Focus on the positives to cultivate employee performance
What is your approach to staff management? Sean Conrad believes it is important to look at the positives in order to get the most out of your staff.
In mid-sized companies, and especially in today’s economy, our resources are often stretched to the limit. We need to get the most from every one of our employees.
One of the ways we can do that is through our employee performance management processes – through which we assign goals and development plans and give our employees feedback.
But it seems like most performance management focuses on what employees are doing wrong. This emphasis can be discouraging to both managers and employees. As managers, we hate criticising staff and are generally pretty bad at it. As employees, we don’t like to be criticised and often get defensive.
What if, instead of focusing on performance gaps that need to be addressed, managers helped employees enhance and use the key critical skills they already possess? That would certainly make performance reviews more pleasant, but how can it boost performance?
Discover and Reproduce the Roots of Success
When reviewing your employees’ performance, work with them to analyse past successes and uncover the conditions, skills and attributes that enabled their success. Our workforce consists of diverse individuals who have different strengths, passions and motivators. So why not help employees identify their strengths and the conditions under which they excel, then put them in situations where they can stretch and build their strengths while bringing the most benefit to the organisation?
Are they gifted negotiators? Do they work best behind the scenes crunching numbers? Are they natural leaders who inspire and guide? What are they passionate about? Do they deal better with details or the big picture? When considering work assignments and goals, leverage these strengths by finding the sweet spot where employees can give their best in the place where the company needs their best.
Develop from Strengths
Employee development efforts also benefit from focusing on the positive. Let employees follow their passions for further development in the direction they are naturally built to go. They’ll be more engaged in their learning and their work. Of course, performance issues cannot be ignored; these should also be addressed through feedback and training.
Reap the Rewards
When managers take the time to understand, develop and use each employee’s skills and preferred work style, everyone benefits. The employee is setup for success and is more motivated. The manager sees higher performance from their staff. And the organisation gets the most from its most strategic resource – its people.
Sean Conrad is a Certified Human Capital Strategist and Senior Product Analyst at Halogen Software – a leading provider of HR software that helps mid-sized organisations better manage their talent.
