How To Improve Employee Performance

Employees are the most valuable asset for any organization. The quality of employee performance has a direct impact on the performance of the organization. For this reason, organizations remain constantly focused on how to improve their employees’ performance. High performing employees can help the organization to achieve its goals and become stronger than its competitors in the market.

Skyrocket Productivity with Improved Employee Performance

Employee performance can be explained in different terms. It can be measured as the productivity or efficiency of the employees as a whole. On an individual level, employee performance refers to the extent to which employees are achieving their assigned targets, which can be in terms of quality standards, sales volumes, marketing reach, and many other measures. Therefore, to improve employee performance, the first step is to measure it. The management should spell out specific and clear criteria on the basis of which employee performance can be measured.

There are several benefits to improving employee performance. When employee performance improves, they can offer better service quality to consumers. This increases their satisfaction with the company, and they become loyal customers. Improved employee performance also means that the quality of output improves and there are fewer errors and mistakes. This helps the organization to reduce its expenses of correcting errors like product recalls, product replacement, and crisis management.

1. Offer training

The best way to improve employee performance is to offer effective employee training. In fact, it is the single biggest investment that the organization can make to ensure continuously improving employee performance. The best way is to deliver the training at the beginning of the year or right when the employee enters the job role. The training should be specific to the job role so that the employee is prepared to respond to any routine as well as unexpected problems that may arise while performing his job.

2. IT skills training

Technology is a huge enabler in improving employee performance. Technology can be grouped into two categories—one that helps to make current work processes more efficient, and another that helps to train employees by acquiring new skills. Offering employees to work from home, work during flexible hours and access main from their personal computers are simple ways in which technology can help employees work better. The second group consists of technology that enables IT training and learning at a customized pace. This includes learning platforms like Lynda, Udemy, and other online platforms.

3. Provide a career path

Employees can be motivated to improve their performance when they have a well-chartered career path before them. In this way, they can learn which steps will lead them towards greater rewards and growth. They become more conscientious and observant of their performance when they realize the impact their performance will have on their career.

4. Communicate specific goals

It is important to help employees formulate clear expectations about their performance. When management offers vague statements and goals to employees, they are unable to understand what they are supposed to do and what management expects from them. Explicit goals can be made part of the job description, orientation program, and annual performance appraisal.

5. Offer inspirational leadership

Nowadays, employees are no longer content with the monetary aspect of their remuneration. They are more interested in their quality of life, within and outside the workplace. The organizational leadership needs to convey a winning vision that relates the organizational goals with the professional and personal goals of the employees. When employees see a direct link between their workplace performance and overall life satisfaction, they become inspired to improve their performance.

6. Institute attractive rewards

The goal-expectancy theory of leadership clearly explains that there is a direct association between the effort an employee puts into their work and the reward they expect to come out of it. More important is the fact that the value of the reward has a direct impact on whether the employee is ready to invest his effort in improvement. Therefore, it is mandatory for the management to adopt an individualized reward scheme by offering rewards that address the individual needs and desires of each employee.

7. Take visible steps

There are many underlying factors of poor employee performance, but often managers fail to look in the right places to learn about these factors. The employee survey is the first place one should look at because employees frequently identify the workplace factors that are a hindrance to their productivity and performance. If the management acts on employee feedback and suggestions, it can help to remove systemic barriers to employee performance. This can be small things like offering better communication systems, distributing workload fairly, improving workplace safety, and so on.

8. Delegate decision making

It is unfair to expect employees to improve their performance when they are not given control over the work itself. Management should state the specific performance goals, offer full control over the resources needed to achieve those goals, and step aside. Employees perform better when they can see the contribution of their job to the entire process, and they have control over-performing their job.

9. Talk to employees

This can be a rewarding way to address employee performance issues. Often there are problems that employees are unable to communicate through traditional channels, such as workplace rivalry, bullying, harassment or family and health issues that may be interfering with their performance. Counseling employees on such matters and offering support can help them to overcome these problems and improve their performance.

Management should always prioritize any investment in improving employee performance because it adds value to organizational output and performance. No organization can succeed if its employees are performing below the expected standards.

To compete with other players in the industry and to increase their market share, organizations need to motivate their employees to embrace a new challenge, set higher benchmarks for performance and take responsibility for their learning and development. At the same time, companies should offer formal and informal training opportunities in areas like IT skills, personal communication, and management skills.