 Effective People Management in Turbulent Times
(New Zealand) - June 2009
In the current economic climate where many businesses may need to downsize, it’s even more important to focus on managing people effectively and maintaining high morale amongst your workforce so that they deliver the best results possible. Creating a high performing, engaged workforce can give your business a powerful competitive advantage.
BY CAROLE BATES
Creating a Culture of High Performance
In many businesses, performance management is dealt with by exception and the main focus of HR is on resolving issues of poor performance. Taking a more proactive approach to creating a culture of high performance will not only minimise the time you spend on addressing poor performance but will enhance the success of your business by getting even better results from your good performers. Developing people to reach their full potential also has a positive impact on staff morale and retention.
Many New Zealand fashion businesses operate with a small, close-knit team and may feel uncomfortable with a formal, structured approach to managing performance. However, regardless of the size of your business, you can create a high performing team, without onerous HR systems, by focussing on the following:
- Ensure that staff have a clear understanding of the expectations of their role.
- Track performance using measurable targets.
- Provide feedback to your staff about their performance and support them to make improvements.
- Ensure that the role is a good match to the individual's strengths and abilities.
Defining Expectations
When hiring a new employee, it’s important to clearly define your expectations of the role with a job description. If you’re struggling to create a job description, the following website has a useful database, covering a wide range of roles - www.kiwicareers.govt.nz
Some examples relevant to the fashion industry are: Clothing Designer, Pattern Maker (Clothing) and Retail Salesperson. These job descriptions include information about the tasks and duties of the role and the skills, knowledge and personal qualities required.
If you have a small team who are required to multitask, it may be a challenge to create clear-cut job descriptions. However, it’s critical to ensure that all important tasks have a home with someone to create accountability. One solution may be to split the job description into “main responsibilities” for tasks that the employee has overall responsibility for and “support duties” for tasks where they are required to support other staff.
Setting Measurable Targets
The employee’s performance should be tracked using two or three measurable targets that are linked to the critical success factors for the business. Ideally the targets should be objective and easily measurable. Remember that “what gets measured gets done.” Success in the fashion industry is often driven by sales, media coverage, delivery of ranges on time and in budget and getting paid. Linking individual targets to these measures and providing regular feedback on actual results will keep people focussed on what’s important and allow them to track their own performance on an ongoing basis.
Feedback and Support
Feedback should be timely and include a good balance of positive reinforcement for jobs that have been done well and constructive feedback regarding mistakes. When delivering positive feedback it’s important to be specific and sincere. Complimenting an employee on a particular achievement has more impact than vague, general praise.
Delivering constructive feedback to staff who are not meeting your expectations can be a real challenge as people tend to become defensive when performance problems are identified. In general, having clearly defined expectations and targets helps to defuse the situation by focussing on objective information.
If you feel nervous about delivering negative feedback, you may get some useful ideas from the book “Management Bites” by Angela Atkins, which devotes a chapter to this topic. One approach recommended by Atkins is to start by saying: “It concerns me ….” The focus is now on you being concerned, rather than on your staff member being wrong and they will be more open to hearing what you’re concerned about. Another option is to ask the employee to review their own performance on a task and tell you what they did well and what they could have improved.
Ensuring the Employee has the Right Skills and Abilities
Many problems with poor performance and employee dissatisfaction start with the hiring process. You need to ensure that the person you recruit is a good match to your job description in terms of their skills, experience, qualifications and personality. This requires a thorough interviewing, reference checking and skills assessment process. In addition, psychometric testing can provide you with a valuable insight into the applicant’s personal style and how to manage that person effectively to get the best out of them.
Driving Staff Morale
Research has shown that higher levels of staff satisfaction result in better business results. People who have a positive attitude towards their work are more likely to generate customer satisfaction and achieve above average productivity. Companies that achieve higher levels of staff satisfaction have higher profitability and lower staff turnover. Workplace survey specialists, JRA, have identified four key areas to focus on to drive staff morale.
Define a vision and values and make them real
Make sure that your staff are clear about the strategic goals of your business and what they each need to contribute to make the business successful. Regular communication about how the company is doing is also important.
Maintaining open communication is important even when there is difficult news to share. Fear of the unknown can have a worse impact on your staff than being informed about the challenges facing the business. If you keep people in the loop, you have the opportunity to create a team focus on problem solving and tap into the creativity of your staff. You may be surprised at the contribution they can make in helping the business to succeed.
Develop a community where people feel they belong
Creating a family environment where staff feel a sense of connection with their colleagues will help you to maintain high morale.
Create a high performance culture
As outlined above, it’s important to define your expectations and to hold people accountable for achieving results. Staff are motivated by working towards specific, measurable and challenging goals. A focus on rewarding achievement and celebrating success is also critical in building staff morale.
You may feel that your ability to maintain high morale is compromised in a challenging economic environment because you can’t afford pay rises or other rewards that you’ve provided in the past. However, pay rises are flattening out in 2009 so expectations will be lower. The key thing to focus on is managing your remuneration budget effectively to reward staff who produce results.
Help people to realise their potential
To keep people interested in their work, ensure that you provide ongoing challenges. Sometimes this means broadening the range of responsibilities if there are limited opportunities for promotion. Investing in training and development for your people is also essential in creating a great workplace. Sometimes an investment in development is appreciated more than a pay rise.
Please note that the information provided is general and should always be discussed with your trusted business advisor, accountant or lawyer who will be able to put it into context around your business needs.
Carole Bates is an advisor with WHK Gosling Chapman specialising in the field of Human Resource management. To discuss the contents of this article and how it relates to your business contact Carole Bates - email: carole.bates@whkgoslingchapman.com
www.whkgoslingchapman.com
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