Employee targets are essential to the steady growth and development of any company and creating sustainable performance improvements is crucial to increasing productivity. It is all too easy to throw stats and figures at team leaders and expect them to perform, but if you really want your teams to meet and exceed their employee targets each month then you are going to need more than clever analytics and dictatorship. Here are four key things to consider in order implement successful employee targets in your teams in 2016.
Increased incentives
There is no doubt that money talks and some of the most successful companies are those that invest in their employees financially. Many senior level managers reap bonuses each year based on the performance of their departments, but the likelihood of said departments reaching their targets is hugely improved when lower level workers have the opportunity to achieve performance related bonuses too. If you can demonstrate that you recognise and reward the work that is put in on the ground floor to achieve the proposed employee targets you can almost definitely bet that employee productivity will increase as a result. A big proviso to this is that if an employee’s job relies on creativity or innovation, incentives might not work.
Relationship and respect
The phrase there is no ‘I’ in team is never truer than in a business environment, and a manager is only ever as good as the team that works for him. If you are a team leader or a manager it is vital that you build a relationship with your team members that will not only garner respect for you as a boss, but also allow you to give constructive criticism that is well received in order to improve their performance. Employee feedback is key to effective management, and both performance related praise and positive correction should be offered regularly to help equip each individual whilst strengthening the wider team.
Training tools
In order to reach employee targets, your teams need to be adequately trained for the job that they are expected to do. Training is a term that is bandied about a great deal in the business industry, and certainly leadership training is a hot topic in management conferences the world over, but in order to bolster your team whilst boosting your business it is wise to implement training for middle managers and factory floor workers too. If those working on the frontline of your business have captured your vision and are working with you to achieve it, you will see employee targets exceeded in no time at all.
Set the tone from the top
Any good manager will know that they cannot expect employees to do anything that they are not prepared to do themselves, therefore if targets are to be achieved they have to come from the top. Senior leaders need to respect and energise their employees and be seen to practice what they preach, if they are saying one thing and doing another this will quickly demoralise staff and cause dissension in the ranks, resulting in a negative, unproductive atmosphere in the workplace. By implementing employee targets alongside encouragement and visible effort, managers will set the tone for their teams and increase the chance of achieving said targets.
