One significant problem that can have each entrepreneur, especially entrepreneurs of fast-growing businesses is to keep the best employees without giving them managerial positions.
In the previous post, I talk about what an individual must practice when he/she become a manager. However, there I don’t cover something about people who don’t want to become managers or people who simply can’t become managers. Managers need to implement different managerial tasks.
Sometimes we must be aware that some employees are more valuable in the current position with their excellent technical skills. Technical skills in those employees produce direct business results for your company. More about managerial skills you can read in the Three Types of Managerial Skills.
For example, a programmer in many situations wouldn’t like a managerial job, because he/she wants to stay late on the night in the front of their computers to write code that will be valuable for the business. If you promote them to managers as a part of your business reward system, you will destroy creativity and the life of those persons.
In these situations, you as an entrepreneur will have a significant dilemma. Your dilemma will be to find the answer for how to keep the best employees satisfied, rewarded and more respected without making a mistake to promote them to managers.
There are two different approaches to compensate for the rewards for the managerial positions. Both approaches are essential for an employee.
1. Monetary Rewards to Your Best Employees
Money is a crucial thing for each employee. If someone is beneficial for the achievement of your business goals at the current position, and in the same time he/she has a low potential for the managerial place, it is better to stay there on the operational level. But, they will expect some rewards in the form of money. They know that they are valuable to the business, they know that they bring successful results, and they know that must be rewarded for their efforts.
You can use different approaches as monetary rewards. Here are some ideas you can use for this purpose:
- Increasing salary,
- Money rewards after completion of tasks,
- Bonuses,
- Paid vacation for them and their family,
- Pay school for their children, etc.
2. Nonfinancial Rewards to Your Best Employees
It’s not everything about money even they are an essential part for each of us. But, in the business life, there is the existence of different rewards that will be appreciated by your best employees. For example, everyone wants:
- To be a respectable person.
- To have a better reputation.
- To have privileges in independent decision making.
Respectable person. If someone is more worth from an average employee in your company, he will expect to have better respect from the colleagues. We know that managers are respectable persons, but we want to build real respect without the managerial position. As an entrepreneur or manager, you can use different approaches to create a really respectable employee in their working environment. Some of them can be:
- Share some sweet words about them with their colleagues.
- Praise their work to hear other colleagues.
- Give them the most critical tasks from the project.
- Celebrate with them, about their success.
Better reputation. The reputation is the opinion, social evaluation and identity defined by other people to the person. Everyone wants to build a better reputation in their working environment. You as an entrepreneur or manager can be a very influential person in the implementation of these objectives. Help your best employees to build a better reputation on their workplaces.
Independent decision making. Managers are persons that decide. However, if you don’t want to promote some of the best employees in managers, you can expand their scope of decision making. This means that they can decide on some projects without you.
You can see that all of these approaches are interdependent. One method can improve other and vice versa. These are some of the ideas that you as a small business entrepreneur can implement in your company to keep the best employees without promoting them to managers.
