A business’s performance is all about its employees performance. Good businesses always run on well-informed, motivated, and confident workers. Without positivity in both the role of a leader and your staff, the standards of work can drop dramatically in a business. This is especially true if employees aren’t acknowledged for the contribution they make to the organization and what it does.
Are you looking for ways to boost the performance of your staff and create a working environment that’s conducive to better results? Let’s look at some of the ways this can be done.
Motivation as momentum.
One of the greatest incentives for better quality of work comes down to reasoning: What’s going to motivate a staff member to perform? You need to create a win-win situation whereby individuals win by performing, and their performance helps your organisation achieve its goals. Aligning personal goals with team goals is a great starting point.
Incentives - bonuses and beyond.
Motivation can include pay packet incentives and other bonuses, but it’s also important to know that there is much more to motivation than just $$$. Of course, financial incentives work well, but you can also consider motivating your workers by acknowledging their efforts in a way that congratulates them more openly, together with allowing them to excel at what they are good at.
Forbes has a great article on this very topic - well worth the read!
Setting the scene for great communication.
Weekly meetings are invaluable for creating cohesiveness and motivational momentum in staff. Providing the opportunity for your staff to raise concerns or speak openly about achievements is a great time for leaders to celebrate the achievements and efforts of staff. And don’t forget it’s important to celebrate the little things, as well as the big things.
Praise them like you should.
Praising your staff for great work, and occasionally saying “thanks” are great ways to acknowledge performance. For example, praising a staff member for meeting budget or making impressive sales can create an excellent working environment.
By creating challenges and praising successes, you are creating a better place of work, thus increasing output from staff. However, ideal staff behaviour takes time and trust between both the worker and the leader in their roles.
If you want to get some ideas check out some of the cool team building activities on offer at experience outlet Red Balloon.
Eliminate boring/laborious tasks
Workers don’t find every part of their job enjoyable (surprise, surprise) but the idea is that as a manager you should make an attempt to reduce the amount of time workers spend on time consuming manual tasks that don’t require a great deal of brain power. The answer here is to either split the workload or eliminate it through outsourcing, such as data entry, document management, or other admin tasks.
Leading in tricky situations.
Your staff members thrive on great feedback, but what about negative feedback? Being a great leader also comes with the responsibility of providing feedback that’s not always fun for workers to hear.
Feedback is crucial.
When it is done tactfully, feedback can be a combination of both positive and negative information the worker can use as a guideline for improving their performance. It can provide a worker with the opportunity to excel, without feeling deflated from receiving negative feedback.
Managing your staff requires tactful and balanced care. By demonstrating a level of responsibility toward your staff, this creates trust and a sense of authenticity between the employee and the manager in their roles.
Good communication is clear, planned and shares responsibility where possible. Poor communicators often fail to plan the way they respond to problems with staff, make spur of the moment decisions and rarely accept responsibility for workplace concerns. It’s essential to be proactive in communication as a leader!
Some tips for great communication and engagement with your staff:
Hold weekly meetings in which you review the week’s work.
Have a written and scheduled plan for discussion and a copy of the schedule for workers to refer to.
Give the staff members enough time to prepare for the meetings
Speak clearly, using intermittent eye contact with good body language- no folded arms, no pen tapping, etc.
Always choose language that is inclusive, respectful and takes responsibility
Be clear. Don’t deviate from a topic on the discussion plan until a conclusion has been reached.
Share and moderate the speaker’s role. Good communicators always allow everyone enough time to speak their mind.
Keep the content engaging, concise, and tangent-free! Rope in the conversation when it is required.
When dealing with concerns of others, always clarify the content by repeating the concern in your language and asking the worker to approve it. This is an excellent tool for encouraging trust and listening skills, but is also a great way to avoid misunderstandings.
If you can appropriately communicate, reward, and motivate your staff, you'll create a business environment that is a big step closer to long term success.
