We are facing tough economic times and managers will have to start managing performance to ensure that their businesse thrive and survive. Companies cannot coast through on auto-pilot as their customers will increasingly demand more for their money.
Retaining talent and motivating staff where possible is essential. However, sometimes you have to accept that some employees may never make the grade and will undermine the team’s morale and overall performance and drag others down to their level.
My advice would be to introduce a performance management programme over a short period (for example 1 – 3 months) and during this time you can assess which of your team members are genuinely interested in learning and improving and which are not.
If they are committed to improvement then reward your staff (just saying ‘thank-you’ and ‘well done’ goes a long way with many employees). If they are not interested in supporting the business in its efforts to introduce quality and efficiency improvements then discipline them out of your organisation. In these tough economic times no business can afford to disappoint customers. [See the Disciplinary Toolkit on your ELE account.]
The performance management programme should include SMART objectives which stands for:
- Simple
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Timely
An example SMART objective would be: “To satisfy customer demand by increasing the number of widgets produced by the night shift to 130 widgets per hour. Each widget must pass the ‘widget Q/A standard’ set out by the ‘XYZ Quality Assessor’, a copy of which is available in production bay 3.”
This objective is clear and precise and employees know what is expected of them and where to find supporting resources.
You would then monitor the performance of each night shift team member over a defined period (such as 1 month or whatever is reasonable in the circumstances) to see if they contribute proportionately to the achievement of the objective.
This can be done by dividing the number of widgets by the number of staff on the team. For example, 10 team members would need to produce 13 widgets each per hour to achieve a total of 130 widgets per hour. Of course, other questions will arise as you progress with the programme but this is a great way to start tackling quality and efficiency issues. ELE Members will find more performance management support in their ELE Toolkits.
Kind regards
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