Performance Enhancement: Improve Your Employee Productivity With These Six Tips

The performance of your employees is directly proportional to the performance of your organization. The goals you are willing to achieve, the clients you are willing to cater to, and the revenue you are willing to drive home are all connected to how your employees perform. This is what makes the performance enhancement of your employees important. No matter how skilled and dedicated your employees are, there is always scope for improvement. Living in the age of digitization, we see new technologies and trends being introduced in all major industries quite often. 

Whenever a new technology is introduced, the older one gets outdated, and it becomes crucial for your employees to be well-versed in the same. This is the reason why several organizations across all scales and industries focus on regular training and development. 

Why Is Performance Enhancement Important?

Every organization requires its employees to leverage their potential and enhance their performance. This brings them a step closer to the objectives they are willing to achieve. 

Here are some of the key reasons why the performance enhancement of your employees is essential: 

1. Higher Employee Productivity
   
   Performance enhancement makes your employees better at what they do, leading to higher productivity. This allows your employees to focus more and bring better results within the same amount of time. Employees are essential resources for an organization, and their productivity is critical to grow and prosper.
   
   Read More: The Digital Age and Employee Productivity: A Guide for HR Managers
   
   
2. Higher Employee Engagement
   
   When your employees feel stagnant in terms of their potential, they tend to lose interest in the work they do, leading to a drop in engagement. Performance enhancement provides your employees with a genuine drive to work for your organization and make the most of their potential. When your employees see themselves getting better at what they do, they become more willing to perform their tasks with dedication.
   
   
3. Boost In Morale
   
   Performance enhancement allows your employees to feel more confident about their work. This makes them give their 100% and strive to achieve the common organizational goals. Performance enhancement is rewarding in nature, helping your employees focus more and make the most of the time spent working for your organization. While your organization grows due to their efforts, their morale gets a boost with improved performance.
   
   
4. Professional Growth
   
   Keeping the interests of your business aside, performance enhancement facilitates the professional growth of your employees. It allows them to learn new skills and leverage the ones they already possess. Even if they move to a different company in the future, performance enhancement will provide them with capabilities that will stay with them forever.
   
   
5. Improved Customer Relationships
   
   Especially in the case of customer-facing employees, performance enhancement leads to a significant improvement in their relationship with the customers. As they keep getting better at their jobs, your customers get more willing to interact with them, ultimately making purchases and providing you with the traction you are looking for.
   
   

Important Tips To Improve Your Employee Productivity

As beneficial as it is, performance enhancement is a somewhat challenging task. It takes the right balance of creativity and technique to improve the productivity of your employees. HR departments within organizations often chart out extensive plans to work on employees' performance enhancement and bring out the best in them. 

Here are some important you should keep in mind if you are willing to undertake performance enhancement the right way: 

1. Address Underperformance Issues
   
   To work on performance enhancement, it is crucial to assess the factors that are not allowing your employees to work at their maximum potential. Taking a note of underperformance issues would allow you to understand the issues faced by your employees and chart out a way to enhance their performance.
   
   Here are some critical questions you should ask to take note of underperformance issues regarding your employees:
   
   - Are your employees provided with a cordial work environment?
   
   - Are your employees offered seamless support?
   
   - Are your employees thoroughly engaged? If not, why?
   
   - Do your employees slack at work?
   
   - Are your employees able to complete tasks on time?
   
   - Are your employees provided with work that is in sync with their capabilities?
   
   Multiple factors may be responsible for the underperformance of your employees. Once you acknowledge the same, you understand the areas you need to focus on and the strategies to implement for effective performance enhancement.
   
   
2. Ensure That The Tasks Assigned Are In Sync With The Employees' Skills And Interests
   
   One of the biggest reasons behind underperforming employees is their not being able to do what they love. When your employees are provided with tasks in sync with their skills and interests, they naturally perform better.
   
   Here, we need to focus on skills and interests separately.
   
   Performance enhancement is fairly difficult if you provide a skilled employee with tasks that they lack interest in. They would rarely be motivated to perform the tasks well and merely drag themselves to work every day. Without a genuine interest in what they do, even the best employees would not improve their performance.
   
   On the other hand, if you provide tasks to an employee above or below their skill-set, you would not be able to undertake effective performance enhancement. When an employee feels they are more skilled than their work, they are likely to take their assignments lightly and not provide the focus required from them. On the contrary, if an employee is provided with tasks beyond their skill-set, they would lack the resources needed to complete the assignments.
   
   In both these cases, it becomes difficult for the management to ensure the performance enhancement of the employees. The best way to resolve this issue is to talk to your employees about their interests and assess their skills before assigning them their tasks. This would allow everyone to be on the same page. Once the stage is set, you can go ahead with effective performance enhancement!
   
   
3. Focus On Training And Cross-training Of Your Employees
   
   Organizations often tend to overlook regular training as it costs them a fortune. As mentioned earlier, we live in an age where new inventions are made frequently. This makes it important to train your employees to aid performance enhancement. Based on the skills possessed by your employees and the role they occupy within the organization, provide them with training that helps them leverage their skills and get better at their jobs. Also, make sure you arrange for adequate training resources to ensure that your employees are trained well.
   
   Cross-training is an effective mode of training that saves you a considerable amount of money. It is the simple activity of your employees teaching each other and sharing skills among themselves. This allows your employees to expand their skills and improve their performance. When it comes to new hires, it is advisable to assign a senior employee to them who would look after their training and development.
   
   Whichever path you choose, getting your employees well-trained is a highly effective way of undertaking performance enhancement.
   
   
4. Make Sure They Are Provided With The Right Resources
   
   One of the biggest factors affecting the performance of your employees is the resources provided to them. This includes the office space they work in, the Wi-Fi connectivity provided to them, the devices they work on and more. No matter how skilled and dedicated your employees are, performance enhancement would always be complex if they were not provided with the right resources.
   
   
5. Provide Them With Adequate Support
   
   Seamless support provided to your employees plays a vital role in performance enhancement. Whenever your employees encounter issues, make sure that you have a helpdesk that offers them personalized assistance. The modern employee service desks are equipped with technologies like AI and machine learning to understand the context of the issues faced by your employees and provide them with seamless support within a few seconds. It is advisable to implement such modern devices to ensure that your employees never have to wait to get their issues resolved and continue with their work hassle-free.
   
   
6. Encourage Employee Recognition
   
   Everyone likes their efforts being appreciated, irrespective of the roles they occupy within an organization. Although a seemingly trivial activity, employee recognition is often a major factor affecting performance enhancement. When you acknowledge your employees' contribution and appreciate their work, it allows them to improve their performance and give their best.
   
   Employee recognition isn't always about grand gestures. Even a simple "good job" or "thank you" hold power to motivate your employees to improve their performances. Moreover, the culture of employee recognition allows you to create a cordial workplace and conducive work environment.
   
   Read More: What is the purpose of prioritizing employee recognition?
   
   

The Final Word 

These were some of the essential tips to keep in mind for improving the productivity of your employees. Performance enhancement is critical for an organization to increase the engagement and productivity of its employees. Irrespective of the industry you belong to and the scale at which you operate, always take adequate measures to leverage the performance of your employees.