Tag Archives: employees

5 Tips for Managing Performance with Your Team

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As a boss, manager or supervisor, you play an important role in promoting employee commitment, motivation and retention. You are responsible for developing and nurturing your staff.

Here are 5 tips to help you look after your staff and improve their performance, which will lead to improvements in the overall performance of your organisation.

  1. Set meaningful, attainable expectations aligned with the mission and objectives of your business. Be clear about employee expectations and explain any measurements that will be used.
  2. Approach this process as a collaborative effort, engaging staff in the process. Work with your employees to develop appropriate outcomes that support your work and lead to the achievement of organizational goals. Don’t just impose objectives on your staff without first talking to them.
  3. Provide employee access to the necessary tools and resources needed for performance enhancement. Ask about relevant technology, available literature or other materials they need to improve their performance. Provide them with the coaching and mentoring they need and allow time for employees to learn improved methods and procedures.
  4. Continually asses and communicate progress regarding performance. Don’t save all your feedback until the end of the year. Provide employees with mid-year progress reviews and final evaluation feedback. Face-to-face progress reviews and final evaluations should be scheduled in advance. Engage your employees in discussions about the best ways to meet their future goals.
  5. Show appreciation of employee performance through the use of one of the many forms of recognition and reward available to you.

If you need specific help on managing and improving the performance of your staff, to improve the performance of your business, why come to our next free workshop on 22 November? Being held at The Old Post Office in Wargrave, near Henley in Oxfordshire, this is your chance to get some expert advice on your own issues. Click here for more details and to book your place.

How to Boost Profitability in Your Business

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Here are 10 ideas to help you improve the profitability of your business through your people.

  1. Build a stimulating and vibrant working environment. A diverse workplace is a profitable workplace. Embrace the many different skills, backgrounds, experiences and attitudes of your staff and direct these to best effect
  2. Focus on training and personal improvement. Make sure every member of you team is given the opportunity to reach their full potential by offering them the training and development they need, in technical and soft skills.
  3. Reward and recognise. By recognising and incentivising staff that reach targets or produce a consistently high quality of work, you will encourage them to strive even harder.
  4. Handle difficult situations quickly. Do not let disciplinary or incapability issues turn into problems. Deal with them in a responsive and positive way to reduce the chances of them happening again.
  5. Have a good recruitment and induction process. Make sure that you always recruit the best person for the job and that they perform to the level you require from day one.
  6. Keep up to date with legislation. This is a key aspect in treating your employees fairly and also a way to constantly building best practice into your people management procedures.
  7. Communicate, communicate, communicate.   Keep your staff informed about how the business is doing. What can they do to help? How does their job fit into the bigger picture of the organisation? This will ensure your employees feel valued, engaged and focussed on the success of the company.
  8. Carry out succession planning. Don’t just rely on the skills and experience of long-standing members of staff but put time and effort into training and mentoring programmes that develop the skills and abilities of younger members of the team. This way you ensure success for the long term and continuity of service for your customers.
  9. Look closely at team dynamics. What teams are working well and how can this be replicated across the business? Look for gaps in team dynamics and skills sets that can affect morale development and work to actively improve them.
  10. Be a good boss. Your behaviour sets the tone for how you expect others to behave. Invest time in working on your own management style and take a top-down approach to improving performance rather than relying on the skills of those around you.

We’ll talk more about how to be a great boss in this blog in a couple of week’s time.

In the meantime, what do you do to improve profitability of your business through your people? Leave a comment here to share your tips.

How Do You Get More From Your Staff? Part Two

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In a recent blog we looked at the importance of managing performance as a way of getting more from your staff, without dramatically increasing your costs.

Here are some top tips you can actually put into action, to get more from your people:

  • Provide a stimulating working environment that encourages members of staff to contribute to the progress of your business.
  • Encourage your staff to reach their full potential by providing opportunities to develop their skills through training and development, as well as coaching in the soft skills needed to be an excellent team member.
  • Carry out formal performance reviews on a regular basis, setting clear objectives and achievable targets; don’t wait for annual appraisals.
  • Build good relationships by providing regular informal feedback and guidance; allow your staff to air their concerns within an environment of trust and honesty.
  • Deal with issues as soon as they arise – don’t wait for them to become problems.
  • Offer a clear career path, to encourage employees to be the best they can be and stay with you for the long term.

How do you get more from your people? What have you done that has worked – or not worked? Leave a reply below.

If you still have questions about how to improve the performance of your team, come to our next workshop on 22 November 2012 near Henley. Places are free but limited, so click here for full details.

When Can You Use Feedback in Your Business?

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Giving regular feedback to your employees is essential if you want them to stay focused and motivated and if you want to prevent small issues turning into something bigger. If you leave it until the annual appraisal, you may find that your staff aren’t as happy or committed as you thought they might be.

Here are some ideas on how to give regular feedback.

Day to day praise. At the end of each day, think of a way of thanking your members of staff as they leave.

Making it personal. Treat each person as an individual and give them their own feedback, even if they are part of a team.

Do it as soon as possible. Feedback has a much greater effect if you can deliver it just after the event, whether you are giving positive or negative feedback.

Negative reactions.  Be prepared for them if you’re giving negative feedback about something that needs to be improved.

Formal feedback. Avoid giving formal, negative feedback in public; take the person aside and speak to them personally. Positive feedback in public can be highly motivating.

Feedback from your employees. Always listen to what they have to say. It’s not just about you giving feedback to them, as they may have something really useful to contribute.

Regular feedback is essential as it maintains dialogue between the boss and your staff. Used well, it can boost performance of individuals, teams and businesses.

How do you give feedback? Leave a reply to share your tips.

How Do You Find the Best New Recruits for Your Business?

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So you’ve decided to expand and take on new members of staff; or perhaps you’re replacing someone who is leaving. You’ve written a great job description and a person specification and you know how much you’re going to pay your new member of staff and when you need them to start. Now all you need is a flood of candidates, but how do you attract them?

Advertising. Look at your local press as well as national publications. Depending on the job and your industry you may also want to consider specific trade magazines. The key is to think about which publications your ideal candidates will read, in their search for their perfect job. Remember that you can also advertise online – there are numerous ‘job boards’ that specialise in advertising jobs, so find the ones that your potential candidates visit.

Word of mouth. Talk to your clients, contacts and suppliers to let them know that you’re recruiting. They may know the perfect person for your business and a personal recommendation is always useful.

Internal candidates. Are any of your existing members of staff ready for promotion? They might not put themselves forward for the job, but if you think they’re ready, invite them to apply.

Company website. Use your website to advertise the position. A potential client looking for your services may actually be your next member of staff. Other people searching for particular jobs may find your job and your site if you use popular and relevant key words.

Agencies. There are many recruitment agencies who can help you find the right person. They can handle the whole process, even carrying out interviews if you don’t have the time or skills. Look for agencies that specialise in your industry or the type of position you’re looking to fill.

Job centres. You can advertise your job for free in your local job centre and it will be promoted by the staff, who will be able to recommend the right candidates.

Previous applicants. Someone who wasn?t successful in a previous application may be just the person you’re looking for this time around. Send them the details of the job and find out if they’re still interested in working with you.

Use some of all of these routes and you’ll find it easy to generate a healthy amount of interest in your position, helping you find the best person for your business.

How do you recruit? What’s worked for you in the past – or not worked? Leave a reply in the comment box below.

How Do You Get More From Your Staff?

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The key to getting the best, and more, from your staff is through performance management. What is this and how can it benefit your business?

Performance management is a strategic and integrated approach to increasing the effectiveness of your business by improving the performance of the people who work for you. Put simply, the better the people you employ and the better the investment you make in them, the easier it will be get the best from them and to ask more from them, when you need it.

Research shows that a high proportion of businesses struggle with underperforming members of staff. They spend too much time dealing with issues of absence, sickness, poor attitudes and behaviour, failure to meet objectives and poor standards of work. Then they look to solve them through formal disciplinary procedures. Reacting to issues can be time consuming and costly, as well as very negative. Managing performance focuses on the more positive, preventative aspects of working with people.

Good performance management is about regularly assessing the performance of every individual in your team, providing regular feedback, guidance and support to reinforce good performance and highlight areas for improvement before they become a major issue.

You should also make sure that you have proper disciplinary procedures in place to deal with poor performance. In next week’s blog we’ll share some tips which, if you follow, you will only need disciplinary procedures as a last resort, when informal and positive measures have not worked.

Learn how to get more from your people at our next workshop, in November 2012 at Hennerton Golf Club, in Wargrave, near Henley. This is your chance to really get to grips with improving performance, ask all the questions you have and get some professional support. Places are free but limited. Click here to book online.

Why Bother with HR?

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What’s the point of HR?  Do you really need someone to spend time (and money) looking at the people in your business? Surely it’s quite simple and something you can do for yourself?

Here are a few ideas to help you decide whether or not to bother with HR.

The cost of getting it wrong.  Without the right HR systems in place, you could end up on the wrong side of the law, with a hefty bill to pay. A majority of employers believe that claims to Employment Tribunals will increase following the increase in the qualifying period of service to claim unfair dismissal from 1 year to 2 years. Part of the reason for the anticipated increase is that there is no system to prevent spurious claims being made to a tribunal. There is no potential downside for a claimant and potential for a financial windfall.  No win no fee solicitors support the disgruntled employee to have a go on the basis that the business will make a settlement to avoid legal costs. The figures of employment tribunal awards in the year 2011/12 have now been released and show that the median of all wards was £4560, the average award was £9133 and the maximum award was £173408. Keeping up to date with the legal issues is vital if you want to avoid unnecessary problems and payments.

The benefits of getting it right.  In order to avoid further claims businesses are making changes to their policies and procedures and making sure their managers are well trained in these procedures because a majority of employers believe that the most important factor behind a decision going against them at tribunal has been the role played by the line manager. In most cases the decision concerns the managers failure to follow their own company’s procedure!  On a far more positive note, good HR can really help to boost the profitability of your business. By putting HR management practices into your organisation, studies have shown that you can reduce employee turnover by 7%, increase sales per employee by 5.2% and increase overall financial performance by 6%.

Do you bother with HR? Do you do it yourself, or bring someone in to help with HR issues? Is it worth it, or just another business expense? Leave a reply below and let us know what you think.

Understanding Capability and Conduct

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Having clear expectations of employee performance and managing these on a daily basis are critical success factors for every business.  A high performing business knows which employees are delivering and which are failing but addressing issues of underperformance is no easy task.

It can be difficult to establish if poor performance is due to inherent incapability or misconduct.

Capability refers to an employee’s skills, ability, aptitude and knowledge in relation to the job that he or she is employed to do.  The key feature of lack of capability is that it is not the employee’s fault. Very few employees choose to perform their work badly, make mistakes, fail to complete tasks or have poor relationships with colleagues or customers.

Misconduct refers to any behaviour that falls below that of the standard required by your business or behaviour which fundamentally breaches a contract of employment such as fraud, theft, damage of company property, harassment or bullying.  There is no legal definition of misconduct, it is very much dependant on the type of business you operate, the nature of work undertaken by your employees and the risks to your business.

A lack of capability exists where no matter how hard an employee tries, he or she is simply unable to perform the job to the standard required by the employer. If an employee fails to come up to the required standard as a result of his or her own carelessness, negligence or idleness, this will not constitute incapability, but could be regarded as misconduct.

One of the key distinctions between capability and conduct is that lack of capability will usually be outside the employee’s direct control, while the same employee obviously will have control over his or her conduct at work.

To find out more about managing capability and conduct issues and the ways in which these can be dealt with to ensure that employees are treated fairly and reasonably whilst preserving the interests of your business read the latest copy of our Working Together newsletter.

Bribery Prevention

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Do you understand how the Bribery Act 2010 could affect your business and the measures you need to take to prevent you from falling foul of acts of criminal bribery?  Here are a few tips to get you started:

  • Undertake a risk assessment and draft an anti-bribery policy that is relevant to your business operations and your employees
  • Ensure top level commitment to the policy and put in force a zero tolerance approach
  • Communicate your policy to your staff, customers, suppliers and any other parties associated with your company
  • Ensure your employees are trained and understand the implications of the Bribery Act
  • Update your contracts of employment to include acts of bribery in the context of gross misconduct
  • Ensure appropriate approval processes for any payments, gifts or hospitality requests
  • Ensure good record keeping and audit trail – record any incidents where ethical standards may have been breached and how it has been dealt with

How to ensure your employees are performing to the best of their ability

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Your people are the heart of your business.  By investing in them you are investing in your success.

Here are our top 10 tips to help you get the most out of your most precious asset, your people!

  1. Provide a vibrant and stimulating working environment and a culture that values the contribution made by each and every individual.
  2. Actively embrace the diverse range of skills, expertise, experience, attitudes and backgrounds of all your staff.
  3. Encourage your staff to reach their full potential! Provide opportunities to develop their expertise, both in terms of technical and soft skills
  4. Provide formal and informal performance reviews on a regular basis.
  5. Set clear objectives and achievable targets and allow your staff to air their concerns within an environment of trust and honesty
  6. Deal with issues as soon as they arise, don’t wait for them to become  a significant problem
  7. Equip your managers with the skills required to deal with difficult situations confidently and effectively
  8. Reinforce/reward good performance
  9. Offer a clear career path that incentivise employees to be the best they can be.
  10. Conduct regular employee questionnaires to highlight areas for concern and ensure staff feel that you value their opinions