Summary
Staff motivation: is there anything left to be said? Has any employee management issue been analyzed so much? All the analysis and examination is misleading. Only 5 steps are involved.
1. Sort Out Your Marketing
There are two absolute essentials for good marketing: a clear, specific business focus and a narrow specific target market. These two factors must be in place. They are the foundations that support the whole business, including employee performance.
Both you and your employees must know
exactly what your business exists to achieve and who your ideal customer is. You cannot expect staff to give you what you want if you are not clear on exactly what it is you're in business to do and who with.
2. Exact Performance Expectations
Your staff need to know exactly what you expect of them in clear, unambiguous, measurable performance terms.
Don't bother with generalities about "attitude", "application" and "co-operation". If you want 13 widgets a day at the cost of 9.4 cents a widget you must tell the employees. If you don't know and say exactly what you want, you won't get. Be careful that you don't assume employees know what you expect merely because you do.
3. Exact Method Of Measurement
Tell employees precisely the performance you expect. Then tell them exactly how you'll measure that performance. How will the widgets be counted? How will the production costs be assessed? Must each operator produce 13 widgets or will be the total number be acceptable? Employees must know this.
4. Put Effective Performance Systems In Place
It's an old saying but true: "If your systems are poor, your people will fail." Another is "Put systems in place that make it impossible for employees to fail." I myself have said and written this hundreds of times. Finally, keep in mind that "a poor system will beat a good performance almost every time".
You can have the keenest, most enthusiastic, most skilled and hardest working employees on the planet. Poor systems will stop them dead in their tracks faster than anything else.
5. Establish Measurable Performance Standards
You've probably always been told that performance goals are very important. They are. But performance standards are more important than goals. Performance standards tell you precisely whether the goals have been achieved. And they measure progress towards goals too. No performance standards; no goal achievement. And you can't measure staff performance effectively without clear performance standards.
No "Motivation"
Notice that this 5 step method for staff motivation doesn't mention "motivation". That's because motivation is a consequence. When you make this 5 step System work for you, the consequence will be highly motivated employees. That's why much of the literature about "motivation" is misplaced and misleading.
Two Crucial Realities
The basic human unit in the workplace is the team not the individual. We recruit individuals it's true. But we expect them to be successful and effective in teams. We construct the workplace with teams. That's the first reality. Here's the second.
Employees do not need to "get on well" in order to work effectively together. Don't spend time trying to improve interpersonal relations. Good interpersonal relations are a "consequence of" successful team performance not a "prerequisite for" them.
"Pep" Talks, Counselling And All That
These activities may have some short term value. But they're no substitute for performance standards and performance systems. Put your time into designing success and achievement for employees to aspire to.
Remember The Business
It's easy to lose sight of the fact that employees are part of the resource you use to run a successful business. The manager's job is to use all resources as well as possible. As famous performance expert Geary Rummler says, "An organization is only as effective as its processes". Concentrate on getting the processes right. Let me repeat: if your systems are poor, your people will fail.
Conclusion
Keeping staff enthusiastic and committed isn't child's play. But it's not rocket science either. Some gurus would like you to think that it is. You're not responsible for the total emotional wellbeing of employees. Ricardo Semler, CEO of Semco sums it up this way: "My job is to motivate them so that they go home each day proud of their work". Notice that he accepts that responsibility
Leon Noone helps managers in small-medium business to improve on-job staff performance without training courses. His ideas are quite unconventional. Read his free Special Report "49 Practical Tips for Removing Employee Apathy, Aggravation And Resistance In Your Business". Simply visit http://staffperformancesecrets.com/ and download your free copy now.
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