Team members are the heart of any organization. They ensure the key parts of your business run like a well-oiled machine. Therefore, tracking team performance is key to keeping people engaged and motivated to achieve excellence daily.
Below is a detailed guide on how to monitor team performance. For questions related to this topic or others, reach out to the CMOE team.
Why Is it Important to Monitor and Evaluate Team Performance?
Monitoring and evaluating team performance is important because it enhances the following key business areas:
Growth
Tracking team performance allows employees to grow and improve in their roles.
It also helps employees:
- Engage in constructive feedback. Feedback goes a long way toward building healthy relationships between members of the workforce. It also fosters engagement; team members are three times more engaged when they receive daily feedback.
- Establish accountability. When all team members create goals and understand their expectations, they are more likely to commit to their work. This dedication will push them to grow and reach their full potential.
Data-Driven Decisions
Analyzing and monitoring team performance by using CMOE’s team alignment tool and processes gives you hard numbers that help you gain insights into essential team intel:
- Your team’s strengths and weaknesses
- How processes, management styles, or coaching programs can be improved
- How teams can proactively optimize their performance
Research illustrates that data-driven businesses are
- Three times more likely to report improved decision-making.
- 23 times more likely to acquire new customers.
- 19 times more likely to be profitable.
Purpose
Having a sense of purpose in one’s role affects employee happiness: Nine out of 10 employees would be willing to work for less money if it meant they could do work that is more meaningful to them.
Monitoring and assessing team performance and objectives helps bring the purpose of a person’s role into greater focus because team members understand how the work they do contributes to the team’s overall success. Not to mention, by understanding where individuals need to improve, you can lead and coach your team members with greater intention and impact.
Fifty-two percent of purpose-driven businesses earn over 10 percent growth. This growth may manifest in some or all of the following ways:
- Global market expansion
- Increased product launches
- Success in transformation change initiatives
Visibility
Tracking performance gives your team a bird’s-eye view of all objectives in relation to benchmarks. This helps to eliminate any guesswork on how your team members are progressing. This visibility bolsters transparency and communication across teams.
6 Effective Ways to Monitor and Improve Team Performance
Business leaders can successfully monitor and improve team performance by executing the following six initiatives:
1. Set Relevant Goals
Research shows that teams who set goals can experience 20 to 25 percent improved work performance. Meet with each team member and establish relevant individual, departmental, or team-wide goals.
Goals should follow the SMART framework:
- Specific (What needs to be accomplished?)
- Measurable (What metrics will you monitor to ensure the specific goal is completed?)
- Aligned (Is the goal aligned with business/team/individual objectives?)
- Realistic (Is the goal doable?)
- Timely (Can the goal be achieved within the desired timeframe?)
Think about both short- and long-term initiatives that your team or business is working on. What types of goals apply to these strategies? These goals can be team- or- individually focused depending on each person’s learning and development objectives.
Once you have identified a goal, help your team craft a goal statement that hits each SMART point listed above.
Read more about setting SMART goals.
2. Establish Relevant Milestones
Milestones are smaller subgoals that
- Show progress or growth.
- Help team members get closer to accomplishing their goals.
- Help individuals stay committed to their goals.
Assist your team in setting relevant milestones by breaking up an objective into smaller steps.
For example, if a person’s goal is to create an in-house workflow process guide, they might want to include the following milestones:
- Holding meetings with key stakeholders
- Producing a draft of the guide
- Receiving feedback on the guide from colleagues
- Revising the guide as necessary
Each milestone should have a hard deadline.
3. Track Key Performance Indicators
Making data-driven decisions is essential to business success. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the linchpin to making that a reality.
Below are a few examples of key performance metrics to consider tracking. Keep in mind that KPIs vary across teams depending on the objectives they are striving to achieve. Therefore, be sure the metrics you establish complement the needs of your staff.
- Quality of work: How consistent is quality across team members? Qualitative feedback from customers and peers via 360-degree feedback will help you attain this data. For example, you can request that customers provide a numerical satisfaction score (e.g., “On a scale of 1–10, how likely are you to promote this product?”). You can also track the percentage of projects managers reject to assess the quality of work.
- Productivity: This signifies an employee’s output in a given period of time. Measuring this in relation to quality may be helpful, as quality and quantity often go hand in hand. Depending on the nature of your team’s work, you can measure the percentage of tasks completed on time versus tasks finished late.
- Goals achieved: What percentage of goals did a team member achieve? What percentage of goals did they fail to achieve? Evaluating these numbers can initiate necessary discussions to help staff members find practical solutions to enhancing their performance.
4. Leverage a Monitoring Software
Leverage technology to automate tasks and acquire accurate data on your team’s performance. Using reliable software can remove the guesswork and ensure that your team members are progressing.
Here are some monitoring-software applications to consider:
5. Check In Regularly with Team Members
85 percent of individuals believe trust is key to building a high-performing team, so feedback is crucial to making the right improvements and building team trust.
Successful monitoring of performance entails
- Conducting regular one-on-one meetings. Meet with each team member every week to discuss pain points, concerns, and/or wins. What is and isn’t working when it comes to achieving their milestones and goals? What could be improved when it comes to the way team performance is being monitored and measured?
- Conducting regular team meetings. This allows everyone the opportunity to discuss goals and identify ways to do things better collectively. It also allows for solving any challenges the team faces. That way, everyone can get back on track and focus on achieving their goals.
6. Recognize and Reward
Motivating team members via recognition and reward is vital in helping them achieve their performance goals. After all, 46 percent of workforce members have left their jobs because they felt underappreciated.
Recognition and rewards go a long way in elevating performance and business outcomes; companies that have a recognition program drive an 11.1 percent increase in average workforce performance.
Recognize and reward team members as you’re monitoring their performance by using the methods below:
- Regularly express appreciation for their contributions and hard work. This can be done in a public setting (e.g., company meetings) or privately (e.g., one-on-one meetings or handwritten cards). You can reach out to your team members and ask what type of recognition they’d prefer.
- Share praise from clients/customers. This is a great way to show individuals their efforts and outcomes are making impactful contributions.
- Offer rewards that workforce members prefer. For example, one survey indicated that 44 percent of team members prefer gift cards, while 41 percent prefer being rewarded with a paid trip.
Enhance Team Performance with CMOE
Investing in the development of your workforce begins here. To learn more, look into CMOE’s comprehensive portfolio of Teamwork and Team Development solutions. These resources are intended for all types of teams and individuals seeking to build a high-performance team.
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