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Everything your organization does should, in one way or another, contribute to overall business performance. But not all courses of action are created equal, especially when resources are limited. If you’re looking for direction as to which initiatives your company should prioritize to boost business performance, you’ve come to the right place. Here are 6 ways your organization can improve business performance and some tips on getting started with each.
1. Define business goals
Improving business performance starts with your enterprise carefully evaluating and deciding on its goals and aligning its organizational strategy with them. This might seem obvious, but more than a few companies go ahead with developing a product or hiring a new cadre of employees without ensuring those actions are the best way to meet their business goals — or without even defining those goals in the first place. Before they know it, they’re committed to initiatives that, at best, fail to advance their core objectives and, at worst, actively hinder them.
So, how can you develop a strong set of goals for your organization that contribute to business performance? You and other people leaders at your organization likely already have some strong ideas as to what the company’s goals should be, but do most employees share these objectives?
Start by gathering input from stakeholders across the company, from staff on the front lines to the executive suite — preferably with a platform that streamlines collecting and analyzing feedback. What do they see as your company’s strengths and weaknesses? Have they identified areas for improvement or growth? Combined with additional internal analyses, market research, and potentially input from external sources, you’ll be well-equipped to create a set of goals that can effectively guide your organization and the performance improvement process.
2. Recruit and develop talent with the right skills and cultural fit
At the end of the day, business performance depends on the skills and motivation of your company’s workforce. If your organization’s employees don’t believe in its mission, genuinely want to be a part of its culture, or have the abilities and background needed to accomplish its aims, attempts to improve business performance are bound to fail. Build a compelling employee value proposition (EVP) that attracts the best talent and prioritize hiring candidates who align with your company culture. Then develop that talent with all the resources at your disposal to further boost performance and demonstrate that your enterprise is truly invested in employee success.
3. Keep your finger on the pulse of key metrics — and adjust as needed
Data reporting and analytics are the backbone of organizational success across industries. After all, it’s hard to improve business performance if you can’t measure it. Beyond tracking key metrics related to revenue and profit, your organization should dive deeper into the drivers of employee performance it’s chosen to focus on. These may relate to employee engagement, recognition, wellness, professional development, or other factors that can help your organization succeed. Consider using pulse surveys and other modern employee feedback channels to get input from your employees regarding these issues in an anonymous, secure fashion.
4. Increase employee engagement
Employee engagement is simply how motivated and excited team members are about their jobs on a daily basis. Highly engaged employees come up with innovative ideas for making your company better, give their all to every task, and serve as your organization’s best advocates when it comes to building a great employer brand. Unfortunately, disengaged employees can have the opposite effect, only doing enough to get by, rarely sharing their thoughts on important issues, and spreading disengagement to others.
The first step to building an engaged workforce is understanding the drivers of employee engagement, like recognizing team members frequently and establishing a culture employees believe in. Then measure these drivers using an employee engagement solution that features the tools described above, acting quickly to address any issues holding engagement down. HR should train managers on how to build collaborative action plans with their team members so everyone has a stake in the outcome and buys into the actions taken to achieve it.
5. Show team members they’re valued with employee recognition
A great salary, first-in-class benefits, a well-designed office — all of this can fade into the background if you feel unappreciated at work. Employee recognition feeds into engagement, letting team members know they and their contributions are valued by peers, leaders, and the company as a whole.
The best employee recognition programs facilitate appreciation at all these organizational levels and combine both social and monetary recognition for maximum effect. They lean on the capabilities of today’s employee recognition and reward platforms to deliver a centralized, exceptional recognition experience no matter where team members find themselves. Look for a solution that lets all employees give and receive reward points they can redeem for a wide variety of exciting items, experiences, and more. There’s no better or simpler way to personalize recognition at scale.
6. Identify and understand your target market
Your company’s target market is simply a group of customers with shared characteristics that make them an ideal match for your organization’s offerings. Defining a target market allows your business to spend its marketing and sales resources where they’ll make the most impact, rather than trying and failing to appeal to everyone. It also provides the data your organization needs to further refine its products and services, so they better match what customers actually want.
Improve business performance by engaging your employees today
Motivated, engaged employees can be a core driver of business performance in good times and bad. But many organizations don’t understand what factors engage their employees, let alone how to start positively impacting them. That’s why the Achievers Employee Experience Platform includes the tools needed to track and act on the drivers of employee engagement in the form of Achievers Listen, a solution dedicated to capturing the voice of your employees. And it even includes a platform dedicated to improving the number one driver of engagement — employee recognition — with Achievers Recognize. Recognize is a science-backed recognition platform that makes both social and monetary recognition fun and easy to provide and receive.
