A recorded conversation (June 18, 2023) hosted by Cameron Herold in which a leader of small-to-mid-sized businesses (≈$20M revenue or less) asks for guidance on retaining and professionally developing young/inexperienced employees. The speaker describes wearing multiple hats, lacking senior managers to create development plans, and seeking practical ways to grow staff internally rather than replacing them.
I keep getting in this situation where I have, you know, small 20 million revenue max. Pretty much these small mid sized businesses where they love cheap labor. So I am getting a lot of young green employees, right?
Yeah.
So I'm wearing a lot of hats as it is in a company that size. But I, you know, it is important to me to make sure that everybody's. I'm retaining employees but also really focusing on their professional development because I didn't have that at their age. You know, I had a boss that was like, do the job or I'll find someone who will. We don't talk like that anymore. And we want to grow them, you know, within the company. So I'm not sure in some of these scenarios where, you know, I'm good at my job. Right. But I'm not necessarily, I don't know their job. So I have to professionally develop them. I don't have anyone above them helping me like kind of create that plan. What's the best way to kind of go about helping them grow within their careers? Which is not.
It's to flip the org chart upside down where the CEO is at the bottom supporting the VPs and C level who are supporting the managers, who are supporting the employees, who are supporting the customers. Almost like an inverted pyramid. And recognize that our job is to grow people every day. Our job is to grow their skills and grow their confidence. Almost like they're climbing up two ladders and they've got their left hand and their left foot climbing up their skills ladder. And then right beside it, one foot away, they've got their right hand and right foot climbing up the confidence ladder. Imagine if you're climbing up two ladders and you've got to grow their skills, which grows their confidence, which grows their skills, which grows their confidence, which grows their skills. Right. You can teach them more. That grows their confidence. You're cheering them on. It allows them to try a new skill. If you keep doing those things, you're going to actually grow the people. The second part of that though is to talent stack the organization and to recognize that hiring one A replaces three Cs. You can't keep taking these people that are just the adage of hire for attitude, train for skill worked in the 1980s, but now we need to hire for that right culture fit and the proven skill set both. And it's sometimes worth it to pay a bit more to get the right people and then put them in the right seats.
