Exemplary, exceptional, outstanding. Every employer dreams of having at least one extraordinary employee, a person who is driven by a relentless pursuit of excellence.
How valuable are these employees? Priceless: not only for their work ethic but for the inspiration they can provide—they lead by example. If you want to harness the power of your stellar performers, read on, as we explore the world of exemplary employees and the five traits that fuel their need to succeed.
Seeking the Best
As the U.S. economy improves, ongoing recovery depends on a continuing drop in unemployment and a rise in payroll. The end of 2014 saw a surge in new hires, the largest over the last three years, and both employers and employees had reason to rejoice. Job seekers were no longer forced to take any job to pay the rent or mortgage, and employers were no longer willing to settle for less to fill the ranks. This increase in stability also allowed companies to reevaluate their needs, and to seek out top notch talent.
So how can businesses attract these highly-valued associates or hold on to their best workers? By understanding what makes them tick. According to experts, articles, and a few recent books, top performers often have several qualities in common, distilled here into five tenets for success.
Drive & Initiative
Changes in technology, the workplace, and the economy mean there’s rarely such a thing as a traditional nine-to-five job anymore. But exemplary employees consistently go above and beyond, according to Dr. Robert J. Cerfolio, a thoracic surgeon and author of Super Performing at Work and At Home (River Grove, 2014).
Cerfolio believes the primary difference between a good and an outstanding employee is that the job doesn’t end when the worker walks out of the office. Outstanding employees are always thinking ahead: “They get home and they’re already preparing for the next day.”
Continual Learning
Great employees are almost never satisfied knowing just enough to do their jobs. They want to know everything there is to know about a product, customer, or service, and are always asking questions to further develop their skills and abilities.
According to Matt Mandel, vice president of sales and marketing for Nogales, AZ-based SunFed, this thirst for knowledge means treating the workplace like a schoolroom. “I’ve always had the mindset of a teacher, and appreciate this quality in others,” he explains. “With the constant ebb and flow of workloads, the ability to teach and help others ends up helping everyone in the end.”
Exemplary, exceptional, outstanding. Every employer dreams of having at least one extraordinary employee, a person who is driven by a relentless pursuit of excellence.
How valuable are these employees? Priceless: not only for their work ethic but for the inspiration they can provide—they lead by example. If you want to harness the power of your stellar performers, read on, as we explore the world of exemplary employees and the five traits that fuel their need to succeed.
Seeking the Best
As the U.S. economy improves, ongoing recovery depends on a continuing drop in unemployment and a rise in payroll. The end of 2014 saw a surge in new hires, the largest over the last three years, and both employers and employees had reason to rejoice. Job seekers were no longer forced to take any job to pay the rent or mortgage, and employers were no longer willing to settle for less to fill the ranks. This increase in stability also allowed companies to reevaluate their needs, and to seek out top notch talent.
So how can businesses attract these highly-valued associates or hold on to their best workers? By understanding what makes them tick. According to experts, articles, and a few recent books, top performers often have several qualities in common, distilled here into five tenets for success.
Drive & Initiative
Changes in technology, the workplace, and the economy mean there’s rarely such a thing as a traditional nine-to-five job anymore. But exemplary employees consistently go above and beyond, according to Dr. Robert J. Cerfolio, a thoracic surgeon and author of Super Performing at Work and At Home (River Grove, 2014).
Cerfolio believes the primary difference between a good and an outstanding employee is that the job doesn’t end when the worker walks out of the office. Outstanding employees are always thinking ahead: “They get home and they’re already preparing for the next day.”
Continual Learning
Great employees are almost never satisfied knowing just enough to do their jobs. They want to know everything there is to know about a product, customer, or service, and are always asking questions to further develop their skills and abilities.
According to Matt Mandel, vice president of sales and marketing for Nogales, AZ-based SunFed, this thirst for knowledge means treating the workplace like a schoolroom. “I’ve always had the mindset of a teacher, and appreciate this quality in others,” he explains. “With the constant ebb and flow of workloads, the ability to teach and help others ends up helping everyone in the end.”
Cooperation & Teamwork
It’s one of the business world’s hoariest clichés, but a great workplace really is like a great team, and teamwork helps keep exemplary employees focused on the endgame.
Dr. Cerfolio believes employees, like athletes, should love what they do and pursue goals in terms of ownership, responsibility, and pride instead of simply drawing a paycheck. Such employees, he notes, are more likely to “surround themselves with other employees who are also excellent and reliable”—a principle that transcends mere financial incentives.
Communication
Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, and the ability to listen aren’t just trite résumé fodder—they’re vital tools that can make the difference between an average employee and an exemplary one.
Even if a worker’s process and goals are crystal-clear in his/her own mind, they won’t help the company succeed unless they can be effectively communicated to others.
Mandel insists such skills are primary for an exemplary employee: “Clear communication of what the endgame is should not be secondary,” he asserts. “When people are able to achieve a laser focus on their target, the output is always superior.”
Confidence
Confidence isn’t just a character trait but a state of mind. When an employee exudes confidence in his/her abilities, others follow suit. Trust is built on performance, and performance is based on an employee’s work ethic and willingness to see a project or sale through from start to finish. Exemplary employees aren’t satisfied with merely completing a task, but in expanding upon it by forging relationships, both within the company and outside it.
Partnerships and a job well done in turn inspire confidence, and this confidence can influence corporate culture. “When teammates don’t share values or a culture, teams fail,” comments Dr. Cerfolio. Further, if an outstanding employee is surrounded by ‘marginal’ workers, after time, the exemplary employee will falter and probably move on, as he or she will perceive there is no longer an advantage to working harder.
Rules To Live By
In addition to embodying the aforementioned key traits, top performers also follow their own set of rules. The first ‘rule’ is knowing what he/she wants out of a job and to have a clearly defined career path. “An exemplary employee is someone who lives daily with a good attitude to do the best job,” says Ricardo Salinas, technical coordinator at Ruiz Sales in Edinburg, TX. “Maintaining clarity about your work allows you to achieve the highest levels of excellence in our industry.”
Maintaining positivity is also important—not just in good times, but when the going gets tough. According to Richard Ruiz, president of Ruiz Sales, “The exemplary employee is an employee who never quits until the job is finished, even when it appears impossible.” These workers are also positive role models, and “try every day to provide the best quality service to the company, no matter what.”
Focusing not only on self-improvement, but also on the improvement of the company is a critical imperative for the truly exemplary employee; an awareness of the past helps guide performance in the future. “Never settle,” says SunFed’s Mandel. “Perfection is a target, not a destination. We all need to continue to do better every day for the team to achieve what we all set out to do.”
An exemplary employee is also a problem solver, not a problem spotter. Seeing obstacles as challenges and opportunities, not impediments, is vital to both short- and long-thinking.
“An exemplary employee is attracted by an organization that has high level decision makers, such as a CEO who knows the value of his/her work,” says Ruiz, and these workers “are attracted to organizations that present them with opportunities to excel, and reward them when they do so.”
One of the more obvious traits is leadership. Exemplary workers lead, they do not follow, and approach issues by taking ownership of them. “In the high-pressure, fast-paced environment in which we work,” Mandel notes, “the X factor is an entrepreneurial spirit—the ability to act as if the decision were yours and yours alone, to weigh the positives against the negatives, to vet and verify assumptions, and make decisions when necessary.”
Other characteristics range from the obvious (always show up on time) to the abstract (find the noblest aspect of the work you do and live up to it). But one that comes up again and again is mentorship—finding a guide, and also taking the time to guide fellow associates. As Salinas puts it, “A good employee learns to be exemplary from other exemplary employees, because they lead by example.”
Rewarding Top Performers If your company is lucky enough to have one or two exemplary employees, you know how important it is to keep them. After all, if they’ve learned to lead, to solve problems, and to look for new challenges, they have more than held up their end of the bargain, and you need to find a way to retain their services.
There are multiple approaches to keeping an exemplary employee, just as there are multiple rules for becoming one. Good pay and competitive perks are good starts. “The best ways to keep outstanding employees are to make sure they’re valued, to fairly reimburse them for their time, and to give them unexpected bonuses and incentives during the year,” advises Dr. Cerfolio.
Financial compensation and benefits are the most obvious ways to keep employees happy, but they’re not always the most fulfilling. A supportive corporate culture that lets employees know they’re appreciated is also critical. “The best way for an organization to keep its best employees is for high-level decision makers to show them their work is valued,” observes Ruiz. “Personal thank-you notes and consistent meetings that highlight the valuable work of employees are good ways to let them know how important they are for the company, and let them know the company’s needs are being met as well.”
Mandel also emphasizes this kind of respect, and adds a dose of flexibility, offering personal and professional growth and fulfillment. “We have desires, aspirations, and feelings, and recognizing that these all need to exist within the greater context of the workplace is essential. Treat other people as you would expect to be treated, but also, expect more of yourself as an employer than you expect of your employees; it sets a great example.”
Environment is also important, to allow workers to grow and not be confined to a specific role or function, Mandel explains, allowing the individual “to mature and progress as an individual, not just an employee. Exceptional organizations are constantly looking for the best possible talent available, looking to raise the bar with the level of talent on board,” he adds.
“As Jim Collins puts it in Good to Great (Harper, 2001), it’s about having the right people on the bus and in the right seats. When you have the best people and the best talent available, they will naturally gravitate to the work that best suits their position.”
By not limiting or ‘pigeon-holing’ someone, Mandel says this allows workers to “spread their wings a little, embrace creativity, and express themselves in ways they may not otherwise.”
The End Game
It’s more important than ever, in a highly competitive and volatile job market, to pursue excellence. As an individual, developing the skills and traits of an ‘exemplary’ employee will make you more valuable to your employer, encouraging better pay and more perks.
As an employer, inspiring and keeping outstanding workers is vital to achieving corporate goals and ongoing success. In an oft-quoted Forbes interview, Southwest Airlines co-founder Herb Kelleher answered the business school version of the chicken-and-egg conundrum: “Who comes first: your shareholders, your employees, or your customers?”
For Kelleher, the answer was simple—employees. This is backed up by the airline’s current CEO, Gary Kelly, who told Forbes in 2013, “Everything begins and ends with our people. If we keep our employees happy and engaged, they will keep our customers happy, who will reward us with their loyalty. That repeat business helps our bottom line and creates value for our shareholders.”
So there is no conundrum: your employees are your business, and if you’re fortunate enough to have one or more exemplary workers, acknowledge their skills and the ability to lead, as they are the future of your company.
