Monday, July 27, 2009

ENHANCE STAFF PRODUCTIVITY BY PROMOTING THEIR STRENGTHS

Many bosses spend too much time trying to change employees under their charge who are under-performing. They believe that they can change an employee to improve on his performance by simply giving him additional training or sometime even give them a threat of dismissal !

Any successful boss normally concentrates on developing the strengths of his/her team members, and not trying to correct their weaknesses ! Sometimes you have to work round a weakness, but you cannot change people into what they are not ! No matter how much force you exert on them ...

If you have a staff on your team who is not performing, not giving cooperation, creating problems or not reaching the KPI quota, then you have to decide on what to do with him. You can't just close one eye hoping for it to settle by itself.

An employee may try to convince his boss all out, of his capabilities because he is unwilling to accept defeat, but many people are in the wrong jobs and industries. Bosses should ask these questions: Is this person not producing results because he does not have the ability, or can that be resolved with more training? Or is there another reason behind his poor performance?

It is important to recognize that the individual simply cannot do the job. So what you can do in this situation is to assign him duties in areas where he can produce better results. If that does not help, then as last resort, get him out of your team.

Sometimes bosses have to accept the fact that some employees simply do not have the cut, skills or the characteristics to do the job. No amount of training, motivation or pep talk can change that. In my past managerial experiences, I often find that these people are dissatisfied with their jobs and are more than happy to be transferred.

If you are faced with this dilemma, this may not be easy to solve. But as a manager, you need to address these issues immediately for the good of the team and the organization.

It is vital to give your staff feedback on their strengths and their weaknesses. However, these should only be weaknesses that you know the individual can do something to improve it.

Do not waste your time and effort trying to work on weaknesses that cannot be sorted out. Accepting the fact that some people just cannot build relationships with customers or cannot work as fast as they are required, may be better in the long run.

To be productive, provide your staff feedback on their strengths and how they can develop or enhance that even further. Many bosses spend most of their time with team members trying to resolve their weaknesses and have little time to point out their strengths, which to me is more critical actually !

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