Every company understands there’s always room for improvement. In today and tomorrow’s Training Daily Advisor, business consultant Bridget Miller has some advice for managing—and improving—your employees’ performance level.
Perhaps it goes without saying that an organization’s success is largely dependent on how well every employee performs. Yet many organizations struggle with maximizing employee performance while also keeping employee morale high and turnover low. Sound familiar?
Fortunately, there are seemingly endless ways that managers and HR teams can impact employee productivity, both directly and indirectly. Let’s take a look at some ideas to improve employee performance.
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Techniques to Manage and Improve Employee Performance
Here are some ideas for managing and improving employee performance:
- Set clear expectations and communicate them well, then continue to manage expectations. Frequent communication is critical. Ensure employees understand their objectives by asking them to explain them in their own words.
- Train managers and give them the tools to help their employees excel. Be on the lookout for managers who have underperforming teams—and see what the root cause is.
- Utilize employee handbooks to keep everyone on the same page and help to ensure employees’ understanding of company policies.
- Consistently follow the company’s employee discipline policy, and always discipline promptly if necessary. This step maintains consistent and fair treatment of employees so they see that they do not have to tolerate or pick up slack for poor performers. Perhaps counterintuitively, a consistently applied and fair disciplinary policy can boost morale (assuming, of course, it is appropriate and not overreaching). A disciplinary policy does this by ensuring everyone is held accountable for their actions.
- Conduct regular and timely employee performance appraisals so employees know where they stand and what their goals are.
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- Use SMART goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. When employee goals are SMART, it gives them ownership and encourages them to achieve their goals.
- Prioritize employee development. In other words, help them help you. You can do this by ensuring your employees know how to achieve their career goals within the organization and, likewise, by ensuring that employee goals are known so you can both plan accordingly. Work with the employee to close any skills gaps that would be an impediment to achieving long-term career goals. This improves employee skills, which benefit both the employer and employee, and helps maintain and improve employee satisfaction levels.
In tomorrow’s Advisor, we present more tips from Miller on managing performance and improvement at your organization.
About Bridget Miller:
Bridget Miller is a business consultant with a specialized MBA in International Economics and Management, which provides a unique perspective on business challenges. She’s been working in the corporate world for over 15 years, with experience across multiple diverse departments including HR, sales, marketing, IT, commercial development, and training.