11 years ago
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by
Shawna Kreis ·
Comments Off on Employee Advocacy: Key performance indicators to follow and set goals around
The employees you hire are the ones that you think will do their jobs to their best ability with the result being that your business reaps the benefits. Knowing how to determine that your employees’ actions are furthering your company’s success, though, is another matter completely. Use the following key performance indicators (KPIs) to set goals and assess actions.
Goal Oriented
Key performance indicators will likely vary depending on the individual business as well as the industry. For example, if you are in a service-oriented industry, you might have the goal of providing customers with service within a certain window of time while also completing the desired service to the customer’s satisfaction. Your KPIs would need to measure these factors to determine if they are being met.
Measurable
KPIs have to be measurable both in quality and quantity. You have to be able to measure that which you want to manage. A good example is customer service, an aspect that exists in almost every industry and one that is important to nearly every business. Being able to quantify good customer service means that you have to be able to measure whether a customer is satisfied rather than their degrees of satisfaction.
Linkable
There is no doubt that it is important for your employees to come to work each day. However, their attendance might not be correlated to their performance in the field when it comes to handling your customers or completing a repair in a timely manner that meets the customer’s expectations, for example.
Using KPIs as a way to fine-tune goals and focus strategies is the ideal method of ensuring that all your employees are performing those actions that are most likely to help you reach your goals.
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11 years ago
·
by
Shawna Kreis ·
Comments Off on Employee Advocacy: Strategies to boost employee participation
It is no secret that your employees are you most valuable asset, but do they know that? As the lines between professional and personal life become even blurrier with each passing day — thanks in large part to social media — it is crucial to your business’s success to harness the power and knowledge of your happy employees. Here are some ideas to get them more involved in the process.
1. Encourage your employees to own your company. Employees who feel like they are part of the success of a business are more likely to engage in positive social media interactions about that company. Position your employees as thought leaders within your business as well as the industry.
2. Trust your employees. When you use your employees to engage on social media platforms about your business, you are handing over a certain amount of trust to them. While that can be difficult to do — and, yes, sometimes it does backfire — because they are your employees, encouraging them to be advocates for your brand brings an increase in respectability as well as trust from those who are reading their postings.
3. Allow employees to have free reign. When people post about a company, it has a different feel than when the owners do so. There is a more intimate feeling involved when one of your employees posts to their friend’s timeline, for example, about how her employer — your business — offers the exact services he finds himself in need of. This casual and friendly interaction helps your business name and brand reach a larger audience, a methodology that has proven to increase sales and profits.
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Companies usually use some type of employee performance evaluation to assess successes and gaps in performance and convey these assessments to employees. Although this might be helpful, it’s not enough. If you want your employees to be more engaged and productive, you need to understand their intrinsic motivations.
To do this, consider adding these questions to the employee performance review conversation. (Notice that we use the word “feel” a lot because it’s the employee’s emotions that should concern you.):
- How do you feel about your job?
- How do you feel about the direction of the company?
- Do you feel that you have improved your skills over the last year?
- To what extent do you feel that you have grown as a person while working for us during the past year?
- What do you feel is the most valuable thing you do at work?
- Where do feel you can add more value to the company?
- Out of curiosity, have you looked at other job opportunities or are you completely satisfied here? If not, what would it take to satisfy you?
- Do you feel you’re being paid fairly? If not, what do you feel you should get paid and what do you base that on?
- Do you feel we have exhibited a management style that’s caring and supportive? If not, how can we do a better job of this?
- Is there anything that we haven’t spoken about that feels unfair to you and might get in the way of our working relationship or your success at this company?
- Is there anything else you would like to share that we haven’t talked about?
These are brave questions to ask because most managers really don’t want to dive into the emotional landscape – which is a big mistake. As Daniel Goldman reminds us in Emotional Intelligence, it’s your E.Q., not your I.Q., that’s most important to becoming a great leader or manager.
Consider having this conversation outside of your office where it might feel safer for the employee. For example, “Now that we’ve discussed your performance I like to have a little deeper conversation about your work here and I don’t want to do it in the office. Where would you like to go talk about this? “
You don’t have to buy this idea wholesale. Test it out. Play social scientist and begin with just one employee. Let him or her know that you’re opening up to a more meaningful conversation; and that because you’ve never tried this before it will be a learning experience for both of you!
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