Building a High Performance Work Team
Despite the tight job market, most small business entrepreneurs agree-an exemplary employee is a rare find.
Yet, consider what organizational psychologists have discovered through research- incompetence is actually what’s rare. Most employees are hard working and diligent, but appear incompetent because they’re a mere cog in an inefficient workplace.
Jane, the company receptionist, is not lazy, forgetful, complacent, or unorganized. An ill structured work environment has likely contributed to her on the job failure.
This notion–that the workplace, not the worker, is at the root of poor performance-is difficult for most managers to grasp. After all, small businesses often have trouble attracting the best and brightest. Yet, unless your hiring practices are totally inept, most workers possess ample skill and knowledge to competently perform the job for which they were hired.
However, the sorts of inefficiencies that contribute to employee incompetence are deeply embedded in the work system and virtually imperceptible. An inefficient work environment is de-motivating. Even a high achiever will struggle in an inefficient work environment. Furthermore, unmotivated workers are unproductive workers. Reduced productivity decimates the bottom line.
It’s well worth your time and effort to identify and eliminate embedded system inefficiencies that thwart worker performance. Human capital is your most precious and costly resource, so definitely you want your work team operating at peak efficiency.
Basically, most employers use two strategies to deal with worker incompetence: retrain or terminate. Neither of these strategies significantly improves worker performance. First, retraining and returning workers to an inefficient environment is futile. Secondly, the replacement for your terminated employee will undoubtedly find the job equally frustrating.
Before you blame your “bad apple” employees for your business underperformance, scrutinize your work system for inefficiencies that de-motivate. Here are four possibilities.
1. Lack of clear expectations. To perform at competent levels, workers must know what the boss expects of them.
I expect that you will be on time for work everyday.
I expect a certain amount of casual overtime.
I expect you to follow all established safety policies.
I expect this project to be completed in a month.
Vague expectations are confusing. When expectations are vague and uncertain, workers are forced to guess what the boss wants. And generally, what they think you expect, and what you truly expect, are poles apart.
Clear, explicit expectations are the building blocks of competent employee performance.
2. Poor communication. Gosh, I had no idea! How often do your workers justify mistakes by pleading ignorant? Certainly, lacking critical information thwarts efficiency. Worse yet, the spread of incorrect information can result in operational chaos.
Do you routinely touch base with your employees? Is everyone in the loop? Does your information pipeline flow in both directions– top/down and bottom/up? Feedback from the front line assists management decision making.
Technology has facilitated information dissemination. Yet, ironically, tech transmission has also impeded communication, a factor of information overload. Just because all workers are linked via e-mail, doesn’t guarantee your message was digested and processed. Expensive phone and internet networks do not guarantee efficient communication.
A work team in the know is competently ahead of the competition.
3. Lack of training transfer. Most training, good and bad, fails to improve competence long term. Study after study indicates that 85% to 90% of what’s learned in training is never utilized on the job. In actuality, the root cause for training failure is tied to lack of transfer strategy. To ensure workers integrate new skills into their jobs, it’s critical that training course designs include a skills transfer plan. Minus a transfer strategy, learning is confined to the classroom and its relevance on the job is limited.
4. Inappropriate incentives. Fundamentally, if you want to encourage competence, you must establish a system of reward that entices workers to “do their best.”
Isn’t a paycheck sufficient motivation to encourage workers to do their level best? Actually, monetary compensation is only a motivator to the point that it satisfies the need for food, clothing, and shelter. A paycheck lacks substantial power to inspire because workers often feel manipulated by monetary compensation, and larger salaries are no more of an incentive than smaller salaries.
Trinkets like trophies, plaques, and award programs create roller coaster patterns in performance. Upon receipt, performance rises for several days, then the memento and its meaning is forgotten. Performance gains attached to non-monetary rewards are short-lived and non sustainable over the long haul.
Actually, verbal praise (a pat on the back, a handwritten note, ad-hoc recognition) is the best way to influence and effect performance. According to research, leaders who pause informally to recognize subordinates for diligent efforts see significant improvements in employee performance. Workers who feel appreciated are productive, engaged, exhibit high job satisfaction, and experience fewer on-the-job injuries.
Research shows that when an employer creates the conditions for worker success, error, scrap, waste, and rework decrease and bottom line performance improves. Moreover, small system fixes, like those described above, are low cost. Your investment-a bit of time and a little effort-has a positive impact on profitability.
