Did you know that as per various studies an average employee spends a whopping 13 years and two months at work during their lifetime?
So why not improve the performance of your employees to reap maximum benefits from the time they spend working and make a significant impact on your bottom line.
Even if your company is running successfully, there are always ways to beef up its efficiency by incorporating strategies that inspire your team to exceed their performance.
The rule here is simple,
If your team wins, your business wins, and if your team improves, your business improves.
That’s the spirit every business should have when it comes to improving team performance. Team Management is crucial to managing workplace culture effectively.
So, are you ready to make a difference in your team’s performance?
Let’s get started!
As per a research from Careerbuilder, 75% respondents agreed that two hours of efficient work is lost every day due to some reason or other. Using these seven strategies, you can help your business team become more efficient and productive.
1. Provide perks and benefits
According to a research, employees rank perks and benefits as the top five important things for job satisfaction – even above their monthly salary.
Surprised?
As a result, companies worldwide are slowly understanding the importance of employee benefits and are leaving no stone unturned in providing employees with every possible perks and benefit. Whether it’s giving food coupons or providing insurance cover for the entire family, businesses are constantly looking for innovative ways to reward their employees.
Using various tools and schemes, you can offer a unique discount package to your hardworking employees. From saving on supermarket groceries to discounts on gym fees and holidays – give your team members another reason to come back to work and perform to their best potential.
Also, innovative discount schemes like these give freebies and weekly treats that can help in reducing the stress level of your employees. There is nothing more encouraging for an employee than receiving treats from their company.
Pro-tip: To charge up your business team, create company exclusive perks as it shows your concern toward the well-being of your employees.
2. Incentivise performance
Perhaps the most tangible way to apply the motivational theories at your workplace is by creating a performance-based incentive system.
According to research, incentive programs can increase employee performance anywhere from 25 to 44%. Good team members are motivated because they consider achieving their goals and performing as per expectation as it gives them a sense of professional pride. But there will be times when even these employees will require a tangible benefit to take one step further.
That’s where employee incentives have a crucial role to play.
Remember to tie these reward systems to pay per performance. You can create incentive programs, some of which tie to the individual performance and others tie to companywide performance. Also, clearly state scenarios under which employees become eligible for incentive programs. This is important because you will give your employees incentives for purely doing their daily tasks.
Though it will keep your employees happy, you will miss the all-important performance boost.
Pro-tip: With a majority of employees preferring non-cash incentives, bolster their performance by giving time-off, gift cards, or travel discounts.
3. Focus on internal communication
The absence of communication gives rise to the dreaded miscommunication, and when this happens, a business can fall like a deck of cards.
Communication between business stakeholders and employees is a fundamental thing. When everyone is on the same page, team members gain confidence to go over and beyond to complete their tasks. Conversely, faulty internal communications can easily create a dent in your team’s performance. This especially holds true if you have a distributed or remote team without the glue of in-person communication.
Fostering a culture of communication throughout your team can significantly increase the productivity of your team members. So, schedule a one-to-one meeting with all your team members regularly and encourage them to be honest and open during these interactions. Listen more than you speak and promise your employee to resolve issues they’re facing.
Communication is the key to improving the performance of your team.
Pro-tip: Companies in which employees remain connected with each other see a 20 to 25% increase in their employee productivity. So, invest in communication and collaboration tools to keep your team connected.
4. Schedule only must-have meetings
Just because there is something to discuss, don’t conduct meetings. If reports are to be believed, With two thirds of employees agreeing that they daydreamed during meetings and over one third slept during meetings, most of your meetings may be ineffective.
So, schedule meetings only when it is necessary. To ensure all your meetings have a fruitful outcome, start with a purpose and end it on a clear call-to-action.
Keep meetings short otherwise, your audience may lose interest in what you’re saying. Furthermore, with COVID-19 forcing companies to shift to remote work culture, your business team is probably Zoom fatigued.
Furthermore, try to keep the meeting between 3-8 people as too many cooks can spoil the broth. The presence of too many members in your meeting can make it ineffective. To ensure your business team takes something positive from all your meetings, keep the last 5-10 minutes to recap.
Everyone’s time is important, including yours, so keep meetings only when there arises a need.
Pro-tip: If your employees are late for meetings, try to use the Swiss train method of keeping meetings. Schedule meetings from 12.33 PM to 12.54 PM, this might trigger the interest of your team members, and they may get excited about reaching on time.
5. Cut off the excess
One mistake you might be making as a manager or business owner is giving employees smaller unnecessary tasks right in the middle of a larger task or project. So, if possible, try delegating such tasks to someone who isn’t working on priority tasks. Also, take a look at your employee’s schedules to see how you can free up their time to focus on one thing.
For example, if you’re asking team members to write daily reports about their work, but you or the immediate manager is not reading these reports, consider reducing the word count or scrap it completely.
Pro tip: Doing something for formality’s sake because all businesses follow this process can waste valuable time. Instead, free up your employee’s time and let them focus on activities that can make a significant impact on your bottom line.
6. Automate your processes
With the growing penetration of technology, businesses that embrace the right technology at the right time survive digital Darwinism and result in productive and performance-oriented employees.
That’s where business automation comes to your help. It helps free up your employees to focus on tasks and responsibilities that require a more human touch. So, for example, you can use Google Assistant to actually call a local business and schedule a meeting. So you sales representative, instead of wasting time setting up appointments, can focus on building professional relationships with potential customers.
Also, you can try to implement AI technology in your business to bolster your growth. It can include implementing chatbots or creating videos and FAQs to assist your customer service representatives. It empowers your customer service representatives to spend time helping people who need it under less pressure.
Pro-tip: Automating certain processes may prove costly initially, but it will lower your overall cost and boost your team and business performance in the long run.
7. Focus on networks and cut the hierarchy
The only place where a top-down hierarchical approach finds its place in numerous business-related case studies. Right now, collaboration and networking matter the most.
Creating a cross-functional or network of teams is what differentiates a successful business from an unsuccessful one.
A network of teams is a way of organizing your workforce. When you follow this organizational structure, you decentralize your decision-making process because instead of management, the team lays out a roadmap to success.
It results in giving a team a purpose and eventually increases their performance.
Pro-tip: Allow your network of teams to make mistakes and let them correct them.
Parting Advice
Business team productivity and performance are similar to baking a cake that requires the right set of ingredients, in our case, team members. Likewise, empowering your team to perform to their best potential requires a well-mixed batter of different ingredients.
There is no single way that can efficiently improve a team’s performance. Instead, using these seven strategies, you can lay a solid foundation for creating an efficient and productive work environment.
To expect maximum productivity from your employees, you need to go one step ahead to understand your employee’s problems and suitably reward them for every well-accomplished professional goal.
While you may aspire your team to be perfect – perfection is a moving target, which is difficult to achieve. So, instead of running behind perfection, create a culture of continuous improvement and see the performance of your business team sky-rocket.
