The 10x Employee

In my 15 years of running my business, hundreds of employees passed through my doors.  As a bootstrapped small business, we simply couldn’t afford to hire experienced people right off the bat, so we were always hiring entry-level employees.  Retention was difficult. I was always sifting through entry-level people, hoping to find high performers that would stay and grow with the business.

Although the constant inflow and outflow of people could be exhausting for our management staff at times, I conceded that it was the price of operating small with constraints.   And yet, I found this to be a blessing in disguise because once in a while, I would find the  “10x Employee”.

The 10x Employee isn’t someone whose raw work output equals 10 times the raw output of a peer co-worker in the same department.  (Is it even possible to answer ten times the number of customer inquiries per hour, or fulfill ten times the number of packages over a peer employee?). Rather, the 10x Employee is distinguished over peers by delivering ten times the top-line value of their salary to the revenue and productivity of the business, through operational, motivational, or cultural contributions. 

For example, in my experience, I have seen one of my customer service employees generate nearly $500,000 in phone sales, all while earning $50,000 per annum. This person was the 10x Employee I hoped to find–a statistical leader who could set an example to departmental peers of what is exponentially possible and even establish themself as a micro-authority on how to close sales. This employee achieved all of this without subverting others and even contributed to our company culture with their energy and charisma.  They were well-liked and recognized by the staff for these strengths.

The difference between a 10x employee and a 1x employee

Before we can understand and appreciate the 10x employee, let’s consider the baseline: The “1x Employee.” The 1x Employee delivers just enough productivity and value to the company to earn their keep and is thus valuable enough to justify their base salary.  The employee will come in on time, perhaps have some visual presence, and will perform the job description to the letter. But when the final seconds of the day arrives, this employee will punch out on time and be out the door. To be sure, you will appreciate your 1x employees. They do as they are asked, just as the job requires. You’ll appreciate their attention to assigned tasks, the occasional clarifying questions, and the appearance of engagement in the work. But that’s about it. Rarely if at all, will you see overtime or extra effort. Effectively whatever you wrote in your job description at the time of hiring is what the 1x employee delivers, nothing more.  

A 10x employee, on the other hand, is someone who delivers far more than their job title or resume might imply. That person has high standards for their work and takes pride in doing that work to that degree. For instance, while the 1x employee may be out the door on time, the 10x employee will happily answer the customer service email that comes in at 4:59 p.m. While the 1x employee might just provide the minimum effort to speed through the problem and not think of any other way anyways to do the task any better. The 10x employee will take the extra time to resolve the matter, and maybe even add notes on the resolution.  

In other words, the 10x employee is proactive and finds solutions to problems instead of asking the manager the instant they encounter something they don’t know.  Even if they weren’t directly trained for certain situations, they can make reasonable decisions in the best interest of the business and its customers. Even if they aren’t natural leaders or may be introverted, these people are happy to help their peers and, as a result, earn their peers’  respect. They contribute to the culture of the business itself by being a paradigm of competency and hard work.

A 10x’er is someone who thinks two steps ahead instead of just one. I remember always preaching to my warehouse staff: you should always try to make your own lives easier.  You’d be surprised how much more efficiently you can pack cardboard boxes if you first step back and think about workflow processes as a whole versus having a narrow vision of singular tasks. The 10x warehouse employee is able to do proactive things like loading all the tape guns and prepping the packing area.  But they also have the ability to step back to a more macro view. They can look at the picking/packing workflow as a whole and suggest common-sense improvements to make things faster.

In summary, by being a flexible problem solver, a 10x employee can fill in the gaps of whatever a startup needs.  By being helpful, the 10x can boost the co-workers around them and contribute to the cultural harmony of a team.  And by being proactive, they’re helping the company evolve at the cellular level through small optimizations.

And that’s the secret to identifying 10x employees: you won’t find the clues on their Curriculum Vitae. Instead, you find them in their character and behavior on the job.

Though it might not be realistic to expect all employees to operate at that level — especially when you’re starting with entry-level employees — if you’re lucky, you can find a few of them.  And if you are even more fortunate, you can engage, promote and motivate them to stay and grow with your business.