The success of any organization lies in the performance of its employees. All organizations across the world are concerned about Employee Performance. They are the cornerstone of your organization and are crucial to an organization’s productivity. So it goes without saying that Stellar Employee Performance is the enabling factor that keeps your business moving forward.
Having the best talent is the secret to success. Knowing how to improve employee performance may seem challenging, but it is very well within your reach with a step-by-step plan. Empower your employees to succeed. Visit https://www.reworked.co/employee-experience/a-strategic-framework-for-digital-employee-experience/ for more detailed information.
10 Steps To Improve Employee Performance
1. Communication
Time and time again, we hear how communication is the cornerstone of the perfect workplace.
Proper communication is the building block of an effective workplace. It helps convey ideas clearly so that employees can understand expectations. Communication is a two-way process. Just as how you communicate to your employees, they should have the avenue to do the same.
(a) Set Clear Goals
Employees can be efficient only when they have clear goals to hit. Always let them know of their expectations and what impact the goals will have. Assign goals that are SMART- Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Each goal should fit these requirements. Involve team members in their goal-setting process to give them autonomy. Such a process would improve employee performance and engagement for the better.
(b) Improve Employee Performance With Better Communication Tools
Coupled with the latest technology and communication tools, indeed employees would have efficient communication. Not exactly. A research study points out that emails take up 28% of an employee’s time. Research suggests that email is the most time-intensive activity for office workers. Social networking tools (like Slack) are a quicker alternative to emails and used in tandem.
Perhaps even a sprint meeting can settle issues quickly, those that might have taken multiple to and fro emails. Effective communication frees up their time to focus more on their work to improve employee performance.
2. Incentivize and Reward outstanding performance
Organizations spend so much time recruiting new talent and improving employee performance that they forget to recognize high performers. In hindsight, these high performers would feel overworked and underappreciated. Sometimes you may even lose them to your competitors. Regret is stronger than gratitude. But it’s not too late to thank your employees for a job well done.
Rewards and Recognition is the best way to encourage employees to be more efficient. Such rewards will provide enough encouragement to keep increasing their productivity. On deciding to reward your employees, always consider individual preferences. One employee would enjoy a recognition that is public, whereas another would like a silent thank you.
For starters, you could invest in,
Paid Time Off: Allow employees to have a PTO for work well done. This way, they won’t need to use up their vacation days.
Wellness Program: Workplace Wellness Programs ensure a sense of well-being at the workplace, reducing the number of sick days.
If you email a team member, appreciate them for work well done, don’t forget to cc your boss on that email. Let everyone know the hard work put in by your team members.
When employees witness the upside of being dedicated to their work, it would be bound to improve employee performance.
3. Employee Development
Have your employee goals been achieved? Have they reached their peak potential within the organization? If you feel that a skills gap persists, bring this to their attention and plan accordingly. By doing so, you can help them achieve their goals and increase employee retention. Besides, highly skilled employees can work better to fulfil the team objectives.
Training to do their daily tasks might have been implemented at the onboarding stage, but we all know that learning doesn’t stop there! Always encourage continual employee learning. Workshops, Webinars, Mentoring, coaching, or online courses can equip your company to improve employee performance.
Encourage employees to stay ahead of the curve by reading every relevant piece of information in their field.
Remember, training never ends at onboarding. It seems to be a short-term solution to improve employee performance. On the other hand, development is a long-term solution—training and development work in tandem to improve employee performance. There is a clear connection between employee performance and employee development. It gives them a framework of the benchmark to be reached and how they can go about achieving it.
4. Performance Review
There is no hope to improve employee performance if your employees are unaware that they are unproductive in the first place. If an employee is underperforming, you need to get to the bottom of it. Investigate these underperformance issues. The first point to be noted is that you don’t make assumptions.
Gather the necessary data and analyze it before directly addressing the person. Perhaps they are facing a shortage of adequate resources or encountered an inadequate training and onboarding program. Avoid quick-fix solutions and work towards a sustainable plan to improve employee performance.
This is where performance appraisal and reviews come in. Most organizations hold Performance reviews only once a year but try to incorporate them daily. Measure your employee’s performance with employee 360 reviews and hold meetings to let them know the areas they excel in. Please take this as the opportunity to reveal the places they could improve in as well. Have an open discussion about what you can do to improve employee performance.
Perhaps they might require guidance on specific tasks or need a little space for artistic expression. Feedback can improve employee performance by showing ways to help your employees. Among the various types of feedback, employee 360 takes input from multiple sources like peers, coworkers, customers, and their supervisor.
A 360-degree employee feedback could look like this