Trendsetters: Do Your Managers Know What To Do?
Did you know? Managers find it easy to manage top-performing employees, but are not so adept when it comes to improving poor performers. According to recent research by Watson Wyatt – employers need to do more to help their managers motivate poorer performing staff.
In the Global Strategic Rewards study, a Europe-wide study, Watson Wyatt found that a top performer was 66 per cent more likely to say that their immediate supervisor does a good job of communicating organizational and performance management issues than a poor performer would.
The survey found that only 33 per cent of poor performers were able to say that their immediate manager does a good job of communicating expectations for organizational financial performance, that their manager does a good job of establishing goals for their individual performance that are linked to business objectives, or that their immediate manager does a good job of providing direct feedback on their individual performance. So what is the opportunity? We all know that not all employees can be turned into high performers, but for those who can there is a significant opportunity for companies to improve performance. What can a company do to help their managers better manage the difficult poor performer?- Train managers on how to effectively motivate both high and poorer performers. Provide them with the tools and techniques to coach poor performers into action. Train them on the importance of communicating and providing feedback that is direct, relevant and timely.
- Help managers make the links between the overall business objectives and how the individual employee contributes to the achievement of those objectives. It is critical that your managers can create personal links between an employees’ job and how they contribute to the achievement of the organization’s business objectives. Help your managers understand and effectively communicate how the various roles within their team contribute to the organizations success.
- Help managers create clear objectives and performance targets for all employees – not just the high performers. One of the roles of a manager is help develop and monitor the personal objectives and performance targets for each employee. Train your managers on how to establish and monitor objectives and targets. Help them to coach employees when they are faltering. Provide them with the appropriate training and coaching tools to help employees develop and offer outside counsel if a manager is facing a difficult coaching situation.
- Encourage and monitor communication. We all know that communication is the key to high performance. Companies should spend more time helping and encouraging their managers to communicate messages around performance at relevant times throughout the year. Don’t let them wait until the annual review period to give “bad” news.
- Measure and monitor how effective managers are at handling poor performers. Remember, if you want something done – you must measure it. Make sure your managers not only have the tools to handle poor performers, but are actually doing it. Track their ability to turn poor performers around.
What is your company doing to help manage the poor performers?