As a business owner or manager, you have an expectation that your employees come to work with the same motivation, conviction and clarity of purpose that you do.
Mistake.
Whilst there will always be some employees who quite obviously take advantage of the situation and do as little as possible, most will happily work a lot better if you do your job properly as a manager. For many business owners, that may mean recognising that you are short of skills and taking appropriate steps to learn them.
The number one complaint amongst owners of small to medium enterprises (SME’s) is how hard it is to get good people. To some extent that is true, but in reality it is the management of the people they have that is generally poor and, were they to fix that and use that impetus to grow their business, the problem of attracting a better quality employee would reduce.
There is no magic solution to getting better results from your team. It boils down to traditional management practises, thoroughly executed.
So here is a checklist of the things you need to have in place before you can realistically expect consistently good performance that will make its way to the businesses bottom-line.
- Recruit better. The best way to ensure that the people you employ are going to work out for you is to make sure that you hire only people that are compatible with your organisation and the intended role, and will thrive within the culture of the business.
- Have proper role documentation. Without this, your employees will remain unclear about what you expect of them and how their performance will be evaluated. If they don’t really understand what you expect, how can they deliver?
- Introduce a thorough and formal induction process in your business. This is not restricted to corporates. It really helps new employees understand the lay of the land and who is who in the organisation, helping them to get productive more quickly.
- Meet regularly in an atmosphere of active listening, and provide constructive feedback. Make sure you master this technique, otherwise you will create unnecessary tension and the results you are after will probably elude you.
- Create systems for your team to work within. This will make difficult things routine and help you bring on new employees quickly and efficiently.
- Conduct formal performance appraisals. These are very effective management opportunities; don’t forego them because you don’t know how to do them.
Most important of all, is to get all of the 6 points above completed in your business. Whilst having some of them is certainly better than having none, this list works best as a complete system. Once you have it set up and properly systemised, your business will be unrecognisable and you will be able to focus on more valuable and important issues.
