6 Ways to Drive Employee Performance and Motivation

1. Make Expectations Clear

Employees without goals will be naturally aimless. Provide them with clear achievable goals and make sure there are measurable standards in place to evaluate their performance. Victor Vroom’s work on expectancy theory supports the concept that employees must know what action they are expected to take and that it will yield the desired performance. Your employees should understand what they are expected to do, how they are expected to do it, and how they will be judged on it.

2. Provide Continuous Feedback

Always be specific in your feedback. For example, instead of telling an employee he, “did a great job,” compliment him on the way he organized his presentation, the citations he used, or his public speaking style. He’ll be more likely to apply these strengths to his next project if you point them out specifically.

3. Correct Privately

Don’t think of correcting an employee’s performance or behavior as punitive. Instead, consider it a learning opportunity for the employee. Keep an open mind, remember Deming’s 85/15 rule, which suggests that a majority of performance problems are actually outside of an employees control. If it is something the employee can change, it’s up to you to present the issue in such a way that the he feels he can correct the mistake.

4. Believe in Your Employees

Whether you tell him so during an employee performance review, or in the breakroom, an employee whose boss constantly calls him worthless, or a screw-up will feel a lot of emotions. He will not, however, feel particularly motivated to improve his performance.

Encourage your leadership team to take this same approach when you’re trying to motivate your employees for a major event, “This is the most talented, hardest working group I’ve ever had, and that’s why I know you can win this sales competition.”

5. Praise Publicly

Feeling under-appreciated encourages complacency – there’s a reason so many companies celebrate an Employee of the Month. People love praise; they thrive on it. Some research even suggested we’re willing to sacrifice incentive bonuses for public recognition. Make it a standard practice in your office to recognize positive people and trends within the business.

6. Make Rewards Achievable

Everyone is familiar with the annual bonus trip awarded to the top-performing employee. The problem is, such rewards usually go to one or two employees. This leaves the rest of your staff feeling like there’s not much point in working hard because the same few people always reap the rewards. Remember the other end of Vroom’s expectancy equation, which offers that individuals must also see the desired performance and linked reward as possible.

by David Burkus