Spoiler alert: there’s no secret recipe for cultivating a performance culture. But there are initiatives and tools you can invest in to get your team performing at their peak.

Ideally, everyone in your workplace should have a clear understanding of what their role is, what they should be doing, and how to work together to serve the company’s collective mission and achieve performance goals.

But, how do you cultivate a performance culture when your employees are working from multiple locations? How do you keep everyone engaged so they’re always performing their best? 

Sustaining a performance culture doesn’t necessarily mean focusing on data and the increased bottom-line that comes from a high-performing team (although that’s certainly important!)

However you define performance, you can use the following nine tips to build and sustain a performance culture that works for your team and goals. 

1. Make expectations clear from the beginning.

When your employees know what you expect of them and what their role requires them to do, they’ll perform better. It also prevents unnecessary confusion on their part.

The sooner you make these expectations clearer, the better — and that starts with their training and onboarding.

But what exactly are employee expectations? Let’s break it down. 

Employee expectations are what the employee can expect from your company and their role in it, and what your company can expect of them in terms of duties, behavior, actions, and results. 

It’s this combination of employee and employer expectations that contributes to a positive and effective performance culture.

Let’s take a look at a few examples of employee and employer expectations.

Employee expectations include:

• A comprehensive understanding of their job responsibilities.
• Access to policies, procedures, and relevant (and accurate!) points of contact.
• Open communication.
• A safe and inclusive work environment.
• Adequate training and professional development.
• Constructive feedback.

Employer expectations include:

• Honesty and other ethical behavior.
• Organizational commitment.
• Reliability and follow through.
• A desire to grow.
• Meeting performance goals or benchmarks.
• Ability to work in a team or collaborative way.

2. Develop a game plan with a company playbook.

It’s one thing for an employee to have expectations of their employer and vice-a-versa, but it’s another to make those expectations a reality. One of the best ways to cultivate an effective performance culture from the beginning is to create a company playbook (AKA, a business playbook).

A business playbook is a one-stop, centralized place where you can make all of your policies, procedures, missions, goals, and training processes available for every employee to access, no matter where they are.

There are four primary components of any business playbook:

1. Your company profile. (That includes your company’s history and what it stands for.)
2. Your employees/team members. (Who your employees are and what they do.)
3. Company policies.
4. Processes and standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Creating an easily-accessible game plan can make your employees a lot more efficient too. Think about it this way — when they have everything they need in one place, that eliminates unnecessary time searching for what they need elsewhere.

How can a business playbook help cultivate a performance culture?

When your employees have access to everything they need to fulfill their job responsibilities (and meet your expectations), they’ll perform better. A business playbook is a vehicle for all that knowledge. When everyone has access to a business playbook, they all have the same materials and tools at their disposal, which means consistency and alignment in processes and amongst the team. 

3. Adopt an open-door communication policy.

George Barnard Shaw once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” 

To cultivate an effective performance culture, you need to conduct an honest assessment of your company’s communication model. Is there unnecessary confusion or conflict? Opportunities for open and continuous dialogue?

If not, you may be operating under what Shaw meant by “illusion.” 

You can dismantle this by adopting an open-door communication policy. That means creating opportunities for regular and safe communication for all. The benefits of doing this are what performance culture is all about:

• Promotes transparency between employer and employees.
• Builds trust in the company.
• Reemphasizes the company’s dedication to creating a safe and inclusive workplace culture.
• Honest communication can be inspiring and motivating, leading to improved engagement and performance.

4.  Set clear goals.

Every employee will have their own set of performance goals they’ll need to strive towards. But what about your team’s collective goals? What do you all plan to achieve together and why? What benchmarks do you all need to reach?

Setting clear and realistic goals straight out of the gate is one way to keep everyone on the same page and performing in the right direction, together.

But, it’s important to keep your goals realistic and avoid being overly ambitious. Setting the bar too high can hurt your team’s morale, and can set your company’s performance culture back. 

5. Focus on the big picture.

Your company’s performance culture is only as strong as your team, not any individual alone. Focus on the “big picture” and keep your company’s collective mission front and center.

But first, ask yourself this question: does everyone understand what that mission is and how it’s evolved to what it is today? If not, it’s best to make that clear first. One way to do that is by making your mission (both its past, present, and future vision) available to everyone in your business playbook.

Performance culture isn’t about always focusing on incremental performance goals. Sometimes, a reminder of where you came from and how far you’ve come (in light of where you’re all heading) can be motivational in itself.

6. Offer extensive professional development opportunities.

In a company culture of performance, there needs to be continuous learning and professional development. Offering your employees regular and challenging professional development training opportunities can help them level up. 

That means equipping them with new tools, skill sets, and information that will improve their engagement and build confidence in their work and results.

At the same time, you’ll want to test them on what they’re learning. After all, accountability is everything! That’s where you might want to bring in a learning management system or (LMS)-alternative that can offer those capabilities.

7.  Celebrate out-of-the-box thinking and garner input.

Ever witness an employee having a light-bulb moment? It’s exciting — and deeply rewarding. And that “aha!” revelation could lead to an out-of-the-box solution to a problem that’s been plaguing your company for years.  

That’s worth celebrating for more reasons than one.

For starters, that light-bulb moment is a good sign that your employee has what they need to perform effectively. And when they can demonstrate their agility (and receive acknowledgment and praise for their efforts), that can have a ripple effect across the company. It shows your team that you value and celebrate risk-taking and creativity. It also means that employee agility can lead to clear success for your company — it’s a win-win. 

8. Remember the incentives.

Incentives and rewards for reaching performance goals are the secret sauce to sustaining an effective performance culture. When your employees see that you value their performance and results, that can boost their morale.

Keep some of the following unique incentives and rewards in mind:

• Praise (it’s always welcome!)
• A gym membership.
• All-expenses paid weekend vacation of their choice.
• Catered lunches and team dinners.
• Peer-to-peer incentives that foster healthy competition (such as social recognition).
• Stock up on snacks and drinks for the office. 
• An annual pass to a local museum or theater.
• Monetary rewards based on meeting performance goals.

9. Provide regular feedback and invite input.

Feedback plays a key role in cultivating a performance culture in your workplace. And that feedback should be given regularly, consistently, and clearly. That alone can motivate your employees to step up their performance game.

When it comes to delivering feedback, here are a few best practices to keep in mind:

• Begin with positive feedback and then move into the constructive.
• A certain level of trust must exist for your employee to be receptive to feedback. So, ensure you’re providing continuous feedback, and that it never comes as a surprise.
• Keep it straightforward by focusing on expectations, behavior, and results.
• Be specific and back up your feedback with clear examples.
• Make the feedback about their actions not about them as an individual.
• Maintain an open-communication policy so that feedback is regular rather than an intimidating, fear-inducing event.

Ready to cultivate a performance culture by keeping your team accountable?

Prioritizing or investing in your company’s performance culture comes with a whole host of benefits. Meeting your employees’ expectations, valuing their performance, and giving them ongoing opportunities to hone the skills necessary to perform their duties well is at the heart of a company’s performance culture.

Access to professional development training via an LMS-alternative can help them perform their best, while also holding them accountable. An LMS-alternative can also help you customize each employee’s training and easily make changes that will enhance their learning experience.

A culture of performance is also, in many ways, a culture of learning. With learning comes individual and collective growth. And when all of your employees have access to the tools and training they need, that can lead to alignment — and satisfaction — within your company.