All too often, employees can end up focusing their efforts on work that doesn’t really help to move the business forward.
So what can you do to help them make the shift from ‘just doing things’ to doing the right things in order to improve organisational performance?
The key is to encourage managers to set clear, specific goals that relate directly to business targets. The aim is to help employees understand how their day-to-day activities can have a direct impact on the bottom line – and to hold them to account, firmly but fairly, for achieving the objectives that they have been set.
The following simple measures will encourage great employee performance and turn business strategy into positive commercial results:
1. Clarify
Get the top team to agree on three to five overall goals to help the business meet its key commercial objectives. Steer clear of meaningless, generic aims that won’t have any impact on performance or results.
2. Cascade
Help managers to translate these goals into specific, meaningful goals for their department or team. Ensure that they understand the importance of keeping people focused on activities that are directly related to business goals.
3. Develop
Equip managers with the skills and confidence that they need to give timely and effective feedback and have challenging conversations with workers who are not delivering.
The idea is that the more clarity that people have about what’s important and what’s expected, the more motivated and driven they will be to succeed.
4. Focus
Keep everyone focused on delivering tangible business results by making sure that they understand the link between their own individual actions and the bottom line. Praise people when they deliver and pull them up when they fall short.
5. Embed
Ensure that this approach to performance management becomes a natural part of ‘the way we do things around here’. Encourage managers to hold regular, dynamic performance reviews to keep everyone on track.
Susy Roberts is founder and director of business performance improvement consultancy, Hunter Roberts.
