Employees are the force that drives a company forward and they can be instrumental assets in steering an organization towards success. Bringing out the best performance in your employees is not only vital in retaining the best talent but also allows a company to build a pipeline of future leaders.

But since every individual has different learning styles and workflows, companies find it challenging to motivate employees and manage them. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll discuss 10 different ways you can improve work performance to maximize productivity levels.

1. Clearly define goals for each role.

Before you can improve employee productivity levels, you should have clearly defined goals for each role at your company. You can then use this information to define metrics for evaluating how well employees reach said goals.

More often than not, unsatisfactory performance is a result of poorly defined and unclear goals, which eventually leads to ambiguity around what employees perceive to be their priorities, versus what their manager expects of them.

For instance, let’s say you hire a developer to build the back-end of a website using a specific framework. But if you fail to mention this in the project requirements, chances are the developer will produce work that doesn’t meet your requirements because the instructions weren’t clear to begin with.

2. Define high performance.

After you have clearly outlined goals and objectives for employees, you need to identify the skills and competencies required by each employee to qualify as a “high-performer” according to their role. To do this, you can start by reviewing job roles and responsibilities and pay close attention to areas that can bolster work performance.

Let’s take a marketing executive as an example. A marketing executive is expected to develop novel marketing strategies and refine existing ones to compel a customer to purchase your company's goods and/or services. Ask yourself, what specific outputs lead to a positive outcome? What levels of creativity and copywriting skills would a high-performing marketing executive possess?

Answering these questions can help you define specific skills and responsibilities that a high-performing employee must have. Once this is crystal clear, employees can prioritize and laser-focus on these key areas to yield the best output.

3. Identify gaps in performance.

Now that you’ve identified what to measure, it’s time to convert these skills into metrics so you can evaluate whether employees are meeting these goals. One solution is to use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) — AKA quantifiable measurements that show how well an individual is performing against a predetermined goal or benchmark.

For instance, a KPI for average task completion rate helps you understand the overall efficiency of a team or individual. You can compare these results against benchmarks for similar projects to see if employees are underperforming. Regularly completing analysis tasks can help you spot gaps in performance and see why your employees aren't achieving goals or performing to their potential.

4. Create a performance improvement plan.

Now that you’ve identified performance gaps, it’s vital to take the necessary steps to bridge these gaps to maximize work performance. A performance improvement plan is a comprehensive, action-based guide that outlines the necessary steps employees must take to meet company expectations and goals.

According to Betterworks, a strong performance improvement plan should contain the following:

• Areas(s) of concern. Where performance did not meet the company’s standards.
• Expected outcome(s). An overview of what employees should have achieved.
• Actions. A list of actionable steps employees can take to reach “high-performer” status from where they currently are.
• KPIs. A list of metrics that the company uses to assess if the employee has successfully met the specified goals after following the plan of action.‍
• Checkpoints. A concrete timeline that includes scheduled checkpoints to monitor employee progress.

The strengths and weaknesses of employee A are going to be vastly different from that of employee B. Therefore, managers and HR representatives should work closely with employees to provide a plan of action that is tailor-made for each employee in question to get the best possible results.

5. Create training opportunities.

Training programs are essential when it comes to employee development and improving work performance. Advancements in technology mean that circumstances, job roles, and skills change rapidly. As they become obsolete, it’s important to upskill and reskill employees to keep up with the latest trends and improve productivity levels.

These training programs could be professional retreats, conferences, workshops, or coaching systems that are held periodically. These programs ensure that employees understand their roles better, strengthen their skill sets, and broaden their knowledge in the work they perform. Employees can easily identify any skill gaps that are currently affecting their performance and work on improving them.

As an added bonus, investing a significant amount of time, effort, and money in employee development makes them feel valued and appreciated. This can help boost morale and foster a culture of loyalty and respect. Happy, satisfied employees show increased levels of performance and are more likely to feel invested in the company’s accomplishments.

6. Create a positive workplace culture.

A positive workplace culture paves the way for higher engagement, greater motivation, and better performance. What’s more, research has shown that a positive workplace improves teamwork, raises morale, increases productivity and efficiency, and enhances the retention of the workforce.

How would you feel working for a company that bets on a cut-throat, high-pressure, take-no-prisoners culture to drive its financial success?

Right.

There’s a misconception that high-pressure environments push employees to perform better and faster. The truth is most organizations fail to realize the hidden costs incurred by using the approach in the long term. For one, high-pressure environments induce high levels of stress, which can drive productivity levels down.

Poor working environments can also result in disengagement, which can make employees feel unappreciated and lose a sense of belonging to the company. Studies conducted by the Queen's School of Business found that disengaged workers led to 18% lower productivity, 16% lower profitability, 37% lower job growth, and 65% lower share price over time — ouch.

Therefore, it’s crucial to establish a workplace that inculcates positive values and principles. According to Harvard Business Review, a positive workplace culture boils down to six essential characteristics:

• Caring for, being interested in, and maintaining responsibility for colleagues as friends.
• Providing support for one another, including offering kindness and compassion when others are struggling.
• Avoiding blame and forgiving mistakes.
• Inspiring one another at work.
• Emphasizing the meaningfulness of the work.
• Treating one another with respect, gratitude, trust, and integrity.

So, does your company foster these values?

7. Provide consistent feedback.

An efficient way to improve work performance is to provide regular constructive feedback. Managers should aim to give feedback that helps employees stay on track. At the same time, employees should consistently keep managers abreast of any issues that are slowing them down.

Taking the time to listen to employees’ perspectives and concerns regarding their workload, workflow, and priorities narrows the distance between the manager and the employee. Eliminating “formal reviews” allows employees to feel more comfortable, relaxed, and accepting of their flaws. This stops any negative connotations that people associate with receiving feedback and can help keep employees engaged and encouraged rather than disheartened.

8. Balance accountability and authority.

Organizations must understand the concepts of employee accountability and authority, both of which can make or break work performance if you can’t strike the right balance.

Accountability means defining responsibilities and setting expectations for employees along with any consequences for not meeting them. Authority means giving employees the power to decide and act on their own.

Sometimes, employees may not be able to perform their best work because they have very limited authority. For example, an employee may have an innovative solution to a company problem, but they may not be able to execute it due to their limited authority.

Therefore, it’s key for managers to set the right balance between authority and accountability to help improve overall employee performance and output.

9. Reward employees.

“You’ve done a great job! Congratulations!”

Who doesn’t love a good pat on the back?

One of the best ways to boost morale and encourage employees is to show them appreciation, give recognition, and offer incentives.

Taking the time to congratulate employees on their high-quality work can make them feel valued and encourage them to remain consistent in their future endeavors.

Rewards could be monetary or adding extra PTO days to your employees’ banks. It could even take the form of praise and appreciation during a company-wide meeting or through a simple, thoughtful message. Positively reinforcing an employee’s efforts — regardless of how small it is — motivates them and helps improve overall performance.

10. Embrace technological solutions.

Technology has given us a wide variety of tools to help improve work performance. For example, creating a personalized business playbook helps streamline onboarding and training into a single system.

Don’t know who does what and what their responsibilities are? Don’t know what your objectives are? Building your playbook with Trainual’s unique system provides an easy-access and comprehensive overview of everyone’s role and responsibilities. This can help increase transparency, assign appropriate levels of accountability, and eliminate duplicate efforts.

Since Trainual allows you to document every process from start to finish, it reduces any ambiguity around employees’ job roles. With crystal clear workflows, employees can accomplish their tasks to the best of their ability, and in turn, increase work performance.

Ready to take your business’ work performance to the next level?

A top-level LMS-alternative such as Trainual can streamline and automate your training process. Employees have diverse learning needs — and these deserve an equally diverse approach to training. Trainual is equipped with the tools necessary to accommodate your employee’s needs with ease.

A learning management system (LMS)-alternative that allows you to create customizable and personalized cultural intelligence training modules and assessments is the best way to deliver this training to your team.

A great remote training experience will equip employees with everything they need to grow in their position. And that results in content, engaged, and productive team members who you’re more likely to retain in the long run.