How do I get my staff to perform better?

One of the most common questions I get asked is "How can I get my staff to perform better, to do more, to take ownership of tasks?" In fact many of my consulting jobs begin because of this frustration. Unfortunately there is no magic wand to wave and high performance requires a lot of good HR principles to be in place. Often poor or limited performance is a result of employees not knowing what is expected of them or not having the tools or information they need to do a good job.

The culture of the organisation will also have a major impact on performance. If the company has always offered pay increases on an annual basis and not linked it to performance, then it can be really easy to sit back and cruise. If, in the past, an employee has had a go at extending themselves, only to be met with criticism or a boss who changes everything around, then the employee is unlikely to contribute much beyond the basics. Employees are funny things, they can be really sensitive to negative feedback! I don't quite know why??? Perhaps it is because they are human. The worst thing for employers is that one negative in a workplace can rapidly spread to a negative vibe throughout the organisation. People who feel hard done by spread the word very well.

It is not all bad news though. To get the edge through your people it is really important to do the following seven things:

1. Clearly communicate your vision for the company
2. Give positive encouragement as much as humanly possible
3. Deliver honest feedback when things aren't going as you would like
4. Provide a clear expectation of what you would like done
5. Offer guidance on how to deliver on this expectation
6. Check that employees have all the tools they need (these can even be policies and procedures)
7. Let them soar! Give them freedom to do a good job

To make sure your employees have a clear understanding of what they need to deliver on, you should have a robust performance review system in place. They should be exposed to this immediately upon job acceptance and it should be verbally outlined during their induction. As a manager you should check that your actions are in alignment with the expectations you are setting, i.e don't ask that they be effective decision makers and then take away any possible decisions they can make or criticise them for the decisions they have made.