Yesterday Time released a chart showing the median salary of the top paying companies by state. Drilling down on the data, I noticed an interesting correlation.
33 out of 49 top-paying companies in the US have fewer than 60 employees.
This has a few implications. First, as the median salary goes down, more companies have high numbers of employees. So apparently, some people are doing less with more people.
Second, I want to note that there was one company that had no available data on the number of employees. That company, by the way, had the highest median salary by far of any other: $964,005. I can only speculate on the number of employees, but if it is like the other top paying companies, I’m guessing it has very few, very happy, very hard-working, and very well-paid employees.
So, some companies are getting extraordinary results with just a few employees. How do they do that?
Although we don’t like to talk about it, not everyone gets the same results at work. Some people bring their full game, day after day, and push the boundaries. Some people get comfortable and settle into a routine. According to Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger, superior employees outperform average employees by 40% to 100% or more (The Leadership Machine, 10th edition, p. 223).
We’ve all heard there is a “war for talent.” The reasons are pretty obvious. We have historically low unemployment. Investment in public education has been falling since the 80s. There is a cohort of students who graduated during the recession, resulting in a demographic block that has fewer skills and experiences than they would normally have acquired. It’s no wonder that there are not too many people at the top of the game.
Companies that have a strategy to hire and develop superior performers are the ones doing more with less, sometimes a lot more. For me, there are two takeaways:
- If I’m running a company, I’d invest in an employee development strategy plan now. Sure, it might take 5 years to pay off, but if I don’t do it now, I’ll be 5 years behind my toughest competitors in 5 years.
- If I’m an employee who wants to earn more, I’d invest in my own leadership development now. Sure, it might take 5 hard years before it starts to pay off, but if I don’t, I’ll be 5 years behind my toughest competitors in 5 years.
There are 50 years of research into employee and leadership development. If you align business strategy with a talent strategy, extraordinary things can happen. Coaching can make it happen.
What side of this chart do you want to be on in 5 years?