Increasing employee performance and productivity in 2019 is important to overall company success as well as the success of your individual team members. It may feel challenging to make effective changes in performance, but with a few fresh ideas you'll be seeing better results in no time.
- Let your team engage. Invite your team to a quick workshop during a slow time and get aligned on goals. Let your staff give ideas on how they can help achieve success. Let them tell you what they need. Tell them how much you care. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
- Implement rewards. If your team achieves a goal by a certain date, agree on a prize. It may be small individual cash prizes, or it could be a group prize like bringing in breakfast on a Friday.
- Post results daily. If the goal is a number that you can see daily, post results daily. Progress is encouraging to them. It will take a couple of minutes each day to update, but it's well worth your time.
- Talk with team members 1:1. Make sure each person in the company is able to have a meaningful conversation with their leader monthly. The meeting can be short, but giving this time to them is critical. This is a time to ask them how they are doing, and invite individual feedback. It's about the success of the company, but it's more about the success of the individual. It also becomes a meaningful time for the leader.
- Just give. Giving to your employees, and showing them that you care is a great way to increase engagement. So often the workplace is about critical numbers, rules and regulations. Make sure that sometimes it's just about connecting and giving. You can give your time, you can provide lunch, or you can give your team personal time. Let them go home 10 minutes early if they are doing a good job.
- Invest in training or additional education. One of the best things you can give your staff is good training. When your staff sees you investing in their own personal knowledge, they not only benefit from the knowledge, but they also get a better sense of your confidence in them. It helps them feel more valuable when you invest in them. The training benefits the company and reduces the amount of damage control you have to do later (win/win).
Improved employee performance will often be a direct result of a more engaged leader, so if in doubt, just ask your team what their ideas are for improved performance (and make sure they know performance is down). Effective leaders are great at all types of communication, but most especially communicating expectations as well as feedback on performance. The very best leaders are also great at patting their team on the back and giving an occasional reward. For more information on improving performance download our guide "How to Restore Brand Consistency in Your Restaurant".
