Training program for employees and first-line supervisors.

Franklin Business & Law Journal

Volume 2015 Issue 2

Strategies For Improving Individual Performance In The Workplace

Kevin Dutton

And

Brian Kleiner

Department of Management

Mihaylo College of Business and Economics

California State University, Fullerton

Fullerton, CA 92834

Abstract

This paper explores strategies employers use to improve the performance of their

employees. Drawing upon a wide field of research from sociology, organizational behavior, and

management, the paper explores both company wide policies and job specific methods that can

be used to create productive employees. In the increasingly complex and fast paced work

environment that depends on the knowledge worker, managers are finding that success comes

from a well-trained and highly motivated workforce. The key findings of this report show that

establishing a well articulated organizational culture, engaging employees, using performance

evaluations and incentives, and employee training are critical to achieving meaningful results.

Key Words

Employee Performance, Employee Engagement, Motivation, Performance Incentives,

Performance Evaluations, Training

Franklin Business & Law Journal

Volume 2015 Issue 2

Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is the way employees learn to behave and communicate within

their work sphere. (Nidthi Maithel et al., 68) It sets the social norms by which employees live

by, and also communicates the company’s goals, vision, and structure. The organization’s culture

is important to the employee as they learn to assimilate into organization and become productive

members of the group. If the employee fails to assimilate into the group, they will often

experience difficulties adjust into their new environment. The better the match the employer

creates between employee and the organization’s culture, the more success the employee will

experience in the new company.

This assimilation into the group culture begins with the hiring process. Hiring managers

need to appraise not only the employee’s abilities and skills, but whether they are a good fit for

the organization. It is entirely possible to have a completely qualified candidate for a job

position in the company with regards to skill, but a completely unqualified match to the

organizations’ culture. This becomes more important the higher up the company structure you

go, as leaders in the organization become responsible for creating, maintaining, and embodying

the company’s culture. Hiring managers need to keep a long term view of the company, being

careful to not only match employee skills to their job but the employee entire personality and

culture to the company’s culture.

The next phase of utilizing organizational culture to enhance employees work begins

after the initial hire when the employee is first introduced to the company. Inevitably this

“assimilation phase” (Ivancevich, 2011) requires some adjustments on the part of the employee

to adapt to their surroundings. As good of a match that the hiring manager makes, every person

comes to the organization with their own set of communication styles, values, and beliefs. The

employee needs to receive instruction with how things are done and then opportunities to

practice those communication styles and methods of work. Often the new employee is assigned a

mentor who helps to guide the employee as they navigate their new jobs. Feedback is critical to

helping the employee develop their understanding so that they can more closely align their habits

and practices to the organization’s culture. By assimilating the newly hired employee into the

Franklin Business & Law Journal

Volume 2015 Issue 2

company’s culture, the employee will become a productive member of the group and their

performance will improve.

After the employee is adopted into the company and off and running, periodic reviews

and training are necessary to maintain the employee interest and expertise in the company’s

organizational culture. People are naturally influenced by others, and these forces may conflict

with the company’s values and beliefs. It then becomes important to communicate clear vision

and goals to the employees, and for management to embody the culture they hope to nurture in

their subordinates. When Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks returned to the company as

CEO in 2008, seven years after he left the position, he immediately called a national conference

for all the store managers across the United States. Schultz felt that Starbucks was losing its way;

he felt like the company was losing its authenticity, its culture, in the rush for more profits. At

the national conference he hoped to instill a new vision and inspire the store managers to

reconnect with their customer base and promote the culture of the company to their subordinates.

At this time, the economy was in freefall and the company was dipping into the red to put this

conference on but the gamble paid off. Starbucks went from negative sales to positive sales over

the prior year and refocused its employees on the mission of Starbucks—to provide quality

coffee products and connect with its customers on a personal level. The case demonstrates how

critical it is to continually reinforce the company’s culture, and how important the culture is in

creating a recipe for success.

Employee Engagement

Beyond the organizational culture match between employer and employee, employee

engagement has been found to be an equally important factor in creating more efficient and

productive employees. Increasing employee movement, opportunity, and choice have forced the

employer to learn how to engage their employees and keep them engaged. So what is employee

engagement? Put simply, it is the employee’s willingness and ability to help their company

succeed. (Solomon, pg. 1) How does the employee engage its employees? In the Towers Perrin

Talent Report, it was found that the top three drivers of employee engagement are “senior

management's interest in employees' well-being, challenging work, and decision making

authority.” (Solomon, pg. 4)

When the manager is invested in the employee, the employee will more likely be invested

in the manager and what is important to the manager. This reciprocity between the employee and

Franklin Business & Law Journal

Volume 2015 Issue 2

manager mirrors most relationships people have in their lives, where relationship is born out of

giving and receiving. Challenging work is important because it satisfies the needs humans have

to grow and develop. Maslow’s needs hierarchy states that are highest order need is self-

actualization—fulfillment through maximizing our abilities, skills, and potential. (Ivancevich,

2011. pg 123) Challenge by definition stretches a person to perform their very best work.

Oppositely, unchallenging work does not force one to grow and develop. The feeling of being

‘stuck in a rut’ kills motivation and discourages employees to go above and beyond the

requirements of the job. Over time, this discouragement will lead to a loss in productivity and

the possibility of the employee leaving the company for a better opportunity. Decision making

authority is also important to keep the employee engaged because this helps to make the

employee feel valued and involved. (Solomon, pg 6). When the employee is given the

opportunity to help make decisions they are more likely to be invested in the outcome of the

group’s decisions. In effect, the employee takes ownership of the work process and therefore

will work harder to achieve the desired outcomes. Wholefoods takes an innovative approach to

employee decision making where they strive to break down hierarchies and let the employees

make decisions for themselves. Groups of employees are empowered to come together and vote

on important decisions, and upper management tries to stay out of the way. Not surprisingly,

Whole Foods has no unions because its employees are given authority to make decisions among

themselves.

Monetary Strategies

Monetary compensation and rewards play a critical role in employee attitudes,

motivation, and job performance. Consider that the number one factor employees attribute in

their decision accept a job offer or not is the salary they will receive. This is not to say that

employees do not consider non-monetary rewards, just that the savvy manager should

acknowledge that money is a powerful force in driving productivity and increasing performance.

So how does a manager make use of monetary compensation and rewards to improve employee

productivity?

The first critical step to use monetary rewards as an incentive to improve employee

performance is by linking financial reward to performance, otherwise known as “pay for

performance.” (Herman Aguinis et al., pg 244.) In this situation, the employee knows that if

they perform well, they will be rewarded for their hard work. Conversely, if the employee

Franklin Business & Law Journal

Volume 2015 Issue 2

underperforms and does not receive a bonus or pay raise, the manager hopes this will elicit a

change in the employee’s behavior so they will attempt to improve their performance. To

maximize the effectiveness of this concept the manager must be careful when setting up a pay for

performance plan. If the reward is too small, the employee may feel like the incentive is not

worth the trouble. If the reward is too easy to achieve, the discerning employee will likely do the

bare minimum to achieve the reward thus limiting their true productivity levels. In fact, the

employee may begin to feel entitled to that reward regardless of their performance which again

will limit productivity. Bonuses are often more effective for increasing worker productivity

because a large bonus is intuitively easier to work towards than an incremental raise in pay.

Management gets more bang for their buck with bonuses because they motivate the employee to

perform but also keep control of their labor cost. An effective balance is struck when the clear

financial incentives are attached to specific job performance, the performance is achievable with

concerted effort, and the incentive is highly desirable. These incentive plans should be made

available to employees at all levels in the organization.

After a detailed pay for performance plan is organized, managers must follow through on

these plans by rewarding employees in a timely manner. There is no quicker way to breed

disloyalty by promising a raise or bonus and not following through on that promise. Greenberg

and Associates study of motivations behind stealing point out that some employees want to

“even the score.” (Ivancevich, pg 232.) If the employee feels like they were unjustly passed over

on a promotion or bonus, they are much more likely to steal from the organization as an act of

retaliation. On the other hand, when the employee is rewarded promptly for their hard work,

they will feel more loyalty to the organization and work harder. Keeping an open dialogue about

any changes in the methods to calculate those rewards or any changes to the rewards themselves

is also helpful in keeping employees engaged in the process.

Performance Evaluations

Performance evaluations are a necessary component of any employee performance

improvement strategy. The performance evaluation serves multiple functions; first to define the

employees job function and duties, second to assess how well the employee does those duties,

third to identify areas for improvement, and finally to determine whether additional pay or

bonuses are merited. (Shahraji, Majid Ghanbari et al, pg 2.) The evaluation lets the employee

Franklin Business & Law Journal

Volume 2015 Issue 2

know what to do and how well they are doing it. For the manager, the evaluation helps them to

point out good performance and opportunities for further development in their subordinates.

By defining the job functions and duties, employees have a clear idea of what they need

to do on the job. You cannot judge performance unless you have defined what performance

actually is. The manager should make sure the evaluation is detailed and specific so as to

eliminate any confusion the employee may have with regards to their job responsibilities. While

this may seem obvious, with all the demands placed on a manager in a fast paced work

environment, many struggle to make time to clearly communicate all the duties of the job to their

subordinates. The performance evaluation may score the employee as needs improvement under

a category such as communication, but the employee may wonder what good communication

actually is. Specific examples should be brought to bear and written into the evaluation to

increase employees understanding. Setting benchmarks and measured standards are clear ways to

make performance evaluations understandable. The employee should come out of the

performance evaluation knowing exactly what is expected of them to perform at their best level.

Assessing the employee’s actual performance against the prescribed duties and

responsibilities is the next step in using evaluations to improve employee performance. Again,

the manager needs to use specific examples to illustrate where an employee performed an

assigned task well and where they fell short. One successful strategy managers use is to write

down positive and negative examples of employee behavior when they see it happen. Then

when the manager sits down to write up the evaluation, they can draw upon those notes rather

than relying on their memory. The evaluator is often tempted to only point out the areas where

the employee did not perform up to their expectations. However, praise and recognition are

equally important in this process. One effective way to bring balance to the performance process

is to call out successful work the employee did before leveling any critiques.

The last area where the performance evaluations can be used to motivate employee

performance are the incentives managers attach to them. Beyond the affirmation of a job well

done, employees are motivated to perform if they know that their performance will result in

tangible benefits. It is a common feeling for employees to feel little enthusiasm for the

performance evaluation if they feel like the evaluation will not help them in any way. A cursory

“exceeds expectations” may be nice to hear, but a cash bonus tied to that mark motivates the

employee to improve in their work performance.

Franklin Business & Law Journal

Volume 2015 Issue 2

Training

Training is the most practical method to improve employee performance. On top of

general job training, managers should use the performance evaluations to identify areas of

opportunity for employees to improve and then use targeted training in those areas. In a study of

APFSC employees about training, over 90% of employee attributed training to increasing their

ability to perform their jobs. (Shahraji, Majid Ghanbari, pg. 3) In fact, those employees rated on

the job training as the number one factor in improving their job performance. In light of these

findings, employers should make every attempt to develop a continuous training program for

their employees.

Training programs should be specific to employee’s performance evaluations so as to

address the weaknesses of employees. While blanket training programs are often helpful in

raising the knowledge and skill level of the organization as a whole, a lot of time is wasted on

those employees who may need training in other areas. Since employees come to the workplace

with varied skills levels and competence, the onus is on the employer to recognize each

individual strengths and weakness and tailor the company training to those findings. However,

sometimes employers are forced to prioritize key areas that they need to develop in their

employees first before they can take a holistic approach to the employees needs. If time and

money are key limiting factors in employee training programs, employers should focus on value

added skills and train in these areas first. Training is a large part of labor costs so targeting these

key areas is essential to organizational efficiency.

Training is important at all levels of an organization. Appropriate weight should be given

to manager and supervisor training, as mid/upper level managers are absolutely essential to

improving employee performance. Special consideration should also be given to employees who

may not be managers but are leaders in their department. These unofficial leaders are often

instrumental in motivating the workforce because of the unique position they have. Outside the

confines of the manager/subordinate relationship, these employees have the trust and ear of their

co-workers. If management is able to tap the full potential of these leaders than those leaders in

turn will help to raise the level of the people they work with.

Conclusion

Improving employee performance remains a critical area of study in the field of

organizational behavior. Since the decline of manufacturing jobs and the increase of service

Franklin Business & Law Journal

Volume 2015 Issue 2

based industries, managers are finding that the success of their business hinge on hiring and

developing knowledge workers. Increased choice and mobility in the modern workforce makes

establishing an attractive work culture essential in retaining top talent. Engaging the employee

will motivate the employee to perform at their best level. Offering competitive monetary

incentives related to performance and then successfully measuring employee performance is also

critical to increasing productivity. Following employee evaluations with specific and targeted

training then further enhances the workers value. By relying on these strategies, organizations

will experience a happier, more motivated workforce with improved performance.

Works Cited

Brockner, J., & Guare, J. (1983). Improving the Performance of Low Self-Esteem Individuals:

An Attributional Approach. Academy Of Management Journal, 26(4), 642-656.

doi:10.2307/255912.

Hynes, G. E. (2012). Improving Employees’ Interpersonal Communication Competencies: A

Qualitative Study. Business Communication Quarterly, 75(4), 466-475.

doi:10.1177/1080569912458965.

Kearney, W. J. (1978). IMPROVING WORK PERFORMANCE THROUGH APPRAISAL.

Human Resource Management (Pre-1986), 17(2), 15. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/223824703?accountid=9840

Ivancevich, John M. Konopaske, Robert., Matteson, Michael T.,et al (2011). Organizational

Behavior and Management. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.

Markos, S., & Sridevi, M. S. (2010). Employee engagement: The key to improving performance.

International Journal of Business and Management, 5(12), 89-96. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/821639765?accountid=9840

Manasa, K. L., & Reddy, N. (2009). Role of Training in Improving Performance. IUP Journal Of

Soft Skills, 3(3/4), 72-80.

Franklin Business & Law Journal

Volume 2015 Issue 2

Maithel, N., Chaubey, D. S., & Gupta, D. (2012). Impact of Organization Culture on Employee

Motivation and Job Performance. International Journal Of Research In Commerce And

Management, 3(5), 68-73.

Shahraji, M. G., Rashidipanah, M., Soltaninasanb, R., Golroudbari, M. P., Tavakoli, A.,

Khorshidifard, S., . . . Ghahramanpour, A. (2012). Approaches of performance evaluation

in organizations. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 4(8),

620-625. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/1282292285?accountid=9840

Young, G. J., Beckman, H. and Baker, E. (2012), Financial incentives, professional values and

performance: A study of pay-for-performance in a professional organization. J. Organiz.

Behav., 33: 964–983. doi: 10.1002/job.1770

Copyright of Franklin Business & Law Journal is the property of Franklin Publishing Company and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.