Are you looking to fill vacancies in your organization? Having a hard time finding the right people? There’s a war for talent going on in the marketplace. There are not enough people to fill all the openings in your business. Your best prospects for employment are your competitor’s best people, but the reverse is also true.
It’s not enough to be effective or efficient to play on your team, you need both. An effective employee will produce what you want and an efficient employee will produce maximum output while minimizing wasted time or money. That combination of production is what makes an employee great.
JW Marriott said “If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers and your business will take care of itself.”
Employees who are either ineffective or inefficient will usually lengthen cycle times in your sales, production, delivery and payment cycles or make mistakes or create redundancies that will either cost you time or money or both.
From management’s point of view you may want to consider the following:
- Get rid of motivation killers, toxic people, abrasive personalities, poor communication systems and absence of opportunities for professional development
- Make it a game, use of rewards, leader boards or rankings and challenges to add a play dimension to aspects of a business operation
- Set clear goals and provide feedback. Employees will be more motivated if they know what they are expected to achieve.
In addition, you may want to review your hiring practices and insert the following practices if you don’t do this already:
- Clearly define what it will take to be successful in the position
- Test your candidates
- Include others in the hiring process
Having people that are effective and efficient will improve your bottom line dramatically. All of us have experienced how replacing key people can be a huge disruption to business. Making an accurate assessment of your workplace to be sure you don’t have any motivation killers and improving your hiring processes will go a long way to making your organization more successful.
