Tip #419: 4 Secrets To Unlocking An Employee's Potential (Part 2 of 2)

As a reminder, our 4 Secrets to Unlocking An Employee's Potential is a 2-part series specifically designed to help you maximize everyone's potential within your organization.

Secrets 3 and 4 outline some easy ways for you to design a culture that is performance-based.

Secret #3: Develop, Implement, Track And Reinforce A Pay-for-Performance Culture.

We all know the importance of having your best people in key areas within your organization - areas critical to the success of your business. And it is also no secret that the solution to retaining the best and most talented people is not only recognizing but also compensating top performers. According to a recent business survey, retention can be improved by up to 27% with a pay-for-performance compensation structure.

Many business professionals consider a pay-for-performance culture the #1 tool for helping them to reach the highest levels of commitment and productivity from employees. Whether there is a bonus structure or another type of incentive for outstanding contributions, top performers will produce even better results when they are recognized by monetary rewards.

We are often asked whether individual or team incentives are the most effective ways to motivate employees. Interestingly enough, it is a blend of the two types of rewards that produce the greatest output. Plus, building a pay-for-performance culture is the fastest way to reward top performers and the quickest way to get everyone aligned with an organization's financial goals. 

Secret #4: Consider A Quarterly Performance Review.

In the past, many organizations conducted annual reviews to ensure that their employees were meeting their goals and objectives and to hand out everyone's applicable raises. Recently, we are seeing more companies move toward quarterly reviews as a way to help their employees attain peak performance. In addition to their quarterly review processes, they are also using HR technology as a way to augment the review process.

Benefits Of Quarterly Reviews:

• Affords the opportunity to recognize the contribution an employee makes to the organization.
• Focuses on an employee's performance vs. the annual raise.
• Gets the manager and employees to discuss things face-to-face.

Executive Summary: The last secrets in this series suggest tracking and focusing in on the performance of your employees. To improve the process of reviewing employee performance, executing more frequent reviews and investing in HR Technology are two approaches that can prove to benefit your organization - and help your employees grow as an asset to your organization. When conducting performance reviews, map out what is being evaluated and how. Also, be aware that subjective approaches to evaluation can cause problems, so use more objective means of evaluation.

For more information, visit our website!