15 HR Strategies to Improve Your Business Performance

 

Studies show many employees are dissatisfied in their workplaces. Employee dissatisfaction, of course, will adversely affect a company’s performance.

In fact, a 2010 Hewitt Associates study indicated employee engagement is at an historical low – well, at least since the firm began researching the issue in the mid-1990s.

A lack of employee engagement means:

• Higher costly turnover
• Less focus on customer service
• Less productivity
• Weak profits.

In the UK, employees of family-operated companies have better employee relationships than other businesses. A University of Birmingham study concludes family business workers – 21 percent of the workforce – are more loyal. They are more engaged with their employers, show more commitment and have higher morale.

Another consulting firm, Mercer, concluded in its 2011 global study that 33 percent of U.S. workers are thinking about quitting their employers. Forty percent of millennials are also considering a job change.

There are countless other human resources studies with similar findings.

Higher pay and benefits are important to workers. But they’re not the greatest motivators, and employees often have more salient concerns.

So, the key is to take steps that lead to higher employee morale and performance. The bottom-line question for you: Do your employees mirror what you expect?

Assuming you’ve hired the best talent in terms of attitude, to improve your business performance, here are 15 HR strategies:

1. Be authentic, not a patronizing employer.
2. Walk the floor twice a day to engage your staff. Show empathy. Ask questions, such as “How are you?”
3. Demonstrate your listening skills with open-ended questions. (“What is the dumbest thing you are on which you’re working?” or “Where is the company wasting resources – in time or money?”)
4. Communicate what the company is doing and how it’s performing.
5. Help employees to understand how they contribute to your bottom line. Show them your company-wide objectives and how their work contributes to your company’s performance.
6. Give workers a purpose with challenges.
7. Without being verbose, teach them how you think and why.
8. Create collegial teams of workers without micromanaging them.
9. Make employees a CEO of their work. Empower them to contribute ideas and allow them as much autonomy as feasible to make decisions.
10. Encourage each employee to be customer-focused.
11. Immediately, show appreciation for good work and counsel employees following sub-par work.
12. Budget for development and training.
13. Show flexibility to enhance employee balance for career and personal life.
14. Establish an employee assistance program. Do what you can to help eliminate the employees’ stress factors so they can have maximum focus on their responsibilities. That includes financial tips. As my dad once told me: “It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you bring home.”
15. Employees know who their toxic co-workers are. Don’t let the toxic workers hurt your workplace environment.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are more management suggestions:

• 20 Tell-Tale Signs – If You’re Under-Performing as a Manager
• 21 Quick Tips to Avoid the Dark Side of Management
• Human Resources – Profit By Not Letting Your Stars Become Free Agents
• Boss Checklist: 16 Strategies for a Competitive Edge
• Human Resources: 12 Errors to Avoid in Evaluations 

“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”

-Peter Drucker 

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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.