Improved Employee Effectiveness – The Factors that Contribute
Author: Eric Thompson
Eric Thompson develops the understanding of the factors that contribute to improved employee effectiveness
So you want to work at improving the effectiveness of your employees? The question, as always, is where to start? In this article we are going to develop our understanding of how an individual can become effective in the organisational context. We will do this by considering in turn each of the factors that contribute to improved employee effectiveness and exploring how they interact. This understanding will enable you to develop a strategy for individual effectiveness for your own organisation.
We need to start, however, by reminding ourselves why employee effectiveness is important.
The Value of Employee Effectiveness
Firstly, while there has been a lot of attention given in recent times to employee engagement, that in itself does not appear to be the whole story. Employee engagement can broadly be defined in terms of the individual’s commitment to the organisation and alignment with its values and direction. Engagement is seen as something that the employees can offer the organisation if they feel that the organisation justifies that degree of trust and commitment. The degree of engagement can vary through time, and might be withdrawn all together if the individual feels that the organisation has broken the implied moral contract.
“…there is a strong correlation between employee effectiveness and the financial performance of the organisation.”An engaged employee is not necessarily however an effective employee. Highly motivated people doing work that didn’t need to be done, or doing work in an inefficient way are two potential organisational own goals. A more complete target would therefore be improved employee effectiveness. That combines the “willingness” implied by the engagement of the employee, with the “effectiveness” implied by addressing the capability of the individual and of the organisation.
The second thing that is apparent is that there is a strong correlation between employee effectiveness and the business performance of the organisation. Working at employee effectiveness has exactly the same impact on the organisation as making a significant capital investment. Shareholder returns are enhanced. In fact the two things are interconnected as we shall see.
A Model for Improved Employee Effectiveness
I developed a model that enables us to gain insight into how employee effectiveness develops and how the individual factors contribute to it. If you would like to explore how this model is derived you can read the article “Understanding Employee Effectiveness”.
The model shows that the contributory factors to improved employee effectiveness are interdependent. If all of the factors are strong, they reinforce each other and create an environment that leads to improvement. If however just one factor becomes weak, effectiveness will be lost.
The interaction can be illustrated by a simple example. You might look at the capability of an employee, put a tick in the box and say “This employee is 100% capable of doing the job. I don’t need to do anything further to increase their capability.” This would be to miss the point. The employee enjoys the fact the organisation works with them to increase their capability. It increases their commitment to the organisation. If that is not going to be the case any more, that commitment will start to slip. Now we are on the slippery slope!
Observation tells us that some employees are more effective than others. Not everyone who does the same job will contribute the same amount to the common cause. Different individuals are therefore differently effective. Now we can examine what makes this so.
Employee Capability
“The summation of the behaviours, competencies, skills, knowledge and experience of the individual employee gained through life.”
The first factor that contributes to the effectiveness of the employee is the capability of the individual. Capability we can define as the ability to do the job in question, and clearly depends on personal qualities such as behaviours, competencies, skills and knowledge. These in turn will depend on the education, training, upbringing and environment that the individual has experienced.
We recognise that part of the capability will be determined by recruiting individuals into the role with the essentials already in place. This can be added to subsequently by providing on the job enrichment through training and experience. That process can be reinforced by mentoring and coaching, where that capability can be developed further in the context of the specific job.
The organisation can benefit by seeking to find ways to make the individual employee more capable. As I have already pointed out, not to do so make have unintended consequences.
Organisational Systems
“The systems, process and tools that the organisation puts in place to enable employees to do their work.”
The second factor that contributes to employees being effective is the systems and tools that they are given to use. A lumberjack, when asked to fell a forest, will not be as effective as a colleague equipped with a chain saw, even if the employee’s skills with an axe are excellent. Likewise, an accounts clerk asked to keep records using paper, pen and ink will not be able to achieve as much as a colleague operating with a spreadsheet on a modern computer.
“An effective strategy on employee engagement is needed...”
These examples show that the ability of individuals to contribute to the goals of the organisation depends significantly on the tools that the organisation makes available to them. We can generalise this observation. The tools, systems and processes that the organisation defines and deploys will have a significant impact on the ability of the employee to be effective in their role.
I observed earlier that an investment in employee effectiveness had an equivalent effect on the organisation as an investment in capital equipment and that the two were interconnected. Here we can see how. An investment in new technology that enables greater throughput will not only have that effect, the individual effectiveness model predicts that it will have a positive impact on the effectiveness of the employees that benefit from the investment.
Employee Commitment
“The employee's attitude to the organisation and their motivation and intention to perform at their best.”
A third factor that influences the employee’s contribution is their own commitment to the organisation. Commitment is a complex subject with no single cause and effect relationship. The key points in this discussion are that is that it is contextual and conditional.
It may generally be true that Bill is more committed than Ben, but the commitment of both of them will vary through time. It will depend not only on what the organisation is saying and doing, but on what is happening in their personal lives. At the same time it is conditional on some of the other factors we are discussing in this article remaining positive. We have already explored the impact on the individuals’ commitment if there were to be a lack of investment in their capability. The same would be true if the individual perceived that the values of the organisation had been eroded, or the leadership no longer “walked the talk”.
A necessary response for any organisation will be to strive to put systems, such as for pay and reward, in place which encourage employee commitment. On their own, they will not be sufficient. What is required is an effective strategy on employee engagement which seeks to understand the individual and their needs and seeks to plan on an individual basis to engender the appropriate degree of commitment.
Organisation Identity and Direction
“What the organisation stands for and the direction in which it is heading.”
Fourthly, the individual must know what it is that the organisation is trying to achieve and feel that that goal is aligned to what they want to achieve as individuals. In this context it is not so much what it says on the mission statement, as the individual’s internalisation of the all the evidence that they come across, testing it as they go against their own sense of personal direction.
Does this mean that external influences have no effect? An impassioned speech by the CEO may have a positive impact on that perception. Perhaps only for the short term if it turns out to be another false dawn, perhaps for the longer term, if it proves to be authentic.
The testing time for any employee is when an organisation signals a change in direction. It may take some time and a lot of heart searching before the individual feels able to be positive about the organisation again.
Organisation Values and Culture
“Not so much what it says on the mission statement, rather the way the employee perceives it to behave in reality.”
Fifthly, for the individual to be effective they must buy into the values that the organisation embraces. This is not a matter of mission statements. It is about how the organisation behaves. It is about how it deals with the issues that it faces, which in turn reflects on the leadership of that organisation and how they determine that the organisation will respond.
“Employees … look for evidence that the organisation actually behaves in the ways that it says that it aspires to”
Employees don’t just read the words on the sheet of paper, they look for evidence that the organisation actually behaves in the ways that it says that it aspires to. The culture has to be right and there has to be trust. Individuals need to feel that they are working for an organisation that espouses a set of values that match their own, if they are to remain individually effective.
The majority of individuals will not join an organisation in which they do not believe. However changes that occur along the organisation’s journey can substantially affect the way that it will behave. Individuals will observe these changes as they happen. A lack of alignment with personal values may lead to a loss in employee effectiveness, long before the individual is sufficiently motivated to find an alternate employer.
Leadership
“The example that the collective leadership set as a role model.”
Finally, employee effectiveness is impacted by leadership. Put simply, employees respond positively when they feel that the organisation is being taken in a direction that they feel good about and is being led by people that they can trust. Leaders throughout the organisation need to deliver consistent messages, otherwise the picture is confused, but the key leader in this respect is the person who has their hands on the tiller.
Part of the job of the chief executive is to create that vision of where the organisation is going and how it is going to get there. Interestingly, though it’s not so much what the CEO says that counts, but the way that it is said. The employee is looking for signs that the leaders are authentic, that they practise what they preach. If they do they provide a role model that is to be trusted.
In their book about leadership “Why should anyone be led by you?” Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones discuss Greg Dyke, formerly director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation. His style of leadership resonated with his employees. “Dyke was a leader that they believed in and were prepared to follow.” When he left, “Staff gave him an unprecedented and emotional departure.” Here was a leader for whom employees were prepared to be committed. Interestingly though, gaining staff commitment, important as it is, is not the only thing that matters for a leader. The wholehearted commitment of his staff was not able to save Dyke from an enforced resignation.
Improving Employee Effectiveness
We have had a brief look at the factors that contribute to improved employee effectiveness. We have tested what matters in each case and we have discussed the fact that changes in one area will undoubtedly have a knock on effect in other areas. Any strategy for improving employee effectiveness needs to bear this in mind. When deciding the way forward, we need to test our strategy for the side effects.
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