Last week I shared about how empathy can help you maximize the value of your employees to your agency.
This week I want to go over another powerful tool for maximizing the value your employees contribute to your agency.
This one is more focused toward the ambitious, driven employees in your agency.
The ones you hire because they remind you of yourself or they inspire you because they have a drive you wish you had.
It can also act as a motivator for those employees who didn’t know they had ambition because they weren’t aware of what could be.
There are additional benefits to this, particularly increased loyalty and motivation from your employees and increase likelihood of them referring good talent to you, and even referring clients.
So what’s the tool?
Vision
Yes, you want to share your vision with your employees.
Let them know the trajectory of your business and what you hope to achieve and they’re more likely to be inspired by the thought of being part of something bigger than themselves.
Being part of a growing, thriving business is exciting and employees want to stick around to reap the benefits of what you’ve created.
However, while this aspect of vision is helpful and important, it’s not the aspect I’m talking about.
Just as you have to answer the “What’s in it for me?” question for clients and their customers, you also have to answer it for your employees.
Showing them all the great things they can be part of is, in part, answering that question.
Many see it as more of a “What’s in if for you” thing.
If you really want to leverage the power of vision – of imagination and visualization – you need to show them what their future could look like through their eyes, not through yours.
For all employees, you can improve upon the above idea of sharing your vision by explaining how the role they’re in will affect the vision and how it will develop as the vision unfolds.
Paint a picture for them of their impact on the company, the clients they serve, and the team members they work with. Make it clear how valuable they are in this vision.
More importantly, paint a picture of how their life could look outside of work.
As the company moves toward its vision, they’ll be compensated according to the increased value they’re providing.
They’ll be able to enjoy bigger and better vacations with their family or friends. They’ll be able to proudly share with their friends and family the impact they have on high-value work for high-value clients.
They’ll be an integral part of a successful agency that turns down dozens of employee applications every day, but they made the cut.
They helped the agency become what it is today and have gained valuable experience and skills that can be leveraged no matter what happens.
The more clearly they can see that future and the more it aligns with what they want for themselves, the more likely they are to stick with you and help you achieve this vision however possible.
Roadmap
Ready to take that idea to the next level for your more ambitious employees?
Paint the picture as outlined above and then include a roadmap to a position of leadership or seniority suited to their behavioral style and possible skills.
Do they have leadership skills?
Show them the steps they’ll need to take to qualify for the leadership position they want.
Do they want more challenges behind the scenes?
Give them a clear roadmap to prove themselves worthy of that senior role (in this example, seniority would be key accounts and more pay, not leadership).
The roadmap is as much a checklist for them as it is a value tracker for yourself.
Let’s say you want your Paid Search Director to have 7+ years of experience managing ads in an agency with client communication skills, training & coaching experience, hiring experience, and experience creating paid search processes.
If the employee you’re talking to has 3 years of experience and they want to be your Paid Search Director, give them an actual checklist on a shared spreadsheet, document, or folder in your project management software.
One task is “Gain 4 more years of experience” with subtasks for each year so they can feel the progress of checking each year off.
The next task is “Manage communication for [X Number] clients for [X Number] months” with subtasks for each month.
Then you’d have one for training and coaching team members, one for hiring employees, and another for creating processes, each with subtasks for the smaller steps along the way so they can see their progress toward the goal.
Also, as you track their progress and as their value to the agency grows, you can use this as part of their check-ins or reviews to go over their progress and encourage them to stick with it or let them know if they’re exceeding expectations and the time requirement is lessened.
A leader who is great at 5 years will continue to learn and grow to be better at 7, but there’s no reason to make them wait if you have the need and they can fill it.
This has the added benefit of increasing their loyalty to your agency as they can see their desired outcome and their progress toward it.
To really sweeten the deal, increase their compensation to reflect their added value to the agency.
You could even tie monetary values to each task so they can see how much more they’d be paid to learn or acquire certain skills, which is VERY motivating for an ambitious marketer with leadership skills.
Money isn’t everything when it comes to employee retention, but it never hurts.
Summary
Employees are usually excited about providing value to your agency when they’re first hired. If you can keep them excited about the value they can provide, how they’ll impact your agency, and how you’ll be recognizing and rewarding their increased value…
You’ll be able to keep your team members longer and keep them excited about working with you and giving you as much value as possible.