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Published July 18th, 2017 by

8 Strategies to Unlock Your Employees’ Full Potential

Your team is probably fine. I bet you’ve hired the best possible employees considering your current conditions. You can’t complain too much, but you’re not happy either. Deep down, you know that your team can be twice as effective as it is right now yet you have no clue how to actually make things better.

Nowadays, this is a common problem that many employers encounter. Working with employees is a complex job, especially because each company has different employees with different personalities, motivations, and principles. That means that you can only find the answers by looking at your team.

However, we’re here to guide you through this process. Unlocking the full potential of your employees should be one of your top priorities, as you know too well that your employees are the wheels of your business.

If you feel that your company needs a change and it needs to start with your workforce, you should definitely begin taking action on the matter. Here are several effective strategies of unlocking your employee’s potential. Pay close attention and make sure that you implement as many actions as possible.

1. Work On Yourself First

Most employees are counting on their employers, and they’re doing it because the person who gives the instructions is much better qualified to make decisions. You are the person that holds the key to the entire operation, and your employees expect you to provide them with goals, strategies, and motivation.

Now. In order for people to follow your steps, they must see something in you. They need to trust you completely and believe that your decisions are good.

Well, you can only accomplish this by working on yourself first. Build knowledge, build skills, and become a true professional. The more you develop yourself, the more you’ll gain your team’s respect and collaboration.

2. Figure Out What Motivates Your Employees the Most

Success

Motivation is very complex, as each person has different expectations and standards. Moreover, motivation is often a matter of mindset. The better the mindset of your employee, the easier it’ll be to reason with him and give him what he needs.

Your job as a leader is to carefully analyze your team’s needs. You can find relevant insights by developing a genuine relationship with each of your employee. Talk to them on a personal level, and observe their way of thinking. Slowly, start debating the personal motivation that lies within each of your employees.

Friendly talks work, yet you can also use more indirect ways to figure this answer. You can organize different activities that end with rewards.

The point is: when you get to understand your employees’ motivation, you will be able to spark the flame inside them on a consistent basis. If your team is motivated to achieve great things, you’re most likely to reach your higher goal faster!

3. Envision Your Employee’s Potential Beyond Their Role

I was speaking about connections and genuine relationships, yet I admit that nurturing such things isn’t something simple. Before moving on, you must understand something very important.

In order to get “closer” to an employee, you need to treat him as a person instead of a tool. Perceive your employees as hidden potentials rather than fixed benefits. When you manage to approach this perspective, you can move on to the next step:

Envision your employee’s potential beyond their role in your company. What are their biggest traits? Their gifts? Or how about their passions and interests?

When you have these powerful insights which can only be acquired through a careful pair of human eyes, you’ll feel that you understand more and more of your team. Where will this lead?

Well, you’ll always know how to approach your employees without initiating conflict, you’ll know where to insist in order to motivate them, and you’ll build a much tighter rapport with each of them. All of this leads to harmony in the workplace!

4. Collect and Provide Feedback Consistently

In order to keep improving your employees’ performance and skills, you need to offer them consistent feedback. It is usually harder to assess your own mistakes. Therefore, using your leadership position, you should intervene and correct the mistakes of your team.

First off, look for mistakes in your team’s activity and in each of your employees. You need to spot tiny mistakes that collectively lead to a lack of progress. Look for them, note them down, figure out the solutions, and present them to your employees. These could be on a collective level or on an individual one.

Alison Evans, HR manager at CareersBooster, suggests:

“Make sure that you keep all of your feedback relevant and constructive. Do the hard work first, and let your employees reap the benefits of your “research”. Once they apply your solutions, their progress will be higher. Oh, and let’s not forget that your company’s also benefitting from their overall productivity, so offering feedback is mostly leading to benefits rather than disadvantages.”

5. Analyze The Team’s Performance and Reward the Top Employees

Just like with marketing, you need to consistently analyze your team’s performance. Except that analyzing your employees might be trickier. You don’t get all the stats and graphs that advertising analytics offers you, so you need to treat the situation differently.

Depending on company’s strategies, you must find a way to track the performance of your team. For example, the person who completes the most tasks in a month is definitely being more productive than the one who rarely accomplishes anything.

The employees who work the most isn’t necessarily the most effective employee. You need to pay attention to results. Now – in order to spark the motivation of your employees, start rewarding the best-performing players. Considering that you understand your employee’s motivation, implement different reward systems such as extra pay, promotions, vacations, and other incentives.

6. Follow the 80/20 Rule When Investing in Employees

Employees come and go. That’s a fact, and you can’t fight it. Instead, the only thing you can do is ensure that your best employees are staying. Most certainly, you have already figured out which of your workers are being the most efficient and relevant for your company’s performance.

Well, you should definitely consider following the Pareto Principle, or mostly called the 80/20 rule. In your case, you need to be looking for the 20% of your highest-performing employees that lead to 80% of your company’s high performance and progress. The other 80% of your employees must improve, or else they don’t belong in your company.

Think about it: is it better to invest your time, energy, and resources on those 20 employees that are keeping your company stable or you’d rather focus on the other 80? Follow this rule in life and business, and you’ll improve your efficiency big time.

7. Gradually Higher the Company’s Standards

Do you wish to improve your company’s performance once and for all? The only way to accomplish this is to gradually higher your company’s goals and standards. Each successful company has developed a higher purpose throughout their development process. Without greater standards, the motivation to accomplish things is definitely reduced.

If you decide that it’s time to bring your company’s to the next level, you first “movement” should be a statement of change. Do it on your own, make it your own personal purpose, then transform it into a collective one. Your change must be very concise and should have a deadline term.

Once you have decided what you want to change, you need to figure out how to do it. Think of various ways, strategies, and implementations to make it all happen. Make a strict plan, and call a meeting.

During this special meeting, let your employees understand that their organization now has a higher purpose. Try to make them feel like an important plan of the plan and have them understand the reasons of the change. Moreover, you can also mention the benefits of this progress: better salaries or more free time.

8. Always Be There for Your Employees

Here’s the golden rule for being a great leader: always be there for your employees in case they need you, and you’ll win their loyalty forever. When you’re there for someone in times of trouble without asking anything in return you, you’re probably the greatest gift they can get at that moment.

Your involvement will not be forgotten easily, and it will definitely be rewarded in different ways. Developing such relationships with your team shall establish a great harmony in the office, something that every modern company needs.

The more you bond with your employees, the more you help them with their personal struggles, and the more you understand their needs, the more results your company will obtain.

Conclusion

The individual performance of your employees combined is directly proportional to your company’s performance. Just like in any sport, the team that gathers the best players is usually winning the championship. Follow this rule in business, and you’ll rarely encounter any difficulties when trying to maintain and improve the flow of income.

Eva Wislow
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Eva Wislow

Eva Wislow is a Career Coach and HR Manager from Pittsburgh. She is on a mission to help people find their true calling. Eva finds her inspiration in writing and peace of mind through yoga.
Eva Wislow
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