Hiring Wisdom: Whatever You Do, Don’t Treat Your Employees Equally

3 bad employees = 1 OK employee;
3 OK employees = 1 good employee;
3 good employees = 1 great employee.

And, as you know, it ain’t easy to find great employees, so once you do, don’t treat them equally, treat them fairly!

Don’t penalize your best performers

Case in point: We recently bought a new car from the salesperson who sold us our last five cars. Because we’re old friends now, he confided in me that the dealership had cut everyone’s commissions by one (1) percent as of the first of the year and that, although he wasn’t going to jump ship, three of his better co-workers were looking for new employers.

My advice? Never penalize you best performers.

In this case, the cost of a sale is much greater for the employee who closes one deal out of six than it is for those STAR performers who close one of every three. So, don’t treat your employees equally; treat them fairly.

Do any of your policies or procedures penalize your best people for being great?

This was originally published on Mel Kleiman’s Humetrics blog.