Improving staff performance

In order for your business to be successful you need to identify any areas where you can improve your performance. Developing the skills oyour staff poses is an important way of doing this new skills can improve your productivity, competitiveness and profitability

Identify skills gaps holding you back Once you've identified the key factors that lead to success in your sector, you can think about the skills required to improve the performance of your business in these areas. For instance, if exporting to the rest of the European Union is important, then you may need staff with language skills. A training needs analysis (TNA) is a systematic way of assessing the gap between the skills you have and the skills you need or will need. You will find useful information on TNAs on the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) website. Specific skills needs will differ between businesses, but certain skills are required by all modern customer-focused businesses:

IT - are staff making the most of your hardware and software systems?

Sales and marketing - are sales staff reaching the clients that matter, building relationships and closing sales?

Procurement and buying - are buyers managing contracts effectively?

Finance - are your records being kept in order so you can monitor performance and meet your tax and other obligations?

Customer service - are your staff trained to deal with customers so that you're likely to retain and increase the business you do with them?

Management and leadership - can your senior managers, yourself included, lead, motivate and get the best out of your staff?

Once you've identified any skills gaps in your business you can start to plug them. This might involve recruiting new employees, but it makes good business sense to see if your existing staff have untapped potential you can utilise. Developing the skills of existing staff improves their job satisfaction and can be a costeffective way of meeting your skills needs.

Make the most of the skills your staff already have Start close to home when trying to develop those areas of your business that are crucial to success. Assess the skills of the people you already employ and see whether you're currently making the most of their potential. The answer to skills gaps you've identified might be right under your nose. Make sure you know the skills possessed by each of your employees. You might be unaware of an important skill if someone doesn't need to use it in their current role. A formal development review process can help you keep track of the skills and training possessed by staff at all levels in your

business. It also allows you to draw up skills-development plans which marry the needs of your business with the personal goals of your employees. You should also look at the way you have allocated your staff to the various roles in your business, giving consideration to diversity and flexibility issues. Are you using the skills at your disposal as efficiently as possible? Is every role being filled by the person with the most appropriate skills set? It is possible that "shuffling the pack" and redistributing responsibilities may improve the performance of your business.

The importance of leadership Skills development in a successful business doesn't only apply to your staff. In order to recognise and fully develop the skills your business needs to succeed, there are certain skills which you as an owner or a manager will have to develop. Every successful business requires effective leadership to fully utilise the skills of staff. This isn't just a matter for larger businesses - even if you only employ one or two people you still need to make sure that you make the most of their abilities and aptitudes. This requires a distinct set of management skills. You have to be able to motivate and develop your team, to communicate well with them and to build a business strategy that allows each individual to perform to the best of their abilities. You need to consider whether this leadership area is one in which you, and other senior managers if you have them, could benefit from training. There are many management training courses in the UK which can help you translate business objectives into

practical actions, use the resources available to you as efficiently as possible and create a successful team.

Use staff training to improve performance If you identify any skills gaps in your business, providing training to your employees can be a very effective means of filling them. Increasing the skills levels in your business is beneficial to all concerned. There is the benefit of personal and professional development for people being trained and productivity gains for your business. Skills development can be used in a number of ways. You can provide training so that someone can carry out their existing tasks more efficiently or to a higher standard. This might involve learning how to use new productivity-increasing equipment or how to introduce best practices to a given job. Alternatively, you might seek training for an individual so that they can take on a different role in your business. This could be a position with increased responsibilities or perhaps an entirely new role that will allow your business to move into new areas of work. The key thing is to ensure that any training you provide responds clearly to your business needs - these should be clear from your business plan. Make sure you've conducted a training needs analysis before embarking on any training - this, as well as consultations with your staff, should form the basis of your decisions about what training is appropriate.

The benefits of qualifications and accreditations Qualifications and accreditations can be a useful indicator of the skill levels staff members have achieved. Many courses are run to industry-wide or national standards, so the results attained by your employees can provide a useful measure of how their skill levels compare with averages in your sector. Qualifications can assist you in setting training targets and measuring the progress individuals are making. The successful completion of an accredited course gives you objective verification that existing skills have been improved or new skills developed. Aside from the obvious benefits to your business of any new skills that your employees learn, enabling people to study for qualifications can also increase their sense of commitment to your business, and this can have knock-on benefits in terms of improved productivity. National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) are an important category of qualifications. These are based on workplace assessments and can be used to plot an employee's progression from competence at basic routine tasks to competence at a supervisory level requiring significant responsibility and accountability. More senior staff may have or seek professional qualifications in areas such as accounting or marketing. For small businesses, training or recruiting people with formal skills in these areas can mark a significant step forward. Bear in mind the limitations of qualifications as a guide to how well an individual will perform. They only give an indication of likely performance. The only real test of a person's performance is an onthe-job appraisal.

The Investors in People Standard The Investors in People (IIP) Standard is a business improvement tool designed to advance an organisation's performance. It aims to match what people can do and are motivated to do with what the organisation needs them to do. IIP now offers two directly linked business improvement tools, the IIP Standard and Profile. Both the Standard and Profile are flexible frameworks based on a "plan, do and review" model:

plan - developing strategies to improve organisation performance, from business goals to leadership strategies

do - implementing those strategies, taking action to improve the performance of the organisation

review - evaluating and adjusting those strategies through measuring their impact on the performance of the organisation

Businesses of any size or sector can easily align the framework with their existing business planning model. Through this model, organisations are encouraged to work towards continuous improvement. Each principle is broken down into a number of "indicators" - there are ten in all - of what good practice means and how to know when you are achieving it. They make clear the responsibilities of managers in leadership, management and development of people, and encourage you to involve employees in decision-making. The IIP Standard isn't focused solely on staff training. To achieve the Standard you need to think through your business strategy and ensure that your training plans will drive it forward.

Nonrecognised organisations can now get a profile assessment, showing them how they perform against the IIP Standard.

Practical considerations Skills development isn't a cure-all for underperformance in your business. There are many reasons why your performance might be lagging other than lack of skills. Perhaps, for instance, your business' IT system is outdated or its financial management needs to be improved. Another reason could be poor working relationships and communication between management and staff. Offering training opportunities also makes it easier for businesses to recruit and retain high-quality staff. People are more likely to be content working for a business if they feel their skills and prospects are being improved on an ongoing basis.