by Mark McClahahan
For most companies, it’s time to finalize plans and goals for the New Year. During this time, you should be looking for ways to increase team performance. High performance teams are not easy to build. Time and energy is needed on the part of leaders and their employees. Kevin Eichner, President of Ottawa University and former CEO of Enterprise Bank & Trust, taught me years ago the importance of creating a high performance team through employee development plans and supporting metrics. I found the beginning of a New Year to be an excellent time to focus on this.
At Mosby, we have a collaborative process. The manager and the direct have high level discussions regarding objectives for the upcoming year. We discuss and create employee development plans that stretch individual’s performances beyond where they are currently. Areas to concentrate on include building skills, increasing knowledge, developing new behaviors, and accomplishing special projects.
For each of these areas, we establish SMART goals. We track employee performance in a spreadsheet that lists milestones, action plans, resources, target dates, and status updates. Once these are established, we monitor progress via three performance reviews each business year. These reviews allow managers to actively support their associates in accomplishing their objectives.
At the end of the year, we take a final performance measurement and pay an incentive based on how well he or she did. There are three levels of performance: Threshold, Target, and Exceeds Expectations. The incentive is determined as a percentage of the employee’s base salary and can range anywhere from 3% to 15%. The different performance levels then affect the final amount paid.
I have found that these planning and measuring processes are excellent tools in developing a high performance team.
Mark McClanahan (mmcclanahan@callmosby.com or 314.909.1800) is the president at Mosby Building Arts.
Submitted 8 years 339 days ago