Identify the Office VIPs in Your Company
Many managers and bosses assume that identifying the most productive employees and those with the greatest potential would be an easy task. It can actually be quite difficult, however, to ascertain which employees either exhibit the best work habits or have the greatest potential in the company. Read the following article for guidelines about how to identify the office VIPs in your company using criteria as varied as hard numbers to more intangible personality traits.
Contents
Steps
- Make a list of your employees.
- Use your computer or human resources system so you can easily access and edit this list over time.
- An employee that has been with the company for a long period of time has two distinct benefits. One, that employee demonstrates loyalty. Two, that employee has intimate knowledge of the business. He or she is fully trained and aware of all protocol procedures and company policies.
- Identify how long each employee has been at the company. Note any promotions or position changes within the company as well and how long he or she has held each position.
- Determine each employee's leadership potential.
- Mark those who are already in a leadership role, either assigned or taken on by choice. Also identify anyone who seems to demonstrate the potential for positive leadership skills.
- It can be difficult to quantify intangible personality traits. To help make your assessment more meaningful, assign each person's work ethic a number between 1 and 10. It will still involve judgment, but the hard numbers will help create workable data.
- Evaluate each employee's level of work ethic. Within this parameter, also consider factors such as willingness to work overtime and dedication to the quality of work output.
- Ascertain which employees demonstrate a positive or a negative attitude.
- Even in jobs that don't directly require group cooperation, key employees are those that know how to get along with many different personality types. Use complaints filed by or against an employee with human resources as a gauge of an employee's overall attitude and temperament at work.
- Employees that are secretive or overly sensitive are generally counterproductive to a team, especially at the management level.
- Identify which employees value and demonstrate honesty and integrity.
- Identify which employees are averse to action or fail to focus their actions on overall corporate goals.
- Missing deadlines is, of course, a red flag for any employee. Be equally cautious, however, of those who always appear busy but are actually dedicating all time and effort on small tasks with little consequence or outcome.
- Create a chart listing each position at the company. Write who does the position now as well as who else could also do the position. This helps identify which employees have specialized skills as well as those employees that are capable of fulfilling multiple roles.
- Update your list of employees and attributes as changes arise. These can be changes in personnel, changes in position or changes in work performance.
Tips
- Make your list of employees and attributes before one of your employees has an offer from another company. You're much more likely to identify the best employees if you can think rationally and without the pressure of a counteroffer.
Warnings
- Don't overlook key employees at every level of the company. That is, don't focus just on finding employees suitable for senior management. Find key employees at lower level positions as well.
Things You'll Need
- Computer
- Employee records
