Part III

Putting the Employment Relationship to Work

Five Ways of Focusing Your Staff on High Performance

Link day-to-day performance to the bigger picture: Explain the connection between simple tasks and business success. Staff are more likely to take particular care to do well in everything they do when they understand and believe in your vision for a successful business.

Remove the barriers holding back your staff: Everyone is capable of doing well with the right equipment, knowledge, tools and attitude. Get rid of the stuff that’s holding back your staff from being the best they can be. Upgrade equipment, improve communication and empower them to make decisions.

Encourage and reward good performance: Motivation mainly comes from within the person, but encouraging good work sets the right tone, and providing valuable and meaningful rewards for effort reinforces high performance.

Measure the things that matter: Identify the tasks that contribute to successful performance and regularly measure performance against these benchmarks. Don’t be distracted by the things that don’t matter.

Learn from every success and failure: Take time to reflect with staff on what makes a high performer. High performance doesn’t just happen by chance. It occurs when your staff learn the lessons of experience and apply their skills, knowledge and ability in a manner better than they have done before.

 

Check out more tips about the employment relationship with a free article at www.dummies.com/extras/hrsmallbusinessau.

In this part . . .

The most important stage of the employment relationship is at the beginning. Learn how to implement an orientation program that systematically builds performance and sets the standards expected throughout the life of the employment.

Performance standards don’t just fall down from the sky. Design a structured system to define, measure and reward good work performance. And use a checklist of action to effectively address poor performance, get employees back on track or move them inevitably toward end of the employment relationship.

Minimum wages aren’t negotiable but market rates and incentives are important to attract and retain good staff. Discover how to find out what to pay and how best to structure the package of remuneration and align it to really good work performance.