Optimise your team performance

Improve through innovation and your people

Your greatest asset is the talent within your organisation. As you reflect on your new business and operating environment, consider how your people impact these and how you can make better use of the skills, knowledge and capability of your entire workforce.

Maximising your people resources through a positive and supportive working environment will reduce staff turnover and sickness absence while improving productivity, innovation and engagement.

Consider alternative business models to reduce costs and increase your competitiveness. For example, a consortium co-operative could allow you to partner with other businesses feeling today's economic pressures. Working together allows you to reduce costs, share risks and create new platforms for growth in the UK and internationally.

Putting your people first 

Your employees will individually and collectively have a treasure chest of ideas to make the business better - it’s more important than ever that you listen to them and let their voices be heard. Their ideas could help accelerate your recovery and position the business for growth.

Think about the processes and systems you have in place to engage your staff. Set up a transparent process to capture their ideas and prioritise those that will have greatest impact.

Getting started

Ask yourself these questions to find out if your company is making full use of its most important asset, your people:  

• Are you a leader guided by values? 
• How do your employees know that their contribution is valued?
• How do your employees share their ideas? 
• How do you ensure that you have the capability?
• Are you and your workforce confident in your capability to deliver future business needs? 

What you can do now

• Reassess the workspace – physically and technically – to maximise team working opportunities 
• Enhance job satisfaction and wellbeing to increase staff motivation and enable optimum performance 
• Listen to your employees’ ideas and prioritise against objectives 
• Challenge teams to continuously improve themselves 
• Enable employees to use their knowledge, ability and creativity to the fullest 
• Fail fast - take risks and learn from your failures to develop a more entrepreneurial culture