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Nurturing high-performers, especially during times of change, is crucial in today’s fast-paced work environment where adaptability and continuous learning are key.

But how can you identify the top performers in your finance team? And how can you nurture them properly and help them succeed within their roles?

In this article, I share insights on how you can identify and nurture top-performing members of your finance team through the ‘Great Resignation’. 

Table of contents:

What is the Great Resignation? 

Post-pandemic, the workplace has seen a significant shift. Dubbed the "Great Resignation," it seemed like everyone was willing to resign from their jobs, no matter the company or the salary.

An article by Fortune Magazine highlighted that at least 40% of U.S. workers were considering quitting their jobs. This phenomenon stems from various factors such as hostile work environments, employee dissatisfaction, and a reshuffling of personal priorities.

How to identify high performers 

Identifying high performers is the first step in nurturing them. High performers exhibit three distinct habits:

1. Discipline: Discipline is key. Respecting schedules, organizing days to get the most out of each hour, and separating time for meetings from individual work are all signs you've got a high performer on your team.

2. Work-life balance: This is all about taking substantial breaks to recharge and foster creativity. It also includes breaking monthly and quarterly cycles down and brewing transformation projects.

3. Continuous learning: High performers constantly seek knowledge, reflect on their experiences, and strive for improvement. Documenting finance processes can reveal opportunities to empower leading performers and allow them to improve at what they do. 

Take Eliud Kipchoge, for instance – his routine, from waking up at 5 AM to following a meticulously planned schedule, exemplifies the discipline and commitment of a high performer. 

How to nurture high performers 

If you see someone who exhibits these three main habits, you can quickly identify that this person is a high performer. After you identify the high performers in your team, you can then take actionable steps to help nurture them.  

Nurturing high performers involves several strategies:

Having purpose

Clear ultimate goal to guide in rough times.

Having a strong sense of purpose is so important. Encourage your high performers to seek a purpose beyond daily tasks.

Their goal shouldn’t be to send all the Excel files to the right person by the end of the day. They must have a clear ultimate goal to work towards. This will help them to define their higher purpose. 

Embracing proven methodologies

Agile tools and methodologies to achieve faster and better results.

Many methodologies are proven to work, so utilize methodologies like Agile and Scrum to enhance productivity. Doing so will motivate high performers to go further and increase the likelihood they’ll want to remain in their existing roles.   

Constantly embracing challenges

New challenges to encourage leading performers to achieve ambitious and challenging targets.

High performers won't be happy without a challenge. So, there should always be a challenge and after the challenge is complete, something new should take its place.

To achieve this, you must create challenges that are aligned with the company objectives, but that are also appropriate for the high performer.

Increasing the scope

Participate and lead transversal projects to constantly learn and deliver better results.

High performers are very curious. A good way to make a high performer happy in their position is to increase the scope.

Allow high performers to explore and contribute beyond their immediate roles. It’s important for high performers to be motivated and not confined to a single job because they’re often curious and want to go further than that. 

Adopting the concept of ‘culture wins’

Leading performers feel free to grow and be themselves.

Creating an environment that fosters personal and professional growth is crucial for high performers. This should be created by directors and/or managers, who must focus on creating a culture where people can grow, develop, and be challenged. 

Conclusion

These five levels are very important to help motivate your team to achieve their goals. Despite the Great Resignation, the pandemic created countless challenges that can be tackled while encouraging performance habits and nurturing leading performers inside companies.

It’s essential to recognize that nurturing high performers is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It requires a nuanced understanding of individual needs and organizational goals.

By focusing on these aspects, we can ensure that our teams are not just productive but also engaged and motivated, leading to better outcomes for everyone involved.