Improve Employee Performance by Emphasizing Performance Benefits for Employees

Consider this scenario. You are planning for your next2. They might spend less time waiting to receive
staff meeting, where you intend to discussinformation from others
performance improvement. You have already identified3. They might increase their ability to complete tasks in
several things your employees need to do to improvea timely manner
performance. These include:4. They might have fewer feelings of frustration from
1. Meet deadlines for delivering products or servicesnot having information needed to complete tasks
2. Meet deadlines for providing information to others5. They might have a reduction in backlogs of
3. Meet deadlines for requesting information fromuncompleted work
others6. They might have fewer instances where a superior
4. Complete priorities in the proper sequenceneeds to follow-up to verify completion of critical tasks
5. Solve workload problems quickly and correctly7. They might have fewer instances where there is a
During this meeting, you also want to emphasize howneed to handle the same request multiple times
important it is for your employees to improve in thesePersonal Performance Does Matter
areas. So your plan is to explain how theseWhen you tell employees how performance
improvements could impact their performance. Youimprovement benefits them, you increase your
don’t want to focus on benefits for customers,chances of getting a positive reaction. The key is
benefits for the team, or benefits for the organization.broaden your list of what you might consider a
You want to emphasize the benefits for your“benefit” to employees. Sure, higher pay, more
employees, as individuals. How might you do this? Trytime off, and fewer work hours might top the list. But
explaining how performance improvement could leademployees are also interested in things that lower their
to one or more of the following results for yourstress, reduce their workloads, and improve their
employees:performance. So remember to include “personal
1. They might spend less time reacting to others whoperformance” the next time you plan to discuss the
are complaining about overdue or missing informationbenefits of performance improvement.