Manage HR Magazine | Monday, May 30, 2022
In today’s knowledge economy, employees with unique skills have a profound impact on organizations. It’s crucial to keep them happy. Many managers believe that compensation is the key. But truly talented people aren’t highly motivated by money. Feeling special is far more important to them.
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FREMONT, CA: Managers have had to adapt to a harsh reality over the last several decades: individuals with exceptional talent can have a significant impact on the value—and even the nature—of the work their companies generate. The Green Bay Packers can still play football without quarterback Aaron Rodgers, but they'll have to switch up their offensive scheme. A pharmaceutical company's research programme will have to be modified if one of its key scientists leaves. If a hedge fund loses its investment genius, it will have to rethink its investment strategy.
People with extraordinary experience and skills have become powerful as the knowledge economy has taken over the business world, whether they are corporate executives, research scientists, money managers, artists, athletes, or celebrities. Simultaneously, technology and innovation have modernized the financial markets, making finance much more accessible and moving power from capital to talent. And, while talent earnings have soared in many fields over the last four decades, nothing compares to top-tier executives' capacity to extract value.
Such astonishing figures have led to the assumption that top performers are highly motivated by monetary rewards and that large sums of money are essential for their recruitment and retention. There are plenty of CEOs who inflate their companies' perceived value to boost their stock-based compensation; activist hedge-fund managers who destroy companies for short-term gain; investment bankers who persuade their clients to make unwise acquisitions in the pursuit of big fees; and consultants who sell their clients work they don't need.
None of those people who put themselves first have the ability or motivation to make their organizations or teams great for a long time. Experts remark out of their experience that people who are truly at the top of their fields are not completely driven by money. Feeling special is more important to talent than compensation is. However, various researches and observations prove that the key to managing employees is to make them feel like valued individuals rather than members of a club, no matter how elite.
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