It’s important to monitor employee performance for obvious reasons. Profits literally depend on this simple metric. Unfortunately, many managers approach monitoring in a way that involves looking for fault, rather than inspiring their team.
Far from creating the supportive workplace, you need to succeed, this will harbor a culture of fear. As well as leading to high employee turnover, this pressurized approach could result in decreased outputs and poorer performance in the long run.
Does that mean you should leave employees entirely to their own devices? Of course not. But, you could turn monitoring into an inspiring process, rather than an incapacitating pressure, by simply doing the following.
Prioritize reward instead of punishment
If you call out poor performance rather than highlighting success, you’re doing monitoring wrong. After all, if a colleague has worked exceptionally without recognition, and then makes one mistake that you jump on, they won’t stick around
To avoid this, it’s always worth prioritizing reward over punishment during monitoring. Simple things, like offering a monthly award to your best seller, or even additional days off for the best-performing teams, can be just as impactful for eliminating mistakes. Only, it’s a positive take on an issue that could see teams performing well for the credit, rather than struggling to achieve because they’re terrified of what you’ll do when they don’t.
Use Analytics tools in the right way
CRM analytics tools like Zoho can be great for providing real-time monitoring of things like individual sales targets and employee performance. Unfortunately, these potentially unrepresentative figures can also prove debilitating or down-heartening to employees who are working hard and still falling short of static figures.
This could ultimately harm performance and is something you can overcome by reassessing your use of these tools with the help of services such as ZBrains Zoho consulting. By consulting with knowledgeable software experts, you can tailor more positive monitoring focuses, which might include less personalized team or location-based targets. Equally, consultants could help to adjust settings so you can analyze data for longer periods. This may provide a far more favorable, pressure-free idea of genuine performance that’s unskewed by things that tend to be out of employee control, like awkward clients in the moment.
Be actionable with your feedback
Even if you’re taking a reward-centric approach to monitoring from now on, there will be instances where you have a responsibility to pick up on continued mistakes, or repeated poor performance. But, instead of seeing this as a punishment, take it as a learning opportunity.
Everyone wants to do well at work, after all, and if that’s not happening, then a lack of knowledge or understanding is typically to blame. If you dress that employee down and then send them on their way, no one wins. Instead, constructively address your concerns, and work with that employee towards actionable improvements, such as additional training courses, buddying up with a senior colleague, and so on.
Employee monitoring can feel like a minefield. Make sure it doesn’t explode by turning the tides with these useful tips.
