Motivation at work – How to boost your employees’ performance

Performance management involves many roles. You must be a communicator, a leader, a role model, and a collaborator. Each individual member of your team should understand exactly what their responsibilities and expectations are, and as their supervisor, you should work to help them reach those goals.

Some people find performance management to be a difficult role to play. Some people in particular have difficulty when it comes to evaluating performance. But when it’s done well, performance management is about partnership and motivation at work. If it’s done from this perspective, there is nothing to be uncomfortable about. When this perspective is shared with your employees and they learn to see it that way, performance management becomes a powerful tool that helps your team to become more successful.

Benefits of Performance Management

There are multiple benefits in performance management, many of which are directly related to motivation:

• When roles and responsibilities are clear, motivation is increased. If your team members know what they are supposed to be doing, there is no loss of motion due to confusion or uncertainty. Instead, a motivated individual will be in action, and a team full of motivated individuals will feed off of each other and help keep that motivation going.

• When expectations are clear, employees are more likely to take ownership of their work and to be committed to the expected outcomes. They will be more likely to be willing to take risks, to put in extra effort, and to view their own role as that of a partnership with you and with the rest of the team.

• When goals are clear and being pursued, your team members each will be able to contribute to team effectiveness. Without performance management, a team can’t be expected to be effective. Without it, they can be expected to flounder.

• Performance management also helps you to develop your team members. You can use it to stretch their capabilities, to challenge them to step outside of their comfort zone. Doing so will provide opportunities for individual growth, which in turn will help to fuel their enthusiasm for their job.

• Helping them to grow and develop will help you to progress the individuals through the company. You can be building on strengths that the company needs – both in your division and in other areas.

• A solid, well-formed performance management process gives you a powerful tool for addressing poor performance issues, should they arise. If you and your employee have agreed upon what their duties and responsibilities are, then you have something to refer to when they are not holding up their end of the agreement.

 

Notice how these benefits would help your employees meet the needs of motivation we discussed in the last chapter. However, these benefits have all been listed from the point of view of the supervisor.

But just as important is finding a way to communicate the benefits of performance management to your employees so that they are properly motivated by it. What are some of the benefits for the employee of well-structured and well-implemented performance management process?

How Performance Management can increase your employees’ motivation

• Security in knowing they are doing the job they way you want it done

• A clear understanding of what you expect and what the corresponding rewards or consequences will be

• A framework for gauging their own performance

• A continuing conversation with you regarding how to improve their skills and performance

• Knowing that they have the ability to determine their own success by following the performance plan you have set in place

• An enjoyment of the achievements they reach, which help foster their self-esteem and their future motivation

 

These benefits are fully attainable for your team members – provided you have laid the foundation of a fair, consistent, clear, and achievable performance management plan. What would you need to hear or see from your own coach in order to see performance management and performance evaluation as benefits in your own job performance? Or another way of asking yourself this question is to consider what actions from your own supervisor would ruin the possibility that you could see the benefits of the process? Your actions (or lack thereof) will determine the attitude that your team members have towards the performance management process and whether they are motivated by it or de-motivated by it.

You can learn a lot more about motivating others by downloading the free eBook “Motivation Skills” written by MTD training.