Wait! Have you thought about your “internal niche?”
In your internal niche, the climate is your company culture: your mission and the values that drive it to growth. Of course, the most important parts of the niche are the people within. How they react and adapt within your culture will carry the niche forward—or leave it to wither and die. And—if you’ll allow this metaphor one more step—the dominant species in your internal niche would be the “superemployee.”
What is a superemployee? They all share the following characteristics:
- They have a passion to be where they are. From day one, they want to work at your company. They want to be where your company is and where it is going. Superemployees are not motivated and satisfied only by salary incentives and pay raises. They wake up in the morning because they find value in the work beyond the money.
- They’re not always experts when they’re hired. Superemployees are highly skilled but that doesn’t mean they were child prodigies. Responding well to training makes superemployees better hires not only because they get the job done but also because they fit into a scaleable hiring model. Superemployees boost your company’s long-term growth because although they may require that investment on the front end, they allow you greater flexibility in your search.
- They thrive in your company culture. Superemployees thrive in your company’s unique internal atmosphere. This is in part because they help make it what it is. They may not explicitly recognize every aspect of management’s vision but they respond the best to it. Superemployee qualities mirror the unique qualities of the business at large.
- They stick with it. Superemployees aren’t looking for a brief stint at any industrial company to list on their resume. They come home to your company. Long-term value to your business comes from this endurance. Even if they choose to move on one day, superemployees give you a dedicated portion of their careers.
If these sound familiar, it’s because you have people like this working at your company. The key for your business strategy moving forward—and refining your internal niche—is to focus on what makes your superemployees tick. What are their needs? How often do you think about your business from their perspective?
Then when you’re looking to hire, you will have identified the qualities that you want replicated in your new employees. Better yet, your superemployees will see that your values—which are their values, too—are embedded in the hiring process.
Adam Himoff is the President of Xemplar, an innovative recruiting and workforce solutions company that enables U.S. industrial clients to beat the ‘skilled labor shortage’ and reliably source the high-value, high-skill employees they need to thrive. To learn more about Xemplar and to request a no-risk consultation for your industrial business go to www.xemplar.com.
