Do a few members of your team have a work ethic problem? Unfortunately, this isn’t uncommon.
It isn’t easy to deal with a poor work ethic. But there are a few things you can do that can help. Follow the five tips below to start helping your poor work ethic team members become more productive.
1. Communicate openly and make yourself available
It isn’t always the employee’s fault that they are performing poorly. It’s a manager’s job to give them the guidance they need to do well. You can only do proper performance management through great communication.
Sit down with each member of your team that isn’t doing well and tell them what’s going on. Try to figure out what’s stopping them from upping their game and figure out what you can do to help. The more you understand your team’s motivations, the better you can give them what they need to succeed.
You also need to make it clear that your employees can come to you for any problems they have. A lot of the time, employees may not feel comfortable reaching out to management when they have issues. Make sure they feel comfortable reaching out so you can remove any obstacles they have that are causing problems.
2. Provide training and advancement opportunities
Are members of your team still doing the same thing they were years ago? Chances are they’re bored and need something different to do. Most people enjoy a good challenge.
Talk with your poor-performing employees to see if there are any other roles that they would be interested in taking on. A new challenge may be what they need to start being productive again.
But what about cases where they just aren’t doing well? Make sure that they have the resources they need to get better. Provide training to these people so they can get the skills they need.
3. Use performance rewards
Nobody likes to feel like the cog in a wheel. When your team doesn’t feel like their work is valuable, then what reason do they have to do a great job?
You can fix this by providing performance rewards for good work. You can do this in a few ways:
- Gift cards
- Company picnics
- Company retreats
- Bonuses
- Free lunches
- Free tickets
You don’t have to stick with the usual rewards, either. Get creative and give your team something interesting to look forward to. A little goodwill goes a long way.
4. Put performance tools in place
If you aren’t taking advantage of the tools available today, then you’re missing out on a lot of productivity. There are a lot of project and task management tools available today that can keep your team on track and productive.
The first place to start is project management. A good project management software will provide a central location to manage projects and tasks for your team. You can use it to see exactly how productive each member of your team is.
Once you have the metrics from your management software, you can dig in to see which team members aren’t performing. Sit down with them and put together target performance goals that they need to reach.
5. Ultimately, be prepared to let people go
It’s never a good feeling to let someone go from your company. Believe it or not, firing people is one of the worst parts of the job for many bosses. But if you’ve tried the tips above and still aren’t getting results, then it’s something that you do need to think about.
Underperformance can kill projects. You need to fill your team with people willing to put in the work. You can’t train everyone to be a good worker, so you need to find those people quickly and move on.
Getting your team on track takes work
Managing a team isn’t a simple process. You have to deal with conflicting personalities and find a way to encourage everyone to do their best. The above tips are only the start, so start taking action to begin engaging your team today.
