If you’ve read our blog, How to Identify Your High and Low Performers, then you may have already begun learning who each of your team members are. Now how do you work with them and maximize their level of performance?
The goal here isn’t to turn everyone into a high-achiever, unless you’ve identified someone in an entry-level position seeking to grow. Our mission is to do our best to make our teammates feel happy, rewarded, fulfilled, and know they are producing results that make an impact. Note, the tips ahead do not include waffle parties, mugs with your logo, or dry-fit polo shirts.
Let us begin.
How to Work with a High-Performer
Give these team members a critical task. Frequently send them to or sign them up for trainings, courses, research and making strategic plans. Explain the problems to them and give them a follow-up date to discuss a solution. Get them involved in private conversations (or briefed on) to keep them fired up.
These types should feel personally involved in the integrity of a business. If so, they will produce even greater results and deeply understand quieter moments when emergencies are at rest.
Your greatest challenge is to work around potential emotional defensiveness if any negative feedback is given or they need approval. As with many people we encounter in our everyday lives, sugar coating may be necessary. However, a high-achiever can easily sense when the full truth is not provided and can feel disrespected. Your best bet is to give your honest feedback and allow them the space to develop their emotional maturity, if they choose to. How they respond days later is how you know if you’re dealing with a level 1, 2, or 3 high-performer. The higher, the more involved they can be with your confidential challenges.
How to Work with a Low Performer
Costly turnovers are more likely to happen with these types. These positions usually include temps, interns, apprentices, assistants, substitutes, or entry-level administrative positions. They can be in any industry that involves hosting (at a restaurant), cashier (at a store), or janitorial. While it’s easy to stereotype these positions in a negative way, nothing could be far from the truth. These are extremely important workers, but do they know it?
Your job is to make sure they know it. As you operate as a high-achiever, you are not to forget about those “at the bottom”. They are to be treated with as much respect as you’d give anyone. Be sure to check in with them and be available should they have questions or concerns. Consider these folks as the ones who keep you humble. Just because they perform less crucial tasks, doesn’t mean they aren’t important. If they get your attention and respect, they will do their job better than anyone else.
With that, there is still a risk that the person you hired for lower-performing tasks does not come with a strong work ethic. Sometimes these folks just want a paycheck and only work for you because you are the one who hired them out of many applications. They may find another job when bored, get a second or third job (which can deter focus on performance with your agency), and find the easiest way around getting the job done.
What you can do is identify your top low-performers. You can maximize their efforts, let the lower low-performers go, or increase your budget for turnovers and the rehiring process. Your high low-performers do an excellent job at their role, may or may not seek to grow, and appear to be communicative and overall happy. They’re also the ones who’ve stuck by you during hard times.
How to Work with Mid-Performers
These folks are self-driven and tend to be people-pleasers. Before you give them any leadership tasks, make sure they know how to get proper feedback (not just positive), say no, and control their emotions. They may not be ready for confidential discussions, but at the same time, they do not require to know to appreciate a business’s integrity. They’ll perform their best simply because you asked and they have dignity.
If you have a committee project, a new and urgent task, research to be done, or event to organize, these are your people to take charge. They easily know how to delegate, manage, and report findings.
Your job is to know boundaries. It’s very easy to identify a mid-performer as a high-achiever, but don’t be too hasty. Mid-performers also come with pride but may not have the experience to emotionally understand. Identify who of your mid-performers are the highest, and who is the lowest, and divvy up the tasks based on the level of confidentiality, urgency, and value.
Mid-performance is a tier level position – each performer should get the opportunity to level-up based on where they are standing currently. In a nutshell, not all, but most mid-performers seek to be a high-achiever. For those who don’t expect them to retire working with you.
Team management is no walk in the park. Evaluating every performer on your roster is like looking at a family tree, with branches stemming from branch to branch. All serve a purpose, and all make up the tree – feeding it, nourishing it, and helping it grow. Your job is to make sure the tree doesn’t fall over. How? Make sure every branch is healthy, if it’s not, nurse it or prune it back so the other branches can grow and the tree can flourish.