Employee performance is a key element in every organization and is highly correlated to your overall ROI. In this article, we elaborate on 3 important factors that have a crucial impact on your employees’ performance and motivation.
HOW TO INCREASE YOUR Employee performance
Today, many organizations are competing to stay in the market and to be one step ahead. To do so, you constantly have to come up with new ideas, and ways to improve, and at the same time maintain a high level of productivity without negatively affecting the quality of your customer service. If you already joggle all these things to perfection, congratulations - you’ve cracked the code. However, if you could need a tip or three, we got your back.
We’re not going to advise you to just tell your employees to work harder or offer them a raise. It takes more than a quick fix to solve this one. You’ll have to dig deeper and look at the circumstances for your employees’ possibilities to increase productivity. Are you, hand on your heart, enabling your employees to perform their best?
Allow us to elaborate with three examples of important conditions that affect the productivity and performance of your employees:
1. Employee Training AND Development
Offering skills training and career development options can help improve your employees’ career prospects, increase their engagement – and, at the same time, motivate them to perform better because they’re better suited for their work tasks.
To emphasize the importance of training, let’s look at a relevant survey. The survey unfolds that 68% of the employees participating said that training and development is the most important company policy.
The. Most. Important.
That's because training is much more than just teaching your employees how to do their job.
It's also about building up your employees’ skills and product knowledge to empower them to offer 5-star customer service. Training weighs heavily here: If your employees are well informed and educated, they sell more - and send your bottom line to heaven.
But training also plays a big role in engaging and motivating your employees, because you're enabling them to grow and specialize. It's a way for you, to show that you're investing in them and their career.
One way to successfully implement training is with a communication platform, where you can create digital e-learning with elements of gamification. Split the training sessions into smaller bites to make them more edible for the user and award your employees with badges and points for every completed course.
By this, your employees’ performance will automatically increase: They’ll feel better equipped to face the customers, take ownership over their development, and be willing to ‘go that extra mile for your company, since you've done the same for them.
So, the points above lead us to another key element of your employees' performance:
2. Employee Engagement
Many organizations struggle with a low level of employee engagement. A study from Gallup shows that, in general, just 10% of employed residents in Western Europe are engaged — that is, involved in and enthusiastic about their work.
The low percentage of engaged employees represents a barrier to creating a high-performing work culture and therefore has consequences for your company's productivity and customer service.
On the opposite, if you are enthusiastic about your work and feel committed to your company, you’re also delivering better performance. In fact, your productivity increases by up to 21%.
The first step to increasing employee engagement is to secure the basis for strong internal communication. Your employees want to feel involved and ‘important enough’ to receive information on, for instance, new guidelines, sustainability initiatives, or updated safety information. If your employees don't receive or have access to information they can easily feel 'left in the dark, which is employee engagement's number one enemy.
So, one way to make sure to reach all your employees with information is with a communication platform. With a digital platform, like an app, you can literally be in your employees’ pockets making your communication independent from emails, computers, and your manager’s individual communication styles (which we all know can vary a lot). Like this, your employees can access information at any time and anywhere.
3. Company Culture
Lastly, we’re pulling out the big gun: Company culture.
Company culture can be defined as a set of shared values, goals, and attitudes that characterize an organization. And there’s a reason why it plays such a big role in your employees’ productivity.
If your employees are not familiar with your company’s values or how their role contributes, they risk feeling detached from the company. Actually, a study shows that more than 50% of employees lower in the organization can’t make that connection between their daily duties and the company’s overall performance.
By making your employees feel informed and involved in the bigger purpose, you’re enabling them to understand their role and how they play an important part in your company's success - their daily work is what keeps the wheels turning.
To clarify the importance of company culture, a recent study from Glassdoor shows that:
- over 77% of adults consider company culture as a top priority when applying for a job.
- more than 50% of the respondents say that company culture is more important than salary when it comes to job satisfaction.
It goes hand in hand with adopting a culture that respects and motivates all employees. Providing the necessary resources to help your employees reach their full potential and acknowledge their performance makes them feel appreciated and valued.
Company culture is not something that changes overnight. But you have to start somewhere: By offering your employees training, you can increase their engagement and motivation, which are elements that support a healthy company culture - and it makes your company an attractive place to work.
One way to gather all these elements within one place is with a communication platform, where your employees can seek and access information, educate themselves on company values, and take e-learning courses to develop their professional skills.
To sum it up: If you want your employees to perform like champions, you must take a look at the elements that influence their performance - employee engagement, the possibilities for training and development, and of course your company culture.
