Looking for ways to improve employee performance within your team? Here are seven very effective and proven methods for coaching your employees.
Good Job. Just two words that make all the difference in how you can make someone feel about themselves, and when you are at one of the head position of your company, my friend this is the key tactic to motivate your employees.
Every good leader aims to have a team where the members are self-motivated, enthusiastic about their work and most importantly happy with what they are doing. But what about the other ones that are lagging behind having low self-esteem to prove themselves?
Well, this is a point of concern for every responsible leader!
For all the leaders who are finding ways to improve employee performance, you are at the right place as by the end of the article you would be aware of some great approaches that can help you re-engage your weak employees. So keep reading…
Clarify what’s going in their head
Before making any judgement about their performance or any other activities, try to know what’s cooking inside them. Are they feeling incompetent? or is there any personal issue that’s bothering them or they are just bored doing the same every day.
There are several possibilities for it. The reason might be any, but the major action has to be taken from your side and that is giving them the right feedback by understanding the whole scenario.
You have to make things clear for them by telling them the areas they need to improve and how can you both move forward for fixing it. Here your statements have to be very practical and implementable.
You can adopt the “sandwich” method that most of the leaders adopt for feedback that is positive=>negative=>positive. This will make it easy for you to convey your message without making them feel less valued and they will also in-turn get honest feedback to their performance.
Determine reasons for employee performance gaps
No one can perform excellently all the time. There will be ups and downs in the performance graphs of your employees too. Try to figure out the things where they have performed excellently and the areas where they have lost their grip.
Making a list of these things will help you identify the performance gap. This will also help you understand how timely these occur and when its the time that your employees need motivation or appreciation to re-energise themselves to work harder.
If you are friendly enough with your employees, you can generally ask them how frequently they would like to be appreciated. This might make your task easy.
Give them a chance to stand-up again
You know your employee is not performing well, don’t let them feel that it’s their worst performance and you are disappointed with them. Show them that you still trust their capabilities by bringing them different opportunities to grow.
Your small effort and a deep belief of getting things right from them will help them boost confidence to at least give a try to the opportunities that have knocked on their door.
You can help them to get the right solutions to their performance issues by not directly giving them the solutions but by engaging them in a way that they can “own their solutions” to their poor performances.
Help them improve with a coaching session
Now when you are aware of the areas where they are lacking, try to plan coaching sessions that can help them to overcome the difficulties.
These coaching sessions might help your employees gain greater proficiency in their respective fields by overcoming the barriers that stop them from performing well.
Identify where most of the employees lack, make groups, perform some of the corporate team building activities or call someone who is an expert in the niche to guide them better.
Make knowledge building exercise a 10 minutes routine, here all your employees have to share their knowledge about their field or any other things that can add value within that 10 minutes.
This can surely help you to go a long way with your idea of moving the employee from where they are currently to where you want them to be.
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Encourage them to think differently
One can not get new ideas if they are stuck with the same old routine where they do not get time to explore something other than the work assigned.
Understand why your employee is not performing the same what he used to when he was new? The reason might be the lack of exposure and the routine work that consumes his whole time.
Try to help them to manage their work so efficiently that they have a little time spared for doing what they like. Assign them a task where they have to come up with some new ideas or a new approach to the same situations. This will make their slowed down mind work faster as they have a deadline to present their thoughts the next day.
So as a leader, you need to understand that sitting in the office, encircled by the same people will not let them think something out of the box or here I should say out of the room. Let them take in fresh air and get some fresh ideas.
Individualise every approach
Now the last but not least and the most important thing. Before you become a mentor or a coach to someone, the key skill that you should have as a leader is, the “power of analysis”.
Your techniques of helping your employees to improve their performance might not work similarly for all of them. Everyone is different and so are their problems and perspective about the situations they are in.
It may also depend on what position they are holding or at which stage of their career they are presently working. Depending on this some people might require more effort and care to handle while some will be mature enough to get back on track by themselves.
In Summary
To all the leaders or managers who are concerned about the weak and less performing employees, it’s time you help them get their confidence back. Try implementing the above strategies to make them feel that you are just not interested in the revenue that your employees generate with their talent but are equally interested in employee welfare and their professional success.
About the Author
James Vargas is an experienced business expert, consultant, and manager at Get Everything Delivered. With the 1.5-decade corporate experience, he is now sharing his guidance to start-ups to grow with corporate team building activities and project delivery solutions.
