It should be every business owner’s goal to have an empowered and motivated team working for them. An energized team tends to be productive and provide excellent customer service, which is great for business. While there are plenty of different strategies in creating a dynamic workplace, two of the biggest factors are accountability and transparency.
Are you building these key concepts into your expectations of company managers in their approach to performance management? If not, then here are some tips to help:
Stress Communication, Not Inquisitions
Many leaders recognize that lack of accountability is a big issue with their team. This may cause them to err on the side of micromanaging and questioning everything their employees do as a way to keep them on track. Unfortunately, these tactics usually have the opposite effect and can lead to unhappy employees or high turnover. Accountability is not about more management—it’s about more open and communicative management.
Regardless of the tools you use to track accountability, make sure not to rely on numbers alone. They should always be a doorway leading to increased communication. Talk to your team; ask how you can increase motivation and what changes they’d like to see in the workplace. When you involve them in decisions, you give them more power over their own happiness.
Use Tools as Part of a Larger Picture
Accountability tools such as metrics, analysis, assessments, and evaluations provide very valuable information about your organization. However, it’s the manner of their use that is truly important. Create a work culture that is not just ‘all about the numbers.’ Use them as a jumping-off point to identify high or low producers or to detect patterns that could be impacting productivity. You can then dig deeper and talk to your team, examine your culture as a whole, and develop better ways of serving your clients.
Show the Numbers and Explain What They Mean
If you are using analytics data from your performance management process and/or system to coach employees, it’s important that you are transparent and show the numbers to your team. Many employees see management tools as frightening tests they need to pass to keep their jobs. (If you are looking for ways to downplay the effects of ratings while still enabling reporting, here is a great article).
Take away the mystery and fear by explaining the tools to your workers and show them what areas are being tracked. Help them develop new strategies to excel, not only on their evaluations, but also on their jobs as a whole. When you share the numbers with the team, you’re creating ownership. You’re also giving them the opportunity to develop internal goals that are measurable and can be shared with the rest of the organization.
A management team that is committed to accountability and transparency leads to an empowered and engaged workforce. A performance management software like emPerform can give you a great starting point to incorporate these important aspects into your work environment.
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