4 Strategies to Increase Employee Performance

For many organizations and leaders, this changing landscape within our organizations has been very challenging. The need for leaders to focus on the employee to ensure they are able to perform well in their job is more important than ever.

Today’s workplaces require employees to be flexible, adaptable, agile while being productive. Although the standard practice for most organizations is to create policies, procedures and set clear expectations to what employee performance needs to be, many employees performance still falls short. The need for employees to take ownership of their performance is strongly tied to how they feel their personal contribution impacts their ability to take ownership of their work.

Based on Gallup’s research shows that just 10% improvement in employees’ connection with the mission or purpose of their organization leads to an 8.1% decrease in turnover and a 4.4% increase in profitability.

Often leaders have the misconception that purpose is about making people happy. Although a happy employee is a good start, it doesn’t always equal increased performance. An employee’s personal purpose is derived from understanding and knowing that their unique contributions in their day to day work aligns with the company purpose.

To help employees make this alignment, leaders want to work with them to know:

• What does the employee care about most?

• How can what they care about align with the organization’s purpose?

• What do they do best?

• How can what they do best help them make a difference in the organization?

4 Strategies to Increase Employee Performance

1. Have regular conversations with employees about what they care about. (this will help them identify what is important to them and help you as the leader to identify how you can align what matters to them to the organizations purpose)

   Questions to ask your employee:

   1. What gets them excited?

   2. What drives them crazy and frustrates them?

   3. What is important to them and what do they value?

   4. What are they the best at?

2. Identify how what the employee cares about and their contribution and how it can align with the organization’s purpose.

   What to consider:

   1. What is the organizations mission and purpose

   2. What are the unique contributions of the employee

   3. How does their role and contributions align with the organizations purpose

3. Help your employees understand what they do best by investing in having them take the Online CliftonStrengths Assessment.

   Benefits of investing in CliftonStrengths

   1. A great way to help employees articulate what they are naturally best at

   2. Help employees identify what unique talents they have that can contribute to what they care most about in the purpose of the organization

   3. Knowing their natural strengths and talents help them see how they can position themselves to make a difference in what they care about

4. Provide opportunities for employees to use their unique strengths and talents to inspire the sense of ownership and purpose

   Studies show that when employees are encouraged to do what they do best every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their job and three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life.

   Encouraging employees to participate and use their talents and strengths inspires confidence, a sense of ownership and fills the desire to live and work with a personal purpose for themselves and the organization. When this happens employees are more motivated to perform and productivity increases.

If you would like to learn more about CliftonStrengths online assessment or how to lead and manage better, connect with me for a free consultation.