaged.ca.

Disclaimer: Advice and recommendations are based on limited information provided and should be used as a guideline only. Neither the author nor CharityVillage.com make any warranty, express or implied, or assume any legal liability for accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided in whole or in part within this article.