You should FIRE the Star Players
It is a given fact nowadays that people do not stay in one place quite unlike the Japanese Culture where people stay with a single employer for their lives and employers taking care of employees for their lives. Nowadays companies also ensure that their HR strategies are strong enough to absorb alarming attrition rates.
A company can never run on star players it is always the average people that ensures the achievement of corporate goals and objectives. He went on explaining how demanding star players are and their increased bargaining powers due to attraction by competition.
What is the correct formula or the correct balance a company should keep between star players and average?
The categorization of employees as star players and average is mainly done through a performance appraisal system. Performance appraisal systems have matured with significant evolution in the area where a new science exists to accurately measure performance of employees. This cumbersome process filters a percentage of people who are identified as key players/star players in achieving corporate goals. The rest are in a common category called average.
Companies nowadays have the hygiene benefits associated with the performance appraisal outcomes and these benefits ensures lower level of dissatisfaction among employees. I always had the question why companies are not matured enough to understand the difference between motivation and reducing dissatisfaction. Their could be different motivational desires for star players like recognition, challenge. Instead companies tend to overload the star players with good perks, where they could anyway get from any other company.
But the average, they get less paid, get less attention and further demotivated. This average accounts to about 90% of the company. A company can't achieve anything without the significant contribution from this less concerned group of employees. Even the so called star players perform well with the contribution from the average.
If the money invested on retaining the star players are utilized on the average it will give a better ROI.
I am of the view point that if companies cannot identify the difference between motivation and reducing dissatisfaction companies should fire the star players.
