Management tips

Improving staff performance and managerial skills

K.A.S. Dhammika, Senior Lecturer, Department of Human Resource Management University of Kelaniya

If one asks from a manager what he or she worries most about, the answer would definitely be the performance of his staff.

Much has been written about improving performance of the staff, covering a broader array of aspects like motivation, leadership, training and development etc.

But when it comes to the day-to-day performance of employees, it is a set of strategies that matters mostly in improving the performance.

What can a manager do to enhance the performance of his staff in keeping with the expectation of the organisation? The very objective of this article is to present the managers with a set of strategies to improve the performance of the staff.

Do regular work review

Here a manager needs to monitor the work of the staff regularly. It should be done in small time frames, most favourable on a daily basis. This differs from more formal performance appraisal or performance evaluation.

Regular work review is to look into the way of doing work by the staff and identifying the weaknesses which need improvement.

Having identified the areas for improvement, a manager should discuss it with the relevant employee. Remember, this is not a demanding process, but rather a couching process. The manager requires doing the following activities in regular work review.

Focus on person's strength and accomplishment, not on the personal weaknesses. Be honest with the staff. Feedback should be constructive and helpful.

Encourage them to be more productive.

Prepare a work plan for improvement in either formal or informal way.

Make sure the feasibility of the work plan by providing necessary resources and time. Keep the work plan simple. Arrange training needs. Praise and reward good work. Don't make promises you cant keep.

Counsel and coach the staff.

Motivation

Motivating the staff is a must for better performance in the organisation. Rewarding of employee alone does not motivate them. It is to create a working climate which stimulates a performing environment.

One author claims: "No matter how fairly people are treated, and no matter how pleasant their working conditions, they don't really do their best until they have the freedom to show what they are capable of doing."

This highlights the importance of motivating the staff intrinsically rather than extrinsically. Extrinsic rewarding may be enough in keeping the existing level of performance of the staff.

But a manager needs to reward the staff with intrinsic rewards to motivate them for improving performance. The key things to be done in this regard are: Provide pride in doing the job, provide more responsibility, personal growth and development, advancement and the recognition of the achievements, other than these formal strategies, a few management tips are also possible.

Remember their names

Be a role model

Get the staff involved in decision making

Be honest with your people.

Reward your people for effort and ideas Discover the power of praise.

Give more responsibility. Delegate interesting and challenging work. Remove rigid control. Improve working conditions.

Training

Training is essential to any performance improvement process. If you want to enhance the performance of the staff, you have to provide them with opportunities to upgrade their knowledge, skills and attitudes. So they can overcome their weaknesses in doing works with the new knowledge and skills they acquire through training.

The most easiest and economical way of training employees is the on the job training. It provides the staff with an opportunity to get the knowledge and apply them in their own working environment. As one adage goes on "I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand".

The best place to train the staff is where they are actually working. Anyway, training of employees should be systematic. Mere training doesn't improve the performance. Sometimes it may reduce performance. For systematic training, managers need to take few steps deliberately.

They are:

Creating a working climate

The situation in your office or organisation must be conducive for high performance. Sometimes it may be the nature of your organisation that hinders enhancing staff performance.

In this case, the management needs to take some steps to remedy the situation. There are certain characteristics of high performing organisations highlighted by some research.

The characteristics of the conducive climate hint a change of attitudes of the managers towards the people. Managers need to create more positive attitudes towards employees in them.

Leadership

Leadership behaviour of the manager plays a significant role in the performance enhancement process.

It is the way of leading by the manager that determines improvement or diminishes of the performance of the staff.

Democratic leadership style enhances the performance while autocratic behaviour hinders performance given the present working environment. What should be the characteristics of the leadership behaviour for high performance?

Performance improvement of the staff or employees is a responsibility of the managers of the organisation.

Anyway, it is challenging issues for managers of organisations today given that it is a multifaceted issue.

But a proper implementation of a series of strategies will make the issue easy to deal with. If these steps are followed thoughtfully, improving the performance of the staff would not be hard to materialise.

Managers need to remember that "People work harder when there is something in it for them".