The New Year can often function as a fresh start. It gives your team a chance to evaluate their previous performance and set goals for the next year. If you felt your team wasn’t working up to their potential, it is also a chance to set the bar high in regards to your expectations.
So, how do you make a big shift without overwhelming your team? By following these tips below.
Be Specific
If you want to inspire change, you need to be clear about what it will entail. And that requires details. For example, the idea of improving customer satisfaction is too general; it could mean something different to every team member. However, improving your customer feedback score by 10 percent is a more concrete expectation that still fits with the original goal idea.
Face (Reasonable) Challenges
Just because the goals need to be specific doesn’t mean they can’t be big challenges. The most important part is to make sure they are actually attainable. Building off of the previous example, raising a customer feedback score by 10 percent is likely attainable, but achieving a perfect feedback score may be asking too much. Depending on the scoring system, even perfectly satisfied customers may not provide a perfect score, and asking your team to work toward the impossible is more likely to frustrate than inspire.
Make Goals Measurable
There needs to be a method for monitoring progress and a way to choose reasonable benchmarks that show things are moving in the right direction. Often, this means choosing targets that involve numbers. For example, landing one new client a week or improving sales by 20 percent can all be monitored in a meaningful and concrete way. There is no room for interpretation, as the numbers tell the whole story.
Keep Time on Your Side
Along with measurable benchmarks, you want to set a timetable for these goals to be reached. This helps with planning efforts and is a way to keep everyone on the same page. Failing to give a timeframe for key aspects of the goal means that everyone might be working with a different timetable in mind. And, having your team working off of assumptions could create conflict instead of cohesion.
Incentives and Rewards
Many managers see employee pay as enough of a reward to keep their team motivated. While salary is a big incentive, sometimes you have to add incentives to help get everyone excited to move forward.
Now, that doesn’t mean the rewards need to be expensive. Everything from openly expressing appreciation to ordering everyone pizza for lunch can help keep your team motivated. The idea is to demonstrate your appreciation for the progress being made as it lets your team know that their hard work isn’t going unnoticed.
Staff Properly
If your team needs a new member, take care to choose someone who can help everyone reach your new goals. Look for candidates that can fill skill gaps or fit into the plan with ease. That way, you can choose applicants based on their ability to help everyone move forward instead of risking being held back.
Are you looking for top IT talent?
If you are looking for a new technical employee for your team, Resolution Technologies can find the candidates you need to meet your goals. Contact us today and speak to one of our skilled recruitment specialists to see how our experience can work for you.
