Five ways to improve employee performance by Chris Smith

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When you run your own business, one of the most consistent and
common causes of sleepless nights and commercial hardship is the
people you employ.
Sometimes they become disengaged (it happens). Sometimes
you find yourself with an employee who’s simply not performing.
Or, worse, you might have unintentionally created a dysfunctional
workplace.
All of these scenarios have a negative effect on productivity and will
reduce employee ROI, simply making your life less fun… and less
happy. No one wants that!
Figuring out how to manage staff effectively and supportively is a
critical part of being a good business owner and is something that
can make or break your business.
Chris Smith is the CEO and Founder of Happy HR. He sits on
numerous boards in and beyond the HR space, and he’s on a
mission to help the small businesses of the world create happy and
productive workplaces.

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This CHEAT SHEET follows Chris Smith’s ‘5 ways to improve
employee performance.’
They are:
1. Know your mission and vision
2. Get your contracts in order
3. Get your HR policies in order
4. Draft your position descriptions
5. Regular performance reviews (love the ones you’re with)
WHAT IS EMPLOYEE ROI?
Every business owner wants to run a leaner organisation. This
means maximising the productivity of staff. Having a smaller
number of employees who are productive and fully invested
in the business is much more cost efficient than having a large
number of employees who are less engaged. For example, an
organisation with one million dollars of turnover and 10 staff
is operating more efficiently than an organisation with the
same turnover and 20 staff. In the first scenario, the Return-
On-Investment is higher. This is a metric that far too business
owners don’t pay enough attention to.

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1.Know your MISSION and VISION
Your MISSION and VISION is the beacon of your business, and every
business needs a beacon, just like every sports team needs to share
the same end goal.
Almost all businesses throw around the terms ‘mission statement’
and ‘vision statement,’ but it is important to take the time to sit
down and really flesh out what you want the MISSION and VISION
for your organization to be.
There is a difference between the MISSION and VISION of your
business.
Your MISSION is all about the why. Why did you start your business
in the first place? What is the broader goal you seek to reach for
your staff and clients? It’s about more than turnover or dollars and
cents. It’s something that everyone should feel proud to embrace.
Your VISION is all about your aspirations, ambitions and tactical
goals. What do you want your business to look like in five years,
for example. What steps are you taking to get closer and closer to
achieving that VISION?

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Finally, if your VISION is in alignment with your MISSION, you are on
the right path.
Having a clear mission and vision also makes life easier when it
comes to making decisions. If your decision doesn’t fit with your
MISSION and VISION, don’t do it.
Having a clear MISSION and VISION, and articulating what they
are to your staff, is crucial to good business leadership. Without a
common set of goals, employees don’t know what they are working
toward. And that’s when staff become distracted and demotivated.
Remember, people leave bosses, not businesses. And the first goal
of the boss is to set the MISSION and the VISION.
ACTION
Sit down, perhaps with a cup of coffee, and brainstorm what
you want the MISSION and VISION of your business to be. What
values are important to you? Why did you start this journey in
the first place? Based on where you are today, where do you
want to be tomorrow? Start with single words and grow them
into paraphrases and sentences.

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2.Get your contracts in order
A good employment contract is about ensuring that you are
governing your employees properly, in accordance with labour
legislation and to reflect your commercial goals.
These contracts can cover a wide range of topics, such as
privacy, protection of intellectual property, moral rights and non-
competition.
An employment contract is a two-way street.
It’s a plan to protect both the business and the employee, now and
in the future.
It’s, therefore, important to take the time, as a business owner or
manager, to include clauses in your contracts that are fair to your
employees if they leave, but also that protect remaining staff.
Remember, when one person leaves, it’s your first duty to protect
the people that are still with you.
While it may seem like a lot of work on the front end to create
detailed employment contracts, it can save you considerable

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headaches and legal battles later on if you are able to map all of
your expectations and have them clearly communicated in writing.
Most importantly, if staff members don’t understand or appreciate
what is expected of them, this can prompt them to second guess
management and even suspect that the leadership team does not
have their best interests at heart.
ACTION
Do some basic research. You have three options: dive deep
into state and federal government websites, hire a lawyer or
investigate an HR management solution, like Happy HR.
DID YOU KNOW?
Online HR management solutions, like Happy HR, already have
most types of contracts readily available on file as templates.
By taking advantage of existing resources (rather than trying to
re-invent the wheel), small business owners can adhere to best
practice without the need for expensive lawyers.
Want a template contract? CLICK HERE.

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3.Get your HR policies in order
HR policies are an essential part of any successful business.
However, this is one area far too often neglected by small business
owners, at their own peril.
HR policies are designed to address expectations… what is
appropriate or inappropriate behavior… How to dress, treat each
other and much more.
Although some policies might seem like no-brainers, making them
official will help deter bad behaviour that could simply be a result
of laziness or ignorance.
For example, having policies about what is appropriate behaviour
on social media is fast becoming an important area to regulate. Yet,
this was not the case 10 years ago.
Here’s another… Is it appropriate for your staff to bring their dogs
to work? Most businesses will have around 40 to 50 policies that
cover a range of employee expectations. This might seem extreme,
but staff want you to set expectations.
When creating your HR policies, keep in mind your organisation’s
mission and vision statements. If your policies are in alignment

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with these overarching goals, it will give them more legitimacy and
sincerity.
As a business owner or manager, it might be tempting to create an
HR policy simply based on your own personal biases or pet peeves.
Perhaps you don’t like earrings on men. But would your decision to
ban earrings reflect the expectations of your staff?
However, in other situations, having a strict dress code might be
necessary. For example, if you run a meatpacking business, you
may very well need to create an HR policy banning earrings on both
men and women for food sanitation purposes.
When creating HR policies, make sure each policy is created with
a specific purpose in mind and is based on the betterment of your
organisation as a whole, not on your own personal grievances.
ACTION
Write down the 10 ways that staff behaviours annoy you the most.
Circle the ones that represent inappropriate behaviours, according
to the values of the company and the expectations of co-workers.
(The rest will usually represent your personal bias. Once you’ve
acknowledged these, get over them! And move on.)
HOT TIP
Looking for HR Policies?
Need some inspiration?
CLICK HERE.

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4.Draft your position descriptions
Ineffective position descriptions lead to an ineffective business.
Many people write position descriptions that are either far too
long and overcomplicated or far too short and incomplete. Some
businesses even recycle the same description for 10 years and,
in that time, the description comes to no longer the reflect the
requirements of the role today.
How is this position functioning right now, and what is it doing
to help its department and the business achieve its operational
outcomes? (Of course, this ties back to mission and vision.)
For example, the position of a salesperson is often a challenging
role to manage. How should you ensure that the position
description and the KPI for this role are measurable and effective?
You might say this person needs to make ‘x’ number of calls per day
and, from there, set up ‘x’ number of meetings per day – ‘meeting’
being defined as communicating with someone who is the director
of an organisation and who can make a binding decision.

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The KPI might say this person needs to close at least 50 percent
of those meetings per month. This is how you set a KPI and an
effective measure to track the KPI.
The position description and KPI are things that should be
discussed with your employees, rather than imposed on them.
You must communicate with your staff to make sure that the KPIs
are challenging, but achievable. Having unrealistic KPIs will simply
lead to staff disengagement.
Hold a meeting in which you discuss with your staff how you plan
to evaluate them, and ask for their input as well.
ACTION
This requires three layers: The PD is a plan. It must outline a clear
GOAL or destination. To get there, we have KPIs. But KPIs must
also be supported by EFFECTIVE MEASURES.

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5.Regular performance reviews
(love the ones you’re with)
At the end of the day, people like to know if they’re doing a good
or a bad job. They like to know that they are making a difference
where they work.
Having clear performance indicators, that you’ve already agreed
upon with your staff and that everyone views as fair, will encourage
employees who are struggling to reach out for help. Instead of you
telling your staff they’re doing a bad job, they can come to you and
say, ‘I know I’m not performing, I just need a bit of help in this area.
Can you help me?’
This will provide an opportunity to sit down with them and work
together through a SMART goal process to identify a plan for how
they can improve. Your staff will appreciate that you took the time
to engage with and help them, and you will appreciate that they
made the effort to ask for help, and that they are self-motivated to
improve.

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Performance indicators and reviews should all be tied back to – you
guessed it – the mission and vision of your organisation. Knowing
that everyone is on the same page about the direction and goals of
the business makes for a happier and more engaged staff (and that
will make you a happier boss!)
ACTION
Sit down and identify future opportunities that are consistent
with the MISSION and VISION. Think in terms of PROJECTS and
opportunities to broaden SKILL SETS. These can be worth more
to employees than new roles and pay rises. Conduct structured
and regular performance reviews at least once a year.
WHAT ARE SMART GOALS?
These are goals that are:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Action-oriented
• Realistic
• Time bound

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CHRIS SMITH is the founder and CEO
of Happy HR. This Melbourne-based
start-up helps business owners create
individualised HR policies and practices
that align with their organisation’s unique
values and goals. Chris’ expertise and
experience from over 15 years of helming
his own companies have established him
as a trusted resource when it comes to
business ethics and management. With
Happy HR and his business consultancy
service, Yolk Agency, Chris helps
businesses and organisations across
Australia achieve maximum employee
engagement and human resource
optimisation.