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Learner Guide BSBXTW401 Lead and facilitate a team
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BSBXTW401
1.0
Sep 2020
First version
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Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 5 Chapter 1: Plan team outcome ..................................................................................................................... 6 1.1 Identify common objectives of a workplace team, responsibilities and required outcome(s) .......... 6 1.2 Use performance plans to establish expected outcomes, goals, and behaviours for individual team members in accordance with team objective and relevant policies ...................................................... 18 1.3 Select appropriate strategies to ensure team members are accountable for their roles and responsibilities ........................................................................................................................................ 23 1.4 Plan for contingencies that could impact the team .......................................................................... 28 ................................................................................................................................................................ 33 Self – Assessment.................................................................................................................................... 33 Chapter 2: Coordinate team and individuals .............................................................................................. 34 2.1 Communicate common team objectives and responsibilities to team members ............................ 34 2.2 Allocate tasks to team members based on staff expertise or development potential and provide appropriate instructions ......................................................................................................................... 39 2.3 Facilitate open and respectful communication and collaboration between team members, considering the needs of those from diverse backgrounds.................................................................... 41 2.4 Identify opportunities for cross-collaboration amongst external and internal teams and individuals ................................................................................................................................................................ 41 ................................................................................................................................................................ 53 Self – Assessment.................................................................................................................................... 53 Chapter 3: Support team ............................................................................................................................ 54 3.1 Provide coaching to staff to enhance workplace culture ................................................................. 54 3.2 Support individuals according to organisational requirements to work towards common team goals ........................................................................................................................................................ 54 3.4 Use problem-solving skills to deal with any team, task or individual challenges ............................. 54 3.3 Facilitate team to identify, brainstorm, report and resolve task-related issues and inefficiencies . 61 ................................................................................................................................................................ 65 Self – Assessment.................................................................................................................................... 65 Chapter 4: Monitor team performance ...................................................................................................... 66 4.1 Measure team member performance against agreed work plans ................................................... 66 4.2 Provide timely and constructive performance feedback to team members according to expected organisational standards......................................................................................................................... 66 4.3 Identify specific learning and development opportunities to improve team and individual performance and behaviours.................................................................................................................. 74 3|Page
4.4 Implement action plans to address individual and team training needs ......................................... 74 ................................................................................................................................................................ 84 Self – Assessment.................................................................................................................................... 84 References .................................................................................................................................................. 85
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Introduction This learner guide will help you learn about the requirements and procedures to effectively and responsibly lead teams in the workplace and how to engage with management in an organisation actively. You will learn about the following: 1. Plan team outcome: This includes how to identify common objectives and goals of the project and allocate responsibilities to the team members. You will also learn how to create a performance plan, including how to step the accountability for the work. You also get knowledge related to the contingency plan, and how-to creates one. 2. Coordinate team and individuals: This chapter will provide you with a range of information on how to communicate, allocate tasks, how to use nonverbal communication and how to empower diversity in the workplace. 3. Support team: This chapter will help you identify support requirements of different team member and provide information on a different type of support, including coaching. 4. Monitor team performance: This chapter will help you to develop a work plan and provide constructive feedback. It also helps you to identify your own and team member learning and development opportunities.
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Chapter 1: Plan team outcome This chapter is going to discuss the following points in detail:
Identify common objectives of workplace team, responsibilities and required outcome(s)
Use performance plans to establish expected outcomes, goals, and behaviours for individual team members in accordance with team objective and relevant policies
Select appropriate strategies to ensure team members are accountable for their roles and responsibilities
Plan for contingencies that could impact the team
1.1 Identify common objectives of a workplace team, responsibilities and required outcome(s)
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Introduction A team is a group of people who work together and are collectively responsible and accountable for a defined task/s, segment, process, product or service. Teams normally have members with complementary skills which, when appropriately harnessed, allows each member to maximise their strengths and minimise their weaknesses, thus generating synergy through a coordinated effort. Teams have been in existence for as long as history has been recorded. Early cave people learned that if they lived in family groups, hunting and gathering food and fighting off, predators were more effective than a single person trying to do this solo.
Group of individuals versus a team So, when is a group of people a team? A group of people does not necessarily constitute a team. Teams: are chosen for specific functions
have a shared purpose and goals have membership that enables all the necessary team roles to be filled have strong, shared leadership demonstrate support for members, other teams and the organisation have high levels of trust between members work together to achieve greater results than individuals working toward the same objectives regularly monitor, evaluate and review performance as an aid to improvement.
General types of teams The criteria used to classify teams can vary from the makeup of its membership; whether the teams are temporary or permanent; their purpose and function within the organisation; the degree of technical
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multi-skilling given to team members; the complexity of tasks and skills required, and the degree of selfmanagement and leadership devolved to the team. Of importance is the distinction between independent and interdependent teams. An interdependent team is when: • • •
no significant task can be accomplished without the help of other members within the team, members typically specialise in different tasks the success of every individual is inextricably bound to the success of the whole team.
On the other hand, an independent team: • • •
involves members acting independently every person performs essentially the same actions the performance of one person has no direct effect on the performance of other team members.
Some common types of teams include: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
The task force—a temporary team, assembled to investigate a specific issue or problem Problem-solving team—a temporary team assembled to solve a specific problem The product design team—a temporary team, assembled to design a new product or service Committee—a temporary or permanent group of people assembled to act upon some matter Workgroup—a permanent group of workers who receive direction from a designated leader Work team (also called a self-directed work team or self-managed work team)—an ongoing group of workers who share a common mission who collectively manage their affairs within predetermined boundaries 7. Quality circle—a group of workers from the same functional area who meet regularly to uncover and solve work-related problems and seek work improvement opportunities 8. Virtual team—a virtual team is a group of people who work interdependently and with shared purpose across space, time, and organisation boundaries using technology to communicate and collaborate.
Teams and organisational fit In most cases, teams do not just happen; they require structures, sub-systems, support and processes that encourage development. Team building occurs over time. When building and developing teams, you need to determine the role teams will play in the organisation and how they will fit.
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What needs to be changed?
How and when can these changes be initiated?
Do current systems support team activities?
How will teams be sustained?
Are the current hierarchical structures likely to impede team development?
In other words, organisational plans, strategic and operational plans need to incorporate suitable mechanisms for supporting team development. Teams are collections of differences. When selecting for team membership, the objective is to utilise people who can, as a group, perform all the technical skills required for the task. A cricket team, for instance, would not be comprised of 11 bowlers. The point of a team is that everyone in the team brings a range of skills, knowledge, attitudes, aptitudes, personalities and priorities to the team. Each has a position in the team or a role to play. No one in sports selects the top 11 or 15 players; they also must select those who play best in certain positions. Many organisations make the mistake of putting together a team of the brightest or of the most experienced people thinking they will automatically outperform any other. It will not. Diversity is an important factor in a team as is the need for each of the positions or roles within the team structure to be filled by an appropriate person. To fit teams into the organisation's structures, in most cases, changes to current practice and workplace culture will be needed. You will need to;
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redesign work, do not just create or add teams focus on initial strategic issues rather than trying to change everything at once organise around whole processes
expand job responsibilities design for immediate feedback ensure there is a resource, information and technical support redesign compensation redesign the information system design team appraisals as well as individual performance evaluations change Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to emphasise teamwork create environments which encourage interaction support innovation and risk-taking. To identify changes that need to be made, it is worth considering the differences between traditional and team-based organisations: Traditional
Team-based
Top-down leadership.
Leadership is shared amongst team members.
Information flow is limited/ controlled.
Information is freely and openly shared.
Layered/ individual structure—hierarchical.
Team structure reduces hierarchy.
Managers determine and plan, direct and control the work.
Facilitators and coaches take over from the management role.
Cross-training is viewed as inefficient.
Cross-training is the norm.
Managers plan, control and improve the job process.
Teams plan, control and improve job processes.
Jobs are narrowly defined.
Jobs require broad skills and knowledge.
Training for non-managers focuses on technical skills.
Continuous learning—interpersonal, administrative and technical training for all— is emphasised.
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Risk-taking is discouraged and punished.
Measured risk-taking and innovation are encouraged and supported.
People work alone.
People work together.
Rewards are based only on individual performance.
Rewards are based on individual performance and contributions to team performance.
Managers determine the best methods for everything.
Everyone works to improve methods and processes continuously.
The characteristics listed in the table for team-based operations are those demonstrated in highperformance organisations. Other characteristics of high-performance organisations include:
processes and systems are organised around cross-functional teams fewer levels of management flexibility policies make payment for performance a priority team goals link with organisational vision and goals customer focus is a priority
They outperform traditional organisations by utilising a mix of cross-functional teams, work teams, improvement teams and integrating teams. Work teams design, manufacture and deliver a product or service for internal or external customer use. Improvement teams make change recommendations to improve quality, cost and timeliness of delivery. Integrating teams make sure that work is coordinated between work teams and improvement teams or any other teams involved in the business. The implementation of team-based systems would normally be subject to phrases such as: • • • • •
identify the need for change and the substance of the change identify and develop goals, objectives and relevant timeframes make plans and develop transition processes which include investigating and researching teambased organisations and other information sources to determine the best approach design a team-based system specific to the organisation develop an implementation plan incorporating evaluation and continuous improvement strategies.
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In the planning stages, organisations must identify external and internal influences and the extent of their impact. Identify the benefits organisation expects to gain from implementing teams in areas such as:
productivity improvements reduction in waste quality improvements more streamlined work operations greater achievement of KPIs greater commitment and shift in attitude and behaviour from all employees more flexible workforce
The transition to team systems involves a significant technical and social process. The technical issues involve such things as the design of structures, processes, and systems. The social issues involve helping people in the organisation to understand how a team-based system operates and how their roles will operate within it. Leaders in the organisation need to consider the alignment of supporting structures, production systems and capabilities, leadership, staff, shared values and training requirements. You need to identify the incumbent organisational culture, identify the desirable team-based culture, define the changing roles and responsibilities of senior and middle-level managers, supervisors, team leaders and team members, and possibly redesign jobs using a systems approach. A change strategy needs to be determined, and support for the changes should be well planned to successfully link strategic and operational change (i.e. to make it happen on the shop floor). Change programs are associated with and linked to the business/ economic, political and social contexts in which organisations operate, and to internal contextual issues such as organisational culture, structure, resources and organisational politics. All employees must know and clearly understand the organisation's vision, strategies, goals and objectives, and align their team goals with them. Effective communication and information sharing processes are vital, to gain support, agreement and commitment from all organisational members from the CEO down. Organisational leaders, managers and team leaders alike need to adopt a collaborative, participative approach; one that involves developing trust and commitment with employees. Discussions need to be had, and there needs to be the development of proposals with all relevant stakeholders and the seeking of endorsement. Processes will need to be developed, which will give teams the necessary skills and decision-making responsibilities to perform their tasks efficiently.
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Determining optimal team deployment Organisations use numerous sub-processes which work together to produce the products or services that are their core business. Process analysis can be used to determine the number and type of team configurations required. For example, in a manufacturing environment, raw material comes in, goes through value-added processes such as cutting and stamping, possibly machining, coating, final assembly packing, storage, then distribution and sales to customers. Each process is dependent, to varying degrees, on the others. These processes can be broken down into several sub-processes which can then be used to identify the number of teams, types of teams which best suit their sub-processes, and team boundaries (concerning team membership). By analysing the operations, you can determine:
the best team deployment methods
the types of teams and style in terms of autonomy, selfmanagement etc
team boundaries and authority
roles and responsibilities—in particular, the leadership and supervision
support needs
training needs
Once plans have been properly developed, and all involved staff understand their roles. The application of the team systems, the processes of choosing team members and developing teams around organisational goals can be implemented so that dynamic, systems-based teams can contribute to quality to the maximisation of productivity and the minimisation of waste.
Defining the role of the team Teams develop direction, motivation and momentum by collaboratively shaping a shared purpose. Although the primary reason for the team's establishment might have been a directive of executive management, the process of discussing and debating the role by the members of the team is a critical part in its development.
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Encouraging members to question the purpose of the team, how it will operate and what it is expected to achieve serves to foster a deeper understanding of the team's role, and the role of each member that comprises it, than is possible if this information is simply relayed from an external source. Providing team members with the opportunity to debate the role of the team allow them to shape their purpose and come to a common understanding. Processes that assist team members in debating their role can include:
team meetings
workshops
value exploration exercises
project scoping sessions
imagining exercises
Allowing teams to self-develop their purpose is not to say that management should not have a steering hand in providing direction. Most teams evolve in their role in response to a request made or a directive given from management. For example, the scientists at Xerox developed personal computing in response to their chairperson asking for 'architecture of information', the Apollo missions were the result of the NASA team response to President Kennedy's vision to send a man to the moon. However, what is critical is that these roles are initially framed as a big picture vision, and the scoping of the detail is left to the team members with guidance from management. The role of any given team can range from simple to complex. The higher the level of complexity, the greater the need to have the role or purpose documented. That is, taken from being tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. A team's role can be recorded in many forms, including:
a charter
mission and vision statement
memorandum of agreement
constitution
role and responsibility statement
How to set team goals and objectives 14 | P a g e
Setting goals as a team is a process that requires collaboration and communication. To help your team, invest in these goals, you need to find a balance between maximising individual skill sets and finding the best way to achieve your ultimate goal. With these needs in mind, here are some strategies you can use to set goals as a team:
Keep company goals in mind Use the SMART system Allow team members to create their own goals Help your team with their individual responsibilities Follow up
1. Keep company goals in mind It is a good idea for your team goals to contribute to broader company goals. Before you set your own team goals, ensure that the team understands the company’s objectives. For instance, the company wants to improve customer acquisition rates, which is why you decide to design advertisements that will drive more website traffic. This goal contributes to the company’s objectives and shows how you helped the company succeed. 2. Use the SMART system
Before setting any goals, ensure that your team understands the SMART criteria for setting goals: Specific: 15 | P a g e
The more specific your goal, the more focused your efforts can be, and the more likely you are to succeed. For example, the goal to “improve the clickthrough rate by 25%” is more specific than “improve clickthrough rate.” That specificity can better help you measure your progress and create more actionable plans. Measurable: Tracking your progress toward meeting goals is much easier if your goals are measurable. A measurable goal is also easier to divide into smaller, more manageable milestones that individuals and your team can monitor. For example, you can measure your progress in increments toward a 25% improvement, but measuring progress toward an ambiguous goal to improve can be far more challenging. Attainable: Your team goals should be realistic to achieve within the appropriate time. You will be more efficient with your time and resources if your goal is attainable. Relevant: While your team may be motivated to address many issues, relevant team goals guarantee that you are resolving the most pressing issues and that your team has the resources and skills to accomplish the goal. Time-related: To be productive and efficient with your time and resources, team goals should have clear deadlines. 3. Generate an action plan Setting a goal is only the beginning of the team goal-setting process. It is advisable also create an action plan that your team can follow as they work towards their goal. Creating an action plan requires your goal to be measurable so that you can establish clear milestones. An effective action plan also involves guaranteeing that your team has the resources necessary to fulfil their responsibilities, such as software, equipment or additional training. The action plan should include the responsibilities of each team member based on their strength and should have a specific time to complete the allocated task. 4. Allow team members to create their own goals You and your teammates can become far more invested in team goals by setting your own individual goals. Once you have set your team goal, create individual milestones that take into account your skills, experience and resources. As your team develops these goals, remember the SMART framework so you can build achievable and actionable goals for each member. 5. Help your team with their responsibilities While your team may share a group objective, each team member should have assigned responsibilities and individual milestones. 16 | P a g e
You can help your team throughout the process by: • • • • •
Scheduling regular one-on-one meetings with other teammates or with team leadership to discuss the goal, your progress and any questions or concerns Providing advice and individualised training on how each teammate can fulfil their responsibilities Working with team members to develop individual milestones that help them track their progress in addition to the team’s Delivering regular feedback on elements of your progress that are working well and aspects that need improvement Promising, both in word and in action, that you are willing to listen to the concerns of teammates and to answer questions
6. Follow up After your deadline has passed, follow up with team members to celebrate successes and prepare for future goal-setting. If the team accomplished its goals, rewards them, and you recognise your colleagues’ efforts. These rewards may take the form of recognition in a meeting, a gift from the company or a team lunch. Following up in one-on-one meetings can also allow you to gain feedback on what worked well and what could be done better throughout the process of achieving goals.
Examples of team goals Team goals can vary widely depending on your company objective or the needs of your team. Here are a few examples of team goals that you can adapt to your unique circumstances: Improve efficiency Many teams may aim to improve the productivity of their department and make better use of their resources. Goals to improve efficiency are especially common in teams that are involved in labourintensive work, such as production and assembly. Efficiency goals can be used in any setting, however. For example, your team wants to start submitting advertising campaigns ahead of the deadline to impress your clients. This means that your team needs to work efficiently. Come together and set a goal to submit your campaign a week in advance of the deadline. Then you set other measurable milestones to help meet that goal, such as submitting a draft of the campaign a week from your initial goal-setting meeting. Generate ideas Collaboration can yield better ideas than working individually. Because of this, many teams set a goal to generate ideas with another project or task in mind. Generating ideas as a team allows multiple perspectives to contribute to solving a problem and creates an environment for discussion that can lead to more detailed goals. For example, a marketing agency has acquired a new client, and that client wants to rebrand their products. The team’s eventual goal is to help this client refresh their logo, their tone and strategy. They
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may start with the smaller goal of brainstorming some foundational ideas, then narrowing those ideas until they have a specific direction.
1.2 Use performance plans to establish expected outcomes, goals, and behaviours for individual team members in accordance with team objective and relevant policies What is the performance plan? Performance plans offer employers a way of helping employees/teams struggling in their position. Instead of directly reprimanding or even terminating them, they propose a helpful plan and offer supporting materials for further aid. Performance plans have specific requirements; however, for more effective outcomes. Performance planning is used to provide a structured approach to the attainment of the desired level of performance for both individuals and teams. As a Team Leader, you will be required to ensure that performance plans are created for your team and its members. You should also ensure that you are involved in developing your performance plan in conjunction with your Manager. Your Performance Plan ensures that you are clear on the levels of leadership and management performance that are expected of you and helps you to develop new skills as required A performance plan or performance improvement plan (PIP) is a formal business document that explains goals set for a particular employee. It also outlines potential performance issues hindering the employee's progress in reaching those goals. Performance plans have a generally poor reputation as they are often a sign of impending termination. However, they are meant to encourage employees to do better.
How to write a performance plan Here are some steps to follow when writing a performance plan:
Identify performance or behavioural issues that need improvement Explain the level of performance and behaviour expected Supply helpful suggestions for employee improvement Schedule progress meetings with the employee Outline consequences for not meeting standards
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1. Identify performance or behavioural issues that need improvement The intent of issuing a PIP stems from problems with employees. These problems can either be performance-related, behaviour-related or a mixture of both. When creating a performance plan for your employee, identify the issue needed for correction. 2. Explain the level of performance and behaviour expected Along with identifying a particular problem, you also need to explain expectations or set specific, measurable goals for them to reach. For example, if performance is measured by meeting a task quota, reinforce the quota minimum for the employee. Your employees need a basis for improvement or a specific goal to reach. 3. Supply helpful suggestions for employee improvement Once you've set expectations for your employee, go a step further and provide helpful resources for improvement. These resources often include additional training, informational resources such as manuals and even physical tools depending on the role. 4. Schedule progress meetings with the employee Once you give your performance plan to your employee, you need to meet with them on occasion and discuss their performance. Within the plan, set a schedule for meetings or at least a loose time frame in which the employee can schedule better times for themselves. 5. Outline the consequences of not meeting standards All performance improvement plans need to have a time frame for improvement. Explain in your plan that consequences are handed out to those who fail to meet requirements. Provide further detail by outlining those specific consequences and what they include. Example of a performance improvement plan Complete the following information: • • • • • •
The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that the performance issue falls under The specific skill to be improved or gained, knowledge to be acquired or behaviour to be modified. The steps to be taken to bring about improvement The people within the team or organisation who can assist in this process, or need to be involved from a procedural point of view The timeframe within which improvement should be achieved The process for evaluating and measuring the performance improvement
KPI
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Skill/Area Requiring Improvement
Action to be Taken
Contacts for Assistance
Timeframe for Achievement
Evaluation of Performance
Telemarketing Call Centre Operators are to make 50 outbound calls per day, with an average of five bookings per day.
Selling B&B services to corporate customers.
Develop sales techniques through team training sessions with a sales training consultant.
Manager
20/09/2022
Training Departme nt
Team training to be followed up with individual support, from Team Leader, when making sales calls.
Team Leader to monitor at least ten outbound sales calls made by each operator. Results of call monitoring to be compared with monitoring results taken before training. Minimum sales (booking) achievement of 10% of all outbound sales calls made by each operator.
Organisational goals and team performance In every organisation, inputs are transformed by processes into outputs. The outcomes of work should be high levels of customer and stakeholder satisfaction. That is, the organisation will be successful if their customers and stakeholders are happy with the products or services of the organisation. To make the organisation's processes work properly, management must:
plan collect and analyse data and information monitor, assess, evaluate and record customer needs and expectations design and implement effective human resource management techniques develop efficient core process management procedures (controls). Efficient and well-constructed management techniques can mean the difference between business success and failure. Management quality methodology, technique, approach and leadership ability can therefore be used as a tool to assess and measure business viability. 20 | P a g e
Team structured workplaces contribute to the successful business outcomes by following the same procedures. Each team will set goals that align with organisational goals, and they will:
plan
collect and analyse data and information develop efficient core processes and process controls design and implement effective human resource management techniques for team members monitor, assess, evaluate performance and link performance measures to customer satisfaction. Team performance planning Once the team member is decided, the team must determine, and agree on the major goal/s or objectives they aim to achieve, how they intend to achieve these goals, and how they will measure the resulting outcomes. The team must establish a performance plan. Goal setting For a team to be truly effective, there must be clear, achievable and agreed goals. Without goals, the team efforts will be dispersed, and without an agreement, there will be only minimal commitment. As discussed previously, most teams will have been given a broad direction from an external source; usually, senior management. As part of the process of understanding this broad direction, teams should break the direction down into smaller goals and then further again so that they have a set of actionable objectives. Goals and objectives should also be teamwork products, as opposed to the work products of individuals that comprise the team. This requires the identification of outcomes that require significant contributions by the collaborative efforts of the team and results in an outcome that could not be achieved by any single member working alone. By breaking a larger vision down into smaller components, it becomes easier to see what needs to be accomplished by whom and by when. This, in turn, assists the team to stay on task and to be focused on activities that contribute to effectiveness rather than getting caught up in other tasks. Breaking a larger vision down into smaller components also becomes a useful mechanism for tracking and measuring progress against the overall aim. Methods and resources Using these objectives, the team is then able to collaboratively develop action plans which attribute time frames, resources and personnel to specific activities. Individuals should be empowered with the ability to determine their responsibilities. Emphasis should be placed on practical activities and measurable results within realistic timeframes. Each team member's contribution should be valued and acknowledged. 21 | P a g e
Teams must be given responsibility for making improvements and innovation within their designated roles to achieve the organisation's goals and objectives. They require access to the necessary resources, an agreed level of interdependence in the management of their daily work within agreed boundaries and cooperative relationships (networks) with the other teams that make up the organisation. Measuring performance The final component of a solid performance plan is to identify how the team will measure its success. How will it know if it has achieved its goal, and how will it know how well it has performed? The team should, collectively, agree on the KPIs that will be used to measure each objective and then ascribe a standard that must be achieved. Performance goals create a sense of urgency and challenge each member of the team to commit themselves. If the required results, measurement and evaluation methods, and review timetables are understood and agreed to by all team members, it creates a compelling drive to make success happen. Team and individual plans Once the team performance plan has been created, it becomes the foundation for personal plans to be created for each of the team members. Everyone’s plan should reflect their contribution to the team's performance, including what actions they specifically will take, by when and what they are responsible for producing. Individual plans enable tasks to be shared according to the skills set and experience and other resources allocated to achieve the optimal effectiveness. Personal plans also enable recognition of individual inputs as well as overall team success and are a vital part of retaining team energy. Policies related to lead and manage team The following policies will be useful to manage and lead the team and employees:
Communication policy
Project management policy
Performance management policy
Continuous improvement policy
Communication policy The communication policy is an important document for the organisation. This policy includes different ways a team can communicate with each other, protocol on how to communicate, what technology team should use to communicate. Project management policy The purpose of a project management policy is to ensure that projects have guidelines, so they are completed in a timely, efficient manner. Having an effective policy in place saves a company the challenge of handling each project on an individual basis and guarantees cohesiveness and consistency throughout the business's operations. 22 | P a g e
Performance management policy The purpose of an effective performance management system is for employees to have a clear understanding of the work expected from them, to receive ongoing feedback regarding how they are performing relative to expectations, to distribute rewards accordingly, to identify development opportunities, and to address performance that does not meet expectations. A comprehensive performance management system empowers employees to have greater input to their career progression. It will enable managers to identify better, recognise, and reward individuals based upon an agreed set of criteria. Continuous improvement policy This policy help organisation to identify issues or improvements in the current products and services and find different ways to improve the products and services. This process and policy can bring greater value because you or your company is to keep improving the system and process to meet the customer requirements and improve satisfaction.
1.3 Select appropriate strategies to ensure team members are accountable for their roles and responsibilities Importance of accountability in team
Thousands of organisations are eagerly creating empowered work teams to boost productivity, enhance quality and bolster employee morale. As more and more organisations move closer to full empowerment, however, they hit an obstacle that is becoming self-direction’s most burning issue. Sure, you can hand-off management responsibilities and vest teams with authority to act, but aren’t managers still accountable? How can you hold a whole team accountable when something goes wrong? Won’t we end up just pointing fingers at everyone else when a mistake occurs? Creating an environment where accountability is clear and fully accepted is a subtle and complex task.
Accountability Defined Accountability means having the responsibility and authority to act and fully accept the natural and logical consequences for the results of those actions. In a team-based organisation, accountability is focused on the team rather than the individual level. This means that the members of the team feel mutually accountable to each other and that the team as a
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whole, not anyone or two individuals within it, accepts accountability for the results of the team’s actions. Accountability is one of three critical components to effective empowerment. Think of empowerment as supported by a tripod. The three legs of the tripod are responsibility, authority, and accountability. Every new task that is handed off to a team needs to be transferred with this balance in mind. The balance is achieved when a team has 1. a clear understanding of its responsibilities, 2. the authority necessary to fulfil these responsibilities, and 3. the accountability for the consequences of their outcomes.
Why is Accountability So Important? Accountability is an odd thing. Many workers do their best to avoid it because it has often been used as ammunition for blame or punishment. The truth is that accountability is unavoidable. In the workplace, everyone is accountable to someone. In a traditional organisation, workers are individually accountable to their respective bosses. In a high-performance, organisation, team members are individually accountable to each other and mutually accountable to their customers. But rather than a negative force, research indicates that holding people accountable for their results has very positive effects: greater accuracy of work, better response to role obligations, more vigilant problem solving, better decision making, more cooperation with co-workers, and higher team satisfaction.
The Facts About Accountability in Business Although being accountable is vital to teamwork, organisations across industries struggle with accountability. Take a look at these statistics:
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• • • •
93% of employees don’t understand what their organisation is trying to accomplish to align with their work. 85% of leaders aren’t defining what their people should be working on, and an equal number of employees crave clarity. 84% of the workforce describes itself as “trying but failing” or “avoiding” accountability, even when employees know what to fix. 80% of people see accountability as punishing.
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Hold a Team Accountable? The paradigm of individual accountability is so strong in our organisational cultures that the notion of holding a whole team accountable for its collective outputs boggles corporate minds. But is it so hard? Sorting out the contributions of an individual can be a tricky task. How can someone tell what you part of the product was? Where a team produces a whole piece of work, the output is much easier to assess. And what should we care, after all, what part each individual played in making it happen? If your dry cleaner ruins one of your suits, do you hunt down the worker who did the damage? No, you hold the business accountable for making the situation right. You don’t care who made a mistake or even who will fix it, just as long as the problem is resolved. So, it should be with your teams. Truly empowered teams have the authority to carry out their responsibilities as well as the accountability for collectively fixing things when they go wrong.
Systems for Team Accountability To be effective at fostering team accountability and ownership, an organisation’s systems must be designed with three basic principles in mind: focus, influence, and consequences. FOCUS – Systems for accountability begins with a clear focus and expectations. In a team setting, teams need to share a clear mission statement that links directly to the organisation’s vision. Building on that mission statement, a team should identify its collective outputs and devise systems for measuring their success at efficiently delivering quality products or services. Within the team, each member should be clear of his or her roles and responsibilities, including agreements on individual expectations and standards of excellence.
Strategies for ensuring focus: Clearly communicate and continually reinforce the organisation’s mission and vision.
Require teams to explicitly describe their purpose and outputs that link to the organisation’s vision. Assure that teams complete a whole piece of work. Have teams explicitly define each member’s role and responsibilities. Have teams establish clear standards of excellence for members. Have teams track and analyse their own performance data. Encourage teams to conduct regular business planning sessions.
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Influence Teams will also need to be able to influence the operations of these systems. This means they need to be given as much authority as is reasonable to determine how they achieve the outcomes they have committed to. You can’t hold people accountable for results if you manage their methods. Similarly, team members need to influence those with whom they are interdependent. Holding teams jointly accountable for their combined results will only work if the people within the team can influence each other’s behaviour. Ideally, this implies team members have what we call “gate control” or control over who joins the team and who stays on the team. At the very least, systems need to be devised such that a team member’s feedback carries as much weight as a manager’s feedback. This can be affected by instituting a team review process or at least by redesigning your performance appraisal system to include input from customers and teammates. Strategies for ensuring influence: Allow employees to participate in the shaping of the organisation’s mission and vision. Teach teams to use performance feedback as the basis for meeting and problem solving sessions.
Encourage teams to analyse work practices for improvement. Allow teams to act on their improvement ideas. Empower teams to select new members. Give teams budget authority. Ensure that team members regularly give feedback to one another.
Consequences Lastly, an organisation’s systems need to close the loop by connecting real consequences to a team’s actions. Too often, managers shield teams from the consequences of what they do. They field complaints from customers or run interference with other departments. If a team is to be held accountable, then they must handle the results of their actions together. This usually means putting teams in regular contact with their customers and linking at least a portion of their compensation with their cumulative efforts. It also means the whole team is held accountable for the performance of each member. In a team-based organisation, coaching and correcting individual performance problems is as much a team responsibility as a management responsibility. Strategies for ensuring consequences:
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Ensure that teams get direct and regular feedback from customers. Let teams carry over savings in their budgets. Abolish internal monopolies. Tie rewards and compensation to team output. Allow teams to share in the financial success of the organisation.
1.4 Plan for contingencies that could impact the team Contingency What Is a Contingency?
A contingency is a potentially negative event that may occur in the future, such as an economic recession, natural disaster, fraudulent activity, or a terrorist attack. Contingencies can be prepared for, but often the nature and scope of such negative events are unknowable in advance. Companies and investors plan for various contingencies through analysis and implementing protective measures. In finance, managers often attempt to identify and plan using predictive models for possible contingencies that they believe may occur. Financial managers tend to err on the conservative side to mitigate risk assuming slightly worse than expected outcomes. A contingency plan might include arranging a company's affairs so that it can weather negative outcomes with the least distress possible. Why should every business have a contingency plan? You are moving along in your business, and everything is going smoothly. Suddenly, just out of the blue, disaster strikes when the unexpected happens. This could be anything like a natural disaster such as an earthquake or tsunami. It could also be something like a medical emergency for you or even your most valuable employee.
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It is also a possibility that a new product that you were relying on to help your business moves ahead flat lines. There are not enough sales or a tech glitch could also wipe out your entire data system, so you have nothing left behind. There is one basic similarity in all these events. They have the power of preventing a business from functioning properly. This is where you need contingency plans because they can eventually allow you to save the day. Planning is important for every aspect of life. It is crucial for a business because it can be great for preventing risks. In simple words, contingency plans are backup plans that businesses activate only when a disaster or unforeseen situation disrupts the operations of the company or put their employees at risk. The purpose of these plans is to minimise the disruption, safeguard the data and ensure the safety of everyone involved. There is a good chance that business never has to make use of its contingency plans. It is still important to have one because you cannot see the future. Listed below are some great and elaborated reasons why having contingency plans is imperative for any business nowadays: Reason 1: Contingency plans for better preparation You can prepare for the worst in the best way possible if you know about any possible unpredictable events. You can protect your enterprise from several harmful and risky scenarios through efficient and pre-emptive planning. For instance, there is a possibility that the data backup you keep on your premises may be lost in a fire. Even worse, the president of the business may pass away in the middle of an important deal. These things can drive you to the cusp of disaster unless you have contingency plans such as a data backup in the cloud and interim presidents lined up beforehand. Reason 2: For better flexibility Not only do contingency plans aid you in preparing for the worst, but they also enable your organisation to become more flexible to any foreseeable challenges that may arise in the future. For example, the government may introduce a new policy that can have an impact on your business. Change in the economy could also affect your business. Regardless of the situation, if you have contingency plans to rely on, you will be able to deal with these difficulties head-on. You will be able to work stress-free because you will be prepared for any type of catastrophe. Reason 3: For a quicker reaction A business with a contingency plan in place is more likely to respond quickly to unplanned events. When the real challenges arise, such businesses can overcome the problem with not much damage to their operations. Moreover, having such plans in place also motivates the employees to think on their feet. Motivated employees can always come up with the best and most efficient solutions. Reason 4: For preventing panic
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It is not the danger that causes people to panic. They panic because they know that there are no solutions in place, and nothing can be more disastrous than that. However, with contingency plans, everyone knows that an immediate plan of action exists. They know that a solution can be implemented when need be. This allows for quick recovery even in the worst of situations, and this can bring down panic levels by a huge extent. It is possible to maintain order and prevent panic and chaos from turning everything upside down. Effective contingency plans contain instructions and orders for everyone involved. Reason 5: For eliminating last-minute comprehension You should never make decisions when you are angry or stressed. Decisions made in such circumstances can be the worst ones of your life. This can also apply to a business when it faces an unexpected and unprecedented situation. Details make up a plan, and these details have to be evaluated properly. But, if anything unplanned occurs, it can be tough to evaluate or come up with a detailed solution on the spot. On the other hand, business experts design contingency plans after thorough research and observation. They well-evaluate all factors. Therefore, they eliminate the need for last-minute comprehension and thus reduce the risk considerably. Reason 6: For minimising losses When a business faces disruption, whether in the form of natural disaster, a power outage or even moving of office space, having a contingency plan can help in minimising the losses in production and thereby sales. Plans to get production back on track despite unforeseen circumstances can be the difference between a business that survives disaster and the one that collapses. These are some excellent reasons for every business to devise contingency plans for its operations. It is better to be proactive and have a plan in place, even if the chances are slim that you will ever need to use them. You can create a contingency team and give them the responsibility of activating the plan when required. Team members should be reviewed regularly. New employees should be assigned to replace those who have left or are no longer suitable to carry on the task given to them. Regular training should also be provided on the contingency plan to ensure that the team remains refreshed. Never allow the contingency plans to go stale. This is only going to render them useless as they will not take the latest circumstances into account. As long as these steps are taken, your contingency plans will work seamlessly.
How to Create a Business Contingency Plan A contingency plan is a plan, and like any plan, it requires a great deal of research and brainstorming. And like any good plan, there are steps to take to make sure you’re doing it right. Identify and Prioritise Resources: Research your company and list its crucial resources, such as teams, tools, facilities, etc., then prioritise that list from most important to least important. 30 | P a g e
What Are the Key Risks? Figure out where you are vulnerable by meeting with teams, executives and every other department in the organisation to get a full picture of what events could compromise your resources; hire an outside consultant, if necessary. Draft a Contingency Plan: If you can, write a contingency plan for each risk that you identified in the above steps, but start with what’s most critical to the life of your organisation. As time permits, you can create a plan for everything on your list. Whatever the plan, the thought behind each should be the steps necessary to resume normal operation of the company, thinking about communications, people’s responsibilities, timelines, etc. Share the Plan: When you’ve written the contingency plan, and it’s been approved; the next step is to make sure everyone in the organisation has a copy. A contingency plan, no matter how thorough, is not effective if it hasn’t been properly communicated. Revisit the Plan: A contingency plan isn’t chiselled in stone. It must be revisited, revised and maintained to reflect changes to the organisation. As new employees, technologies and resources enter the picture, the contingency plan must be updated to handle them.
Contingency plan Template– business continuity
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Self – Assessment Question 1: Why every business need a contingency plan? Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Question 2: What steps you will follow to set team goals? Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________
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Chapter 2: Coordinate team and individuals This chapter is going to discuss the following points in detail: Communicate common team objectives and responsibilities to team members
Allocate tasks to team members based on staff expertise or development potential and provide appropriate instructions
Facilitate open and respectful communication and collaboration between team members, considering the needs of those from diverse backgrounds
Identify opportunities for cross-collaboration amongst external and internal teams and individuals
2.1 Communicate common team objectives and responsibilities to team members Importance of communication in the workplace
Good communication practices are at the heart of every successful business. Communication serves two essential functions in every organisation. It disseminates the information needed by employees to get things done and builds relationships of trust and commitment. Workplace communication is vital to an organisation’s ability to be productive and operate smoothly.
Workplace communication improves worker productivity.
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Research shows that effective lateral and workgroup communication leads to an improvement in overall company performance. It has also been discovered that employees who were graded as highest in work productivity had received the most effective communication from their superiors.
Workplace communication can increase employee job satisfaction. Employees feel empowered if they can receive upward communication. This type of communication is when information flows upward in an organisation and usually consists of feedback. If employers or managers can listen to employees and respond, this leads to an increase in employee job satisfaction. Also, employees are happy if there is strong downward communication, which is information flowing down from superiors or managers, to direct reports.
Workplace communication can also have a positive effect on absenteeism and turnover rates. Communication flow is very important to workers. Employees need to feel secure that they are receiving truthful and updated information from superiors. They also want to have the ability to share ideas, thoughts and concerns within the company. Studies have shown that even after a period of downsizing, companies that have excellent communication can retain the surviving employees.
Team Building Creating effective teams requires communication and cooperation. You will be effective in building effective teams by implementing effective strategies such as those listed below to improve communication. This will increase morale and employee satisfaction.
What are the effects of poor organisational communication? You have probably figured out that effective communication takes time. It takes time that you would rather enjoy as a quiet lunch hour than refereeing a debate between two work teams. It takes time when you would prefer to head home at the end of the day rather than linger in the hallway to encourage a flagging employee. And it takes time that makes you postpone unplugging for the day and go to sleep rather than respond to another late-night email. Effective communication takes time and effort, and while your workplace may not be voted one of “the best places to work” by a notable magazine, it still should not suffer some of the most damaging negative consequences of poor communication, which include: Lowered productivity. Employees who feel adrift, unmotivated or disgruntled may spend work time commiserating with their colleagues; others will find nonwork activities for occupying their attention during work time. More frequent absenteeism. Employees who wrestle with one of those emotions often have difficulty showing up for work. They are sick, alright of feeling out of the loop. High turnover.
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Everybody knows that disenfranchised employees who feel as though they do not have a voice in the workplace decide to break in their vocal cords by quitting. A greater number of workplace injuries. It follows that employees who are misinformed or uninformed about proper practices make more mistakes and have more accidents at work. Poor customer service. Another certainty: Almost everything about a small business comes full circle, starting with the owner, moving to the employees and ending with the customer. Good service is either a happy outcome or a sad casualty of organisational communication.
How can you improve how your organisation communicates?
Below, we have outlined some of the key areas where organisations can improve and enhance communication between their teams. Define goals and expectations Managers need to deliver clear, achievable goals to both teams and individuals, outlining exactly what is required on any given project, and ensuring that all staff are aware of the objectives of the project, the department and the organisation as a whole. 36 | P a g e
Deliver your message Ensure your message is clear and accessible to your intended audience. To do this, you must speak plainly and politely getting your message across clearly without causing confusion or offence. Choose your medium carefully Once you have created your message, you need to ensure it’s delivered in the best possible format. While face-to-face communication is by far the best way to build trust with employees, it is not always an option. Take time to decide whether information delivered in a printed copy would work better than an email or if a general memo will suffice. Keep everyone involved Ensure that lines of communication are kept open at all times. Actively seek and encourage progress reports and project updates. This is particularly important when dealing with remote staff. Listen and show empathy Communication is a two-way process, and no company or individual will survive long if it does not listen and encourage dialogue with the other party. Listening shows respect and allows you to learn about any outstanding issues you may need to address as an employer.
Different Ways to Communicate Effectively in the Workplace The different methods of communication that are used commonly in the workplace are: Verbal Communication Verbal communication involves the usage of words, while the delivery of the intended message is being made. It can be one-on-one, over the phone or in group settings, etc. it is a method of effective communication that is personal and has to be used more than only phone calls and emails whenever possible. The medium of the message in case of verbal communication is oral. Simple speaking is verbal communication. Seeing the person with whom face-to-face communication is taking place helps in gauging the response of that person by understanding their body language and also assists in active participation of the dialogue. Thus, written as well as oral communication are the two main types of verbal communication. Storytelling Storytelling is a form of verbal communication that is effective. A vital organisational function is served by it as it helps in the construction of common meanings for the individuals in the organisation. Stories assist in clarifying key values and also help in demonstrating the way thing are done in an organisation. The tone, strength and frequency of the story have a relation with higher organisational commitment. The quality of stories that are told by the entrepreneurs is related to the capability of securing capital for their organisations. Stories can help in serving to reinforce as well as perpetuate the culture of an organisation. Oral Communication 37 | P a g e
The other type of verbal communication includes the spoken word, either over the phone or face-toface, videoconferencing, voice chat or any other medium. Different types of informal communications, like the informal rumour mill or grapevine and formal communications such as conferences and lectures, are the forms of effective oral communication. The use of oral communications is made in discussions as well as conversations that are informal and casual. How effective oral communication is will depend on the speed, volume, pitch, voice modulation, clarity of speech and also the non-verbal communications like visual cues and body language. Some of the important oral methods of communication include: Face-to-Face Communication This is usually preferred methods of communication, although it is not realistic all the time, especially in organisations that are based in several locations around the globe. However, tools like videoconferencing make approximate face-to-face communication possible and help even the large organisations in creating personal connections between the management and the staff. Meetings Meetings are common in almost all the business settings, and now it has become possible to augment them via the use of the tools of technology which allow the participants in the remote locations to participate in the discussions. However, they are not present physically on the meeting site. While using verbal communication, the person needs to be aware of his tone of voice, inflection as well as speed. Use of sarcasm and angry tones should be avoided; otherwise, the person with whom you are communicating will go on the defensive. While speaking to your team or a group of people, you should ensure that you speak loudly as well as clearly so that everyone can understand what you are saying. Use of the microphone should be made if a group in is being addressed in a large room. Verbal communication is best used when something has to be discussed in detail or when someone has to be complimented or reprimanded. Verbal communication makes the conveying of thoughts faster and easier and is the most successful methods of communication. However, it makes up just 7% of all human communication. Nonverbal methods of Communication “The most important thing in communication hears what isn’t said” Peter Drucker Communication by sending as well as receiving wordless messages is a part of nonverbal communication. Such messages are a vital part of any communication and generally reinforce verbal communication. However, they can also convey their feelings and thoughts. Written Communication Written communication cannot be avoided in the workplace. It is present everywhere and consists of traditional paper and pen documents and letters, text chats, emails, typed electronic documents, reports, SMS and anything else that might be conveyed by the use of written symbols like language which includes any documents that are a part of the day to day business life. Such methods of communication are indispensable for any formal business communication and also for the issue of legal instructions.
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The methods of communication that mainly make use of written communication consist of formal business proposals, press releases, memos, contracts, brochures, handbooks and the like. How effective written communication is will depend on the style of writing, vocabulary, grammar, along with clarity. Written communication is most suitable in cases that require detailed instructions when something has to be documented or in situations where the person is too far away to speak in person or over the phone. Some of the written methods of communication include: Social Media Tools of social media such as Facebook can be used effectively in the organisations to communicate between locations, divisions, departments and employees. Certain tools such as Yammer are specifically designed for creating social media networks in the confines of a particular domain of business. Email The email communication in organisations has become very common and is a highly essential tool for sharing of information with one, hundreds as well as thousands of employees. It is usually a significant component of the communication plan, and even though it may not be a replacement for face-to-face or other methods of communication, it is easily accessible and inexpensive.
2.2 Allocate tasks to team members based on staff expertise or development potential and provide appropriate instructions Task allocation
One major responsibility when leading a team is task allocation to each person on the team. This requires making decisions about who is capable of performing specific tasks for a successful project. To make these decisions effectively, the team leader must make judgments concerning: 39 | P a g e
One or several tasks that must be completed Which employees in the department can complete the tasks Finding the best fit to achieve project goals Generally, this means the team leader needs to combine people and tasks. Maintaining proper staff levels is also important when allocating work assignments. As the leader of a high-performing team, how you distribute and balance work across the members of that team is a critical success factor. It needs to be done fairly. Work allocation needs to be done fairly because you want your team to operate based on equality. You want people to work on things they are good at but also that they are excited by. There are five criteria to think about as you think about distributing work. 1. Priority Consider the work’s priority. Priority needs to drive everything. If you’ve been rigorous in your prioritisation process, start at the top of the list and begin allocating work from there. That list should be based on the team’s and the organisation’s goals. This has to be the first consideration in terms of how you distribute work. If a project is a top priority and somebody is available to do that work, they should be tasked with that work. 2. Skill Sets Evaluate the skill set of the people who you are thinking about distributing the work to. If they have the right skill set, you are going to get a high-quality result. The end product will be something that meets your customer’s needs. This also reduces the likelihood of people failing because you are not giving them work that they do not have the skill set to perform. You are giving them something they can be successful with. 3. Availability The next consideration for allocating work is a person’s availability. All things being equal in terms of priority and skill set, which is free to do the work? Who has the bandwidth? You should not be shifting resources from one project to another when you have available resources to pick up that new project. If you start shifting resources around between projects when you have available resources elsewhere, you are going to lose momentum on that first project, and that project might fail. Additionally, the people who are on the project are going to be very frustrated. They had the resources they needed and all of a sudden, and they don’t. It is going to seem like it was at a whim just to move somebody around. The person who will be most frustrated is the person who has the resource taken off the project they are succeeding on and put onto something new. 4. Development
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Next, you have to think about the development opportunity this project might present for that person. You should constantly be upgrading your team’s skill set. A way to do that is to give them new work where they are going to learn new skills. Put them in situations where they are going to be a little bit uncomfortable. Give them projects where they are going to have to step up and learn, be taught, and be open to feedback and coaching. That is how you are going to take your team to the next level of performance. 5. Interest The last consideration in terms of which person gets the work when it needs to be allocated is, does somebody have an interest in performing that particular task? If someone is interested and passionate about a project, you should let them take it on. They are going to be motivated, excited to do it, and hopefully, their performance will follow. One caveat here make sure people don’t only gravitate to the work they enjoy doing, and they stay away from things that they are not comfortable with. If you let that happen, they are going to end up getting pigeonholed, and they will be very narrow in their focus.
2.3 Facilitate open and respectful communication and collaboration between team members, considering the needs of those from diverse backgrounds 2.4 Identify opportunities for cross-collaboration amongst external and internal teams and individuals We have discussed the importance of communication and different ways to communicate in the workplace in the above section. Here, we will discuss collaboration between team member and how to identify the needs of diverse people in the workplace.
Collaboration in the workplace If you asked several CEOs or human resource professionals what goals or elements were important to their success, you would probably get some phrases and corporate terms that kept coming up. Collaboration in the workplace would certainly be one of the more common answers. Collaboration in the workplace is when two or more people (often groups) work together through idea sharing and thinking to accomplish a common goal. It is simply teamwork taken to a higher level. Teamwork is often a physical joining of two people or a group to accomplish a task. With the changes and advancements in technology, such as high-speed Internet, web-based programs, file sharing, email and video-conferencing, collaboration has become a more productive way of doing things. Collaboration in the workplace incorporates teamwork and several other aspects, such as the following: • • •
Thinking and brainstorming ideas to provide solutions - This key element brings groups together to offer different perspectives and expertise to solve for common problems. The phrase 'putting our heads together' would be a good example of this important element of collaboration. A strong sense of purpose - Groups and individuals who truly collaborate see the value in working together. Collaboration is not forced upon someone. There should be a meaningful reason for working together, and it should benefit both parties or the company as a whole. Equal participation - leader may often say, 'leave your titles at the door.' Treating everyone as equals when collaborating can open up communication and encourage ideas from all levels of the company or department, not just the managers or directors.
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Benefits of collaboration The pooling of Talent and StrengthsWhen members of a team collaborate, they can utilise the knowledge, experience and skills of everyone involved. For instance, one member may struggle with presentation skills but might know all about the technical aspects involved. Effective collaboration will allow all the members to share their talent and find the most optimal solution to every problem. This will augment the chances of the business to achieve more in less time. Development of Employee SkillsCollaboration is mutually beneficial for the employees as well as the organisation because when they work together, interact and share ideas, they see and understand how others work, think, negotiate and operate. This gives all the employees a chance to pick up skills from their colleagues or teammates and build upon their strengths. These newly learned skills can then be practised in their field to look at things with a new perspective and make improvements and enhancements. Speed up SolutionsCollaboration speeds things up. It fast-tracks progress. A problem that may take months to get resolved when handled by a single individual, but may take just a few hours to resolve when several other members employ their unique standpoints and expertise to get things done. These viewpoints will open up several doors to multiple ideas and solutions that a single individual may not be able to come up with. Increased Efficiency – Collaborating in the workplace enables businesses to finish important projects and meet crucial deadlines efficiently. With multiple individuals working on a project, the work can be divided up equally and efficiently between those with the time and the expertise to handle specific tasks. This also significantly reduces the project delivery time. Often referred to as the divide and conquer strategy, it entails teaming up of several individuals together, dividing up the tasks among them, and accomplishing the project in relatively less time. Enhance Employee Retention and Job Satisfaction – As mentioned, collaboration brings meaning and adds value to the way team members perceive their job. Because of this, they feel good about what they do. The sense of team spirit is felt most strongly when victories can be shared. Employees are more likely to continue working for a business longer when they have strong ties with the people they work with and feel that they are a part of something important.
Virtual collaboration Virtual collaboration refers to working as a team across digital tools to accomplish tasks. Virtual collaboration is old hat to distributed and virtual teams, but it’s becoming common across all types of companies. Even teams in the same building benefit from chat tools, extranets, and digital whiteboards. 42 | P a g e
Using virtual collaboration instead of meetings Knowing why you are having a meeting can help inform how you might move it into the digital space. Sharing information If the purpose of the meeting is to share information, consider turning it into an email, internal blog post or even an update in a chat room. Information sessions often get detailed, people zone out, and not everyone needs every bit of information. Presenting the information in written form allows people to skim what they need and make comments where applicable. Additionally, people are more likely to read updates because they know it’s useful info and won’t be covered in a meeting. Taking all the valuable information and putting it in a place people can search, revisit and add comments, frees everyone up to get work done and encourages a culture of actually reading updates. Solving problems Studies show when people problem solve in larger groups, they put in less effort, than when they work individually. It’s a psychological phenomenon known as social loafing. So, instead of a regular brainstorm session, consider putting together a blog post or even a Trello board outlining the problem and ask individuals to contribute thoughts. Consider putting a deadline on feedback – “Please review this draft by Tuesday at 3 p.m.” This helps folks prioritise your request and allows them to work on it when they feel most inspired and fresh. Collaborating asynchronously enables people to build their daily agendas, avoids disrupting creative workflows, counters social loafing, and helps introverts feel more comfortable sharing ideas. Taking action When you are using virtual collaboration, consider having detailed to-do lists in your shared workspaces or project management programs. Start building a culture of accountability around task assignments and deadlines. If no one mentions when a deadline is missed people think it’s acceptable and projects can get off track. Sometimes asynchronous collaboration can get messy and cost time. That’s when a team chat room or even video chat comes in handy. The right tools, right people, right practices Collaboration tools can make meetings more effective. More importantly, they cut down on the need for meetings in the first place. Chat tool: Ideally, choose one with different rooms for specific tasks and projects and a video chat option. Being able to reach your team at any time in any place is hugely valuable for getting stuff done and essential for virtual collaboration. Chat tools can also help with decision making and task assigning. Internal blogging/document sharing/content management system: Every organisation produces a crazy amount of documentation, and once you are starting collaborating, virtually having information accessible, searchable, and organised becomes critical. You need to be able to jump into a draft and 43 | P a g e
make changes on the fly or move dates around on a calendar. Project management software: Having a way to define and assign tasks to your team, share files and images, and track workflows are crucial to successful virtual collaboration. You can’t reach your goal if you don’t know where you’re going or where you’ve been. A project management tool helps you see your path and brings everyone along the journey together.
Communicate with people from a diverse background As you know, Australia is a diverse country, and you will work with people from different background. You need to learn and understand how to communicate with people from a diverse background. You might be from an English-speaking background, or you might be from a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) background. Whatever your cultural and linguistic background, you will find this topic relevant. Note: the acronym CALD refers to people who are from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds (not English-speaking). The first section of this topic focuses on people from a CALD background who are recent migrants to Australia. The latter part of the section covers communicating with Australian people of an Englishspeaking cultural and linguistic background. In short, you will learn about communicating with people who are not from your own cultural and linguistic background. On completion of this topic, you will be able to: • • • •
demonstrate respect for cultural diversity in all communication with clients, their families, staff, customers and others use communication constructively to develop and maintain effective relationships, mutual trust and confidence make efforts where language barriers exist, to communicate in the most effective way possible seek assistance from interpreters or other persons as required.
The communication process
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We will look at the communication process to introduce ways we can improve communication with the people you work with. Being able to communicate with clients and colleagues effectively will make your work easier and more enjoyable. Now let’s look more closely at all the elements of the communication process. An understanding of the factors involved in communicating provides a good base for improving communication between people who do not speak the same language. As noted previously, while language is important to communication, especially for complex messages, it is possible to communicate without the use of speech. As the graph below indicates, actual words make up only a small proportion of the process. As the chart above illustrates, the communication process is 90% made up of non-verbal information. That is, language-specific words account for only 10% of communication. The rest of the communication process is made up of tone and body language.
Show respect for cultural diversity in all communication with clients, families, staff and others A question on many English-speaking peoples’ minds is: ‘Why don’t they speak English?’ The following section answers this common question and aims to promote an appreciation and respect for cultural and linguistic diversity. Learning a new language as an adult is not an easy task. Many factors can make it particularly difficult 45 | P a g e
and, in some cases, almost impossible. We look at some of those factors below: • • • • •
Some languages are more similar to English than others. The more similar the first language, the easier it is to learn English. Languages such as Italian and German share an alphabet and script with English There are even strong similarities between certain words. Japanese and English have nothing in common. Each language uses a different script—alphabet and characters—and utilises differing sounds and words. It is much harder to learn English from Japanese than it is from German or Italian. English proficiency does not reflect on certain groups’ will to learn, but rather on the complexity of the task.
A person’s level of literacy in their first language may have a strong impact on their ability to learn another language as an adult. This is particularly relevant to learning to read and write as well as to speak a new language. For migrants who came to Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, there were not many opportunities for them to attend English classes. Where English classes were available, they were often inadequate and grouped people from many different language backgrounds and varying levels of formal education altogether. English classes were often unable to meet learners’ needs. For many migrants, the workplace did not offer the opportunity to learn or practise English skills. Consider that: • • •
English is not essential for many semi-skilled jobs. Many migrants worked in jobs that did not involve much talking. The English used at work often related only to the job, and the workers did not have much practice with conversational English.
Outside working hours, most people spend their time with family and friends, and these were usually people of the same background and speaking the same native language. Many migrants left behind close family and friends and a familiar cultural environment. Therefore, as a group, they often recreated a cultural environment where they could feel more at home, speaking the same language. Once retired, many migrants mix mostly with family and friends with whom they can share memories and cultural experiences in their language. Much of the English learnt at work is often lost after retirement when retirees stop spending as much time around English-speaking people. By the time they are in their 70s and 80s, most of the post World War II migrants would have been retired for at least 10–15 years. Once retired, they are likely to have been speaking almost exclusively in their native language. Some migrants have said that they shielded themselves from the wider English-speaking community due to feelings of rejection, especially as prejudice against them was not uncommon. English proficiency among older women migrants is often even lower than that of migrant men. Many women stay (or stayed) at home to raise children and look after the house, which meant that they had very little opportunity to learn English.
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Older people generally tend to go back to speaking their native language—even when they are quite proficient in English—because they find the native language easier to use. Some older people develop memory difficulties (such as Alzheimer’s disease), and the first language that they lose is the one that they had acquired last, i.e. English. Further, several older migrants come to Australia late in life to join their children and grandchildren. These older people often have very limited exposure to the wider community and probably will not learn any English at all. Younger migrants vary in their English-language abilities. Some will already have proficiency in English while others will come with very little English. With couples, sometimes one will speak more English than the other.
How to communicate with a diverse workforce Expand Your Cultural Understanding The first step in effectively communicating with others who are different from you is to understand their cultural norms and expectations. People from differing backgrounds tend to vary in the ways they communicate and have different expectations for formality and politeness. While you don’t need to take a master class on the cultural norms of every person in your office, you should be aware of the basic differences. Understanding those differences can help you communicate in ways that avoid offending or confusing your audience. Be Aware of Your Influences The flip side of understanding the cultures of others is aware of your cultural influences. Consider how your upbringing may be affecting the way you speak and the way you interpret the communications of others. While it is easy for us to think of our style of communication as “normal,” we should recognise that we are just as influenced by our race, gender, national origin, etc., as anyone else. When you are aware of your influences, you are more capable of adjusting your communication style to best suit the situation and audience. Keep It Straightforward The goal of business communication is to be clear and concise. It is not to be funny. It is not to be philosophical. And it is certainly not to make political or religious statements. Instead, keep your communications straightforward so you can keep a diverse group focused on the tasks and goals ahead of you. There is nothing wrong with building personal relationships in the workplace. Still, when you add humour, asides, or personal opinions to your business communications, you can inadvertently confuse or upset some members of a diverse audience. Be Respectful In a diverse workplace, people will celebrate different religious holidays, eat different foods, spend their free time on different activities, date and marry different types of people, and generally live differing lives. Unless any of that is directly affecting the tasks and goals of the business, there’s no need even to address it. And if it is affecting the business? Handle the matter respectfully, with the understanding that the employee’s choices may be extremely important to him or her. By communicating respectfully 47 | P a g e
with a diverse workforce, you can avoid unnecessary conflict and address real conflict in ways that are conducive to finding mutually agreeable solutions. Be Receptive Communication is, as they say, a two-way street. If you want to succeed in your communications with a diverse workforce, you need to do more than just speak. You need to listen too. Make yourself available to answer questions so that you can quickly clear up any misunderstandings. Additionally, pay attention to the concern’s others may voice about the tasks they have been assigned. There are often ways for your business’ leadership to adjust tasks to suit the individual needs of diverse employees better. You have a better chance of keeping everyone working efficiently if you are receptive to their concerns and are available to help them through any confusion.
Cross collaboration
Cross-functional collaboration is a group of people with different functional expertise coming together to work toward a common goal. In many cases, a team is simply a group of people from the different departments across a business working on solving a specific problem. A team of this composition has the potential to implement significant improvements throughout the organisation, and thus is a powerful tool in a culture of continuous improvement. This type of diversity allows organisations to: • • • •
Create a culture of continuous improvement in which employees take ownership of problems and work together to bring about solutions Increase teamwork, leading to greater levels of commitment to continuous improvement from everyone Improve communication between diverse, dispersed groups of people Increase the chance that positive change sticks
The Benefits of Cross-Functional Collaboration Collaboration is a natural part of working in teams, and in most organisations, it happens organically within functions or business units. However, it is less likely to occur across different roles, departments or functions - which are precisely the areas in which it has the potential for the maximum impact. Crossfunctional collaboration is critical to improving business performance. Here are just a few of its advantages:
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Different perspectives spur innovation Everyone sees problems from their perspective, and the view can be very different from the marketing office than the production floor. Bringing people from different parts of the company together can shed light on process problems and deliver innovative solutions that satisfy everyone. Increased momentum of change Involving people with different areas of influence from the beginning helps secure buy-in, empathy, and trust. There’s less “turf” to be protected, and everyone is on the same page, so there are far fewer delays. Everyone Learns More Collaboration with people who are experts in different areas of the business cross-pollinates knowledge and helps everyone to understand how their work fits into the bigger picture. There is certainly an advantage, for example, in having a marketing coordinator who understands how finance processes payments to vendors. Old Ideas are Challenged Everyone knows how difficult it is to proofread your work. A new set of eyes can be a huge help in finding errors and opportunities for improvement in all types of work. Cross-functional collaboration creates an environment where “the way we’ve always done it” can be questioned and considered from a fresh perspective. The Playing Field is Levelled Structure and hierarchy are important elements of any organisation, but sometimes a more multidirectional approach can yield greater results. Cross-functional collaboration means that not all ideas come from the executive suite or a single department with a dominant leader. People at any level can participate in innovation and contribute to the execution of great ideas, which increases buy-in and engagement on the front lines.
Why is Cross-Functional Collaboration So Hard? Cross-functional collaboration involves teams from across the organisation tasked with working on a single project or finding a solution to a specific problem. In theory, it sounds ideal. Different skill sets are brought in to approach the project from several angles. Seems like a thorough, efficient method, right? In practice, however, companies often find that cross-functional collaboration is a lot harder than it sounds. Here are some of the more common reasons why this style of problem-solving is hard: Lack of trust When employees and leaders think of the organisation as a group of divisible, compartmentalised groups, the result is “tribalism” or silo-building. When there is a lack of trust between the tribes, collaboration fails.
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Solution: Leaders can help bridge the silos and develop a culture of trust by aligning the goals and incentives of the organisation as a whole, instead of rewarding selfishness and sub optimisation. If mistrust is a barrier to collaboration in your organisation, try starting with a few small opportunities for teams to work together to get quick wins. Seeing results can help develop trust. Successful collaborative efforts should be celebrated, and leaders should be sure to broadcast improvements widely. Leaders and team members should be held at least as accountable for their crossfunctional, big picture efforts as they are for their primary role. Social loafing Ironically, cross-functional collaboration can result in a reduction of effort. Remember in school when you got put into teams to work on projects? Far too often, one person got stuck doing all the work. A lack of individual accountability causes what psychologists refer to as “social loafing.” The tendency to be a social loafer persists in adults, and it rears its ugly head in cross-functional collaboration. Solution: The cure for social loafing in cross-functional collaboration is to develop a standard set of criteria by which each individual is measured. Continuous improvement software helps by giving leaders visibility into who is participating and who is not so that that recognition can be awarded to the highperformers. Loafers can get more support and encouragement. Poor Communication Communication is often a major issue with cross-functional collaboration because departments operate as silos, with little back and forth between them. Teams can develop their language with words and phrases that have meaning only to them. Effective collaboration requires communication, so organisations that do not actively support it struggle to act as a cohesive team. Solution: The first step is to establish a common language around the entire organisation’s improvement efforts. Adopting a business management methodology like Six Sigma or Lean can help because these approaches come with a shared vocabulary, but the same can be achieved without them. Misaligned Goals and Objectives Both leaders and employees are typically measured against goals and objectives that are specific to their function and role. This makes sense, but it can also lead to sub optimising, where everyone prioritises activities that will help them meet their own local goals, leaving little room for projects or improvements that will benefit other teams or the organisation as a whole. Solution: Organisations that are serious about continuous improvement and cross-functional collaboration must make room in the reward structure for collaborative activities. This may mean rewarding success on cross-functional projects separately or allowing for time and energy devoted to such efforts within the framework of the departmental goals. Employees should have a clear understanding of how their collaborative work will be recognised and know that such efforts won’t get in the way of their achievement of local objectives. Divergent Technologies It is pretty common for departments to each have their technology that drives everyday work. Sales reps, for example, may use a CRM system to track activities, while the development team uses an 50 | P a g e
entirely different ticketing application. While it makes sense for each department to use the best-ofbreed automation for their core function, this can hinder cross-functional improvement activities. Solution: Companies that embrace continuous improvement should do so using technology designed specifically for that purpose. Continuous improvement software should be standardised across the company and easily accessible by every employee. This unified approach to continuous improvement has the advantage of supporting today’s improvement efforts and creating an improvement knowledge repository for the organisation's tribal knowledge. This asset will pay dividends long into the future.
Tips for Building Cross-Functional Teams Cross-functional collaboration is critical to innovation and improved business performance. It is in every business leader’s best interest to lay the foundation for a united approach to innovation and improvement. The following strategies can help. Promote Diversity It is easy to grab one person from each department and develop a team, but if you want to maximise the effectiveness of your team, you should create a group that is diverse across several areas not just their work area. Here’s are some ideas of factors to look for when developing your cross-functional team:
Experience
Age
Ability
Skills
Gender
Seniority
Location
Resist the urge to overschedule meetings When working with large, diverse, dispersed teams, it can sometimes take weeks to get everyone’s schedules to align for a meeting. Meetings also take away from the time your team has to work on their regular work, which is frustrating for them. For these reasons, it is important to limit the number of meetings in any cross-functional collaboration efforts, using time wisely. Make sure you leverage newer technologies such as communication and collaboration tools. Use tools like Google Docs, GoToMeeting, Zoom. Continuous Improvement Software is a great way to get teams collaborating between meetings. This makes the rest of your meetings more productive, too. When you do need to meet, there should be a strict schedule, and assigned note-taker, and a welldefined method to document follow up tasks. Often, we set a timer on a mobile phone to limit our time on any one topic. A sure-fire way to make sure a meeting ends on time is to remove the chairs from the meeting room. Measure the true impact
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Enabling your cross-functional teams to see the impact they are having creates momentum and ensures the sustainability of the teams. People want to know that their efforts are making a difference; showing them their results will get them more interested in continuing engagement. On a larger scale, developing a standard way to measure the impact of every cross-functional team can help you to truly understand the ROI (return on investment) of continuous improvement in your entire organisation. Correct measurement improves the visibility and transparency of continuous improvement in your organisation. Involve Influencers In most organisations, some people are natural leaders, regardless of what position they hold in the company. These people are well-liked and respected, and they work well with others. It is easier for them to inspire other people to participate in activities. They are the perfect individuals to involve in your cross-functional collaboration efforts because they’re more likely to be able to get the team engaged. Leverage Subject Matter Experts The people in your organisation who know the most about particular processes, products, or disciplines can help to accelerate your cross-functional collaboration efforts by sharing their knowledge with the rest of the organisation. Pairing a subject matter novice with an expert is a great way to educate the less experienced person, while simultaneously providing the expert with a new point of view. Encourage Random Interactions Often, a spontaneous conversation in the break room can lead to an innovative breakthrough. Companies that are great at cross-functional collaboration intentionally design the workspace and the workday to encourage such random interactions. Google, for example, is famous for intentionally creating lines in the cafeteria and snack areas so that employees from different departments will have an opportunity to chat. Align Incentives All of these other strategies can be undermined if employees throughout the organisation are not recognised and rewarded for their team effort. It is not uncommon to find financial incentives that are based solely on the goals of one department. This creates a conflict with the employee’s paycheck and achieves predictably poor results. To improve cross-functional collaboration, leaders should set goals and incentives that require it and reward people for improving the overall system, not just one piece of it.
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Self – Assessment Question 1: Why communication in the workplace? Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Question 2: What steps will you follow to improve communication in the workplace? Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Question 3: Explain the benefits of collaboration. Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________
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Chapter 3: Support team This chapter is going to discuss the following points in detail:
Provide coaching to staff to enhance workplace culture
Support individuals according to organisational requirements to work towards common team goals
Facilitate team to identify, brainstorm, report and resolve task-related issues and inefficiencies
Use problem-solving skills to deal with any team, task or individual challenges
3.1 Provide coaching to staff to enhance workplace culture 3.2 Support individuals according to organisational requirements to work towards common team goals 3.4 Use problem-solving skills to deal with any team, task or individual challenges How to support the team member Your team need your support, so they do not feel the same way, so let’s look at how you can make it happen. 1. Support Your Team by Reviewing Work Frequently Don’t be a seagull manager, only meeting with your team when there is a crisis. Do not leave your team working on the bug report for two months and then review it right at the end. Be sure to check in with your team early and often. Leaving your team to work alone until you come in and criticise their work will lead to increased stress and potentially a lot of rework. Book regular progress meetings to understand how your team members are progressing, and if they need assistance. 2. Support Your Team by Sticking Up For Them 54 | P a g e
Sometimes, people will criticise your team. Whilst it is important that you try to understand any issues, your default position should be that you stand up for your team. If you do not, then you probably have trust issues which need to be fixed. Of course, you cannot just ignore problems your team may have caused. Even so, your team needs to see that you are willing to stick up for them when needed. If your team sees you back off or contradict them at the first sign of conflict, they will begin to feel exposed. 3. Support Your Team By Communicating Accountability When you delegate accountability to someone in your team, it needs to be communicated clearly. The worst thing you can do is tell your team member that they are accountable, but not tell anybody else. This puts them in a situation where roles and responsibilities are unclear. Make it easy for your team member when you delegate accountability to them. Tell the team member they are accountable. Then tell the people they are working with. This removes a lot of infighting that can occur as part of delegating accountability. 4. Support Your Team By Setting Standards Working in a team without any standards is difficult for everybody. It is difficult for you, the leader because team members will produce variable outcomes. It is difficult for your team members because they don’t have direction. You need to support your team by setting standards for the work that you do. If your team works on technical tasks, make sure technical standards are in place. On creative tasks, standardise the process, rather than the creative output. This will increase their confidence and give them some “guard rails” to follow. When you have performance standards in place, you can more easily see whether your team is meeting them. Anything below the line is a cause for concern and may indicate an area where you need to provide more support. 5. Support Your Team by Being Available Some leaders are difficult to contact. Sometimes being busy is the nature of their position. Regardless, you need to ensure that you provide your team with frequent opportunities to talk to you. Set times when you will be available and stick to them. Make yourself available to your team, so they have opportunities to discuss and confirm things with you. You may think that you are showing trust by allowing your team just to “get on with it” without you. Your team may just feel like you are never around and don’t care about them. 6. Support Your Team by Developing Their Skills A team that is not learning is stagnating. Teams that are not given opportunities to develop their skills may suffer from a lack of confidence to perform at their best.
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It is up to you to provide opportunities to learn through mentoring, training or on the job coaching. Targeting areas where team members lack confidence is a good starting point.
Coaching Coaching has been defined in many ways. The essence of coaching is:
To help a person change in the way they wish and helping them go in the direction they want to go to. Coaching supports a person at every level in becoming who they want to be. Coaching builds awareness empowers choice and leads to change.
It unlocks a person’s potential to maximise their performance. Coaching helps them to learn rather than teaching them. Coaching has traditionally been associated with sports. Every top athlete has a coach. In the last few years, coaching has become applicable in every area, in business and every aspect of life as well as sport. Now, it is quite normal for someone to see a coach to help them achieve their goals in their life and work. Coaching is a partnership between coach and client. The coach helps the client to achieve their personal best and to produce the results they want in their personal and professional lives. Coaching ensures the client can give their best, learn and develop in the way they wish. The coach need not be an expert in their clients’ field of work. It is useful to distinguish coaching from similar activities.
Mentoring
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Mentoring is when a senior colleague, seen as more knowledgeable and worldly-wise gives advice and provides a role model. Mentoring involves wide-ranging discussions that may not be limited to the work context. A mentor is a sponsor with great professional experience in their client’s field of work. Both mentoring and coaching are concerned mainly with achievements in the present and the future. Counselling Counselling is working with a client who feels uncomfortable or dissatisfied with their life. They are seeking guidance and advice. A counsellor works remedially on a client’s problem. Therapy Therapy is working with the client who seeks relief from psychological or physical symptoms. The client wants emotional healing and relief from mental pain. Therapy deals with the client’s mental health. Coaching deals with the client’s mental growth. The client’s motive for entering therapy or counselling is usually to get away from pain or discomfort, rather than moving towards desired goals. Coaching is not remedial; it is generative. Both therapy and counselling are more likely to involve understanding and working with experience than coaching. Training Training is the process of getting knowledge skills or abilities by study, experience or teaching. The trainer, by definition, is the expert, and the training course is likely to be targeted on specific skills for immediate results. Training is also likely to be one too many rather than one to one. Consultancy A consultant provides expertise and solves business problems, or develops business as a whole. A consultant deals with the overall organisation or specific parts of it and not individuals within it. Consultants only indirectly affect individuals. Teaching Teaching passes knowledge from teacher to student. The teacher knows something the student does not. The opposite is true in coaching. The client is the expert, and the client has the answers, not the coach.
Rules to Effective, Ongoing Employee Coaching 1. Give employees regular, frequent feedback. Intentionally set aside time to provide feedback on employee performance. Your employees want to know how their performance is viewed, what they are doing well, and what they need to improve. Use one-on-one meetings and sessions as regular feedback periods, and consider setting reminders in your calendar to provide feedback to each employee consistently. 2. Create a culture of team feedback.
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Contrary to popular belief, feedback should not just come from the manager. Strive to build a culture where 360 feedback is the norm. Employees should be encouraged to provide feedback to each other and you, their manager. This creates an ongoing dialogue that gives everyone a voice. 3. Push employees to their attainable limits. Although you do not want to overwhelm employees, you should push them to the edge of their comfort zone. Bored employees are much more likely to disengage; they need to be challenged to grow. Identify each employee’s experience and skillset and have them take on new tasks or assignments that help them expand. Be available and willing to help when questions arise. 4. Be open to employee ideas. Listening is an essential part of coaching employees. It opens you to different concepts you had not previously thought of, and it makes employees feel heard. When they feel their opinion is respected and valued, they are far more likely to be engaged and push harder. 5. Encourage employees to learn from others. No two employees are exactly alike. They come from different backgrounds and have varying personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. Have them interact frequently, so they teach each other new skills or approaches. Simply connecting employees with their peers opens new possibilities and creates a more connected workplace. 6. Ask employees for opinions. Employees are not the only ones who can learn from each other; you can too! Keep an open mind during conversations and frequently source new ideas or tactics from them. Again, simply asking for feedback creates an open dialogue and gives employees a voice, making the workplace feel like a democracy instead of a dictatorship. 7. Build confidence. As you coach employees and provide feedback, you must instil them with confidence. Look for opportunities to recognise employees for strong performance and extra effort. Acknowledging employees’ contributions boosts their confidence and sets them up for success. 8. Don't do employees' work for them. When you notice an assignment is proceeding slowly or heading in the wrong direction, you might be tempted to take it into your own hands and simply complete it yourself. This might be beneficial in the short term, but employees need to learn through trial and error. Instead of taking the task off their hands, teach them how to handle the situation by offering guidance. 9. Tolerate occasional failure. Sometimes, things do not go according to plan. Mistakes will be made, and deals will fall through – it is just a part of work. But how you respond is what matters. Do not accept failure and move on, because this can create a lower standard for performance expectations. At the same time, do not crush 58 | P a g e
employees for their mistakes. Instead, have them explain what went wrong and explain how they could have executed better. Remain positive and solution-oriented. 10. Recognise employees often. When an employee succeeds or goes over the top, let them know that you noticed. Even things as simple as a thank-you note, a cup of their favourite coffee drink, or a shout-out during the next team meeting can go a long way toward securing buy-in and building a stronger team. 11. Make goals roadmap. If you hope to get everyone pushing in the same direction, you need to show them where to go. Goals are the clearest and effective way to do so. Sit down with employees to create personal goals that help them develop and further their careers, as well as goals that will contribute to the benchmarks of the team and the organisation as a whole. 12. Ask what you can do to help. Good coaches do not just throw their players into a competition and say, “figure it out.” They are actively encouraging and searching for solutions to help athletes succeed. Let your employees know they can come to you with questions or concerns. You are there to help them, and they should feel comfortable asking for advice and or assistance.
What are problem-solving skills, and why are they important? When employers talk about problem-solving skills, they are often referring to the ability to handle difficult or unexpected situations in the workplace as well as complex business challenges. Organisations rely on people who can assess both kinds of situations and calmly identify solutions. Problem-solving skills are traits that enable you to do that. While employers value problem-solving skills, they are also highly useful in other areas of life, like relationship building and day-to-day decision making. Problem-solving skills help you determine the source of a problem and find an effective solution. Although problem-solving is often identified as its skill, other related skills contribute to this ability. Some key problem-solving skills include:
Active listening
Analysis
Research
Creativity
Communication
Dependability
Decision making
Team-building
The four stages of problem-solving
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You can use many different approaches to problem-solving, but you will typically work through four distinct stages no matter what route you take. Understanding each step of the process will help you hone your problem skills to better serve you along your journey toward a smart, workable solution. Define the problem: Identify the issue that you are dealing with. Observe the problem area closely to form a detailed image of what is wrong. Analyse employee behaviour, workplace policies, and operating procedures. Keep your focus on the problem at this point and resist the urge to define the problem in terms of a solution. For example, "We need to improve training procedures" speaks to the solution more than the problem. "Sales documentation is inconsistent" better defines the issue. Brainstorm alternatives: This is one of the most important stages of problem-solving. It requires a careful balance of creativity and logical thinking. Compare all possible alternatives. Analyse the money, time, staff, and resources necessary for each approach as well as the return that you can expect from various strategies. Choose the best strategy: Strong decision-making is essential at this stage. After carefully considering all your options, you must select the best strategy for your problem and stick with your choice. Employees who waver or struggle to commit to a single plan do not make good problem solvers because they get stuck at this essential point in the process. Implement your solution: Implementation is the critical peak of the problem-solving process. This is where you draw up an action plan, share it with the appropriate personnel, and follow through with your chosen approach.
Essential skills for successful problem-solving Problem-solving may seem straightforward at first glance, but many employees stumble over one or more of the critical steps, failing to resolve workplace issues successfully. Successful problem-solving requires several important skills that will help you proceed efficiently from identification to implementation. "You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created." — Albert Einstein In the early stages of problem-solving, you need to have strong observational skills. Rather than accepting issues at face value, you need to demonstrate lateral thinking and analytical abilities. These will help you properly assess what is going on and pinpoint the core cause of the issue. As you explore potential solutions to the issue, you must demonstrate persistence. Finding the right approach to the issue will not come easily. Innovative thinking will serve you well. Employees who know how to utilise their creative thinking facilities will excel in the second and third stages of problemsolving, as they're able to come up with approaches that others have overlooked. Implementing your solution requires its skillset. This typically requires a careful balance of teamwork and leadership. You will need to demonstrate resilience to withstand inevitable pushback 60 | P a g e
from co-workers who resist change. Both communication and negotiation are important at this point. Once you have implemented your solution, you'll need to utilise critical thinking and attention to detail as you assess the results and tweak your strategy as needed to make sure the problem is successfully resolved. Improving your problem-solving skills will give you a distinct edge both in a management job and in other positions within your company. You can hone your problem-solving skills by:
Practicing brainstorming activities such as mind mapping Approaching everyday issues with a "what if" mentality, regularly testing new approaches Keeping an idea journal where you jot down all your ideas, no matter how out-of-the-box Working through logic puzzles and games like Sudoku Following industry publications covering the latest software and strategies for common issues
3.3 Facilitate team to identify, brainstorm, report and resolve task-related issues and inefficiencies How to facilitate the team in the workplace? Team facilitation is more art than science. Effective facilitators possess qualities and characteristics such as objectivity, good problem solving, decision making, team management and communications skills that are difficult to measure in quantitative terms. The facilitation process determines how team members in your small business interact with each other and with the entire team, as well as how they make decisions, solve problems, and manage conflicts as a team. Know Your Responsibilities A facilitation perspective is that a good process will produce a good outcome. This perspective means the role of a team facilitator is more focused on team meetings and on how teams work together during meetings than on a specific work product or outcome. Responsibilities focus on designing and planning team meetings, guiding the meeting as it progresses and ensuring there is effective and active participation. Once the meeting ends, facilitators remain responsible for ensuring meeting minutes, including outcomes, actions and questions are properly recorded, and any required follow-up is effectively dealt with before the next scheduled meeting. 61 | P a g e
Create an Agenda Start by creating a detailed meeting plan that clearly defines the purpose of the meeting and outlines meeting objectives. Distribute the plan a few days before the meeting, so attendees know what to expect and have time to prepare. The more detail you include, the more helpful a schedule will be as a tool in facilitation. A plan can, for example, ensure meeting don’t run over their allotted time, keep participants focused, increase meeting participation and eliminate the potential for any excuses when participants have deliverables to present. Set Appropriate Ground Rules Clear, well-defined ground rules are crucial for ensuring the meeting atmosphere is courteous and respectful, especially if you expect a heated debate to ensue. Start the meeting by allowing everyone to participate in setting ground rules that focus, for example, on participation and the value of differing opinions. Include a confidentiality ground rule and a list of what won’t be tolerated when opinions clash and participants disagree, such as put-downs, name-calling or personal attacks: record and display ground rules throughout the meeting in a conspicuous location. Observe and Intervene Keep team meetings on track and focused on meeting objectives by observing what is going on and intervening when necessary. For example, intervene when one or two participants appear to be controlling the discussion by directing a question toward an inactive participant. Encourage broad participation by asking open-ended questions that encourage discussion and thoughtful, open communication. Be direct and upfront when discussions start to go off-track by reminding the group of the topic originally up for discussion. Offer to schedule another meeting to discuss the new topic or let the group know you will include it on the agenda for the next regularly scheduled meeting. Make space for everyone to contribute Sometimes there is a “celebrity” in the room: a strong personality with strong opinions which is highly respected by other people in the group. They can dominate the discussion (usually without intending to), or even disrupt it by advancing their agenda. Give them a pen and ask them to take charge of capturing ideas on the whiteboard. Not only does this intrinsically task them with listening (i.e., creating space for others to speak), you also avoid the scenario where they sit in the back of the room trashing ideas that diverge from their own. No, hecklers, please. If they are a strong detractor or feel particularly strongly about the session, you will be glad you shared the plan and purpose in advance and gathered their input before the meeting. Help them walk in ready to make a constructive contribution. Facilitate conversation through questions Many meetings are essentially problem-solving workshops. As the meeting facilitator, it’s not your job to have all the answers. It is your job, however, to lead the group to answers. That means posing the right questions at the right time. When done well, pointed questions will challenge assumptions that may be preventing the group from getting to that “ah-ha!” moment.
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Even if you think you have The Answer, resist the temptation to offer it up. Instead, ask leading questions that guide the group to that answer (it is more meaningful if they arrive at that conclusion themselves). Here are a few questions that you can use:
Can you expand on that point? Is this conversation moving us in the direction we want? How would you summarise that?
What would that look like? How does that make you feel? How would you measure success in that instance?
Of course, asking the right questions requires you to bust out your active listening skills. Give the group space to burn through the ideas that come quickly and pay attention to what they are saying so you know which questions can get them to think deeper. But generally, stay out of the discussion until it stalls out or starts going in circles. Read the room Tune into the energy of the room and look for visual cues like body language. Are people fidgeting in frustration? Do looks of discontent or disagreement abound? These are signs you need to intervene. It is ok to gauge sentiment in the room by simply asking people straight-up: Is this resonating? Do we feel comfortable with the progress we are making? Bringing focus to the group’s emotional state helps you understand whether they are engaged or disconnected. And if the group is disconnected, it is time for you to jump in and lead them down an alternate path. Create a “parking lot” for good ideas that distract If an idea pops up that is valuable, but off-point, offer to create a “parking lot” and jot it down (usually on the whiteboard or in the meeting notes) so you can come back to it later. Because right now is all about nailing your objective for this meeting. Knowing their thoughts are not lost forever to the aether helps people return their focus to the outcome you are striving for. Know your audience 63 | P a g e
If you’re facilitating a problem-solving meeting or a retrospective, be on high alert for people who need to be drawn into the discussion. Consider the personality types amongst your attendees and try to get everyone to contribute to the discussion evenly (more or less). The quiet people in the group might not be shy, per se. They might have a lot to say if given the opportunity. It’s your job as the facilitator to carve out space for them to speak. A veteran facilitator might even observe people as they enter the room, mentally noting who they sit next to or who they avoid. It is ok to use your judgment and re-arrange chairs (or who sits where) if that will help bring out the best in everyone. Also, understand who has the final say on whatever decisions you are making, and use them as a tiebreaker if the group can’t reach a consensus. That person can also come in handy when deciding who owns follow-up items. Get moving to keep the energy up Stand up, congregate around the whiteboard, and bring some dynamic energy to the room. One deadsimple facilitation hack is having people write their thoughts on sticky notes, then walk up to the front of the room and post them a whiteboard or butcher’s paper. Once everyone is done posting up ideas, take turns coming upfront to present those ideas to the group. Works great in problem-solving or brainstorming meetings like mind mapping and premortems.
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Self – Assessment Question 1: What steps you will follow to support team member in the workplace? Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Question 2: Why coaching is different from consulting? Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Question 3: Why problem-solving skills are important in the workplace? Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________
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Chapter 4: Monitor team performance This chapter is going to discuss the following points in detail:
Measure team member performance against agreed work plans
Provide timely and constructive performance feedback to team members according to expected organisational standards Identify specific learning and development opportunities to improve team and individual performance and behaviours
Implement action plans to address individual and team training needs
4.1 Measure team member performance against agreed work plans 4.2 Provide timely and constructive performance feedback to team members according to expected organisational standards
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What is the work plan/ project plan, and how to develop an effective work plan? A work plan represents the formal road map for a project. It should clearly articulate the required steps to achieve a stated goal by setting demonstrable objectives and measurable deliverables that can be transformed into concrete actions. An effective plan serves as a guiding document, enabling the realisation of an outcome through efficient team collaboration. Before developing the methodology to create an effective plan, it can be useful to define some relevant terminology. Goals, strategy, objectives and tactics are terms that are often used interchangeably. However, each has a specific meaning. A goal defines what you are trying to achieve and represents the mission concept. For example, a hypothetical example might be to achieve world domination, or perhaps something less ambitious, like make your company more profitable. Strategy defines the broad strokes that will help achieve that goal. For example, one strategy to make a company more profitable might be to improve the efficiency of marketing dollars. Another might be to reduce costs or enhance the product offering to increase the total addressable market. Objectives are the measurable deliverables defined against strategies. For example, an objective for improving the efficiency of marketing dollars might be defined as achieving a 20% reduction in cost per acquisition. Setting clear, measurable and realistic objectives can help prioritise and track the progress of the operational plan. Tactics represent the specific checklist of techniques employed to achieve the demonstrable objectives. For example, improving the efficiency of marketing dollars by 20% might be achieved through the tactic of adding low acquisition cost channels to the mix, such as SEO or social media marketing. Another tactic might be to test new messaging or creative, find new keywords to advertise on or improve the performance of direct response landing pages. The final goal is to create a step-by-step worksheet. Before creating a detailed plan, the preliminary stages might involve a meeting of key stakeholders and project sponsors. The first step is to establish a goal and determine some strategic ideas. This will facilitate the development of a broad general outline, identify some of the larger strategic considerations, and help define scope constraints. Brainstorming can often identify individual strategies and tactics to support key objectives.
Work plan template PROJECT MANAGER
PROJECT NAME PROJECT DELIVERABLE SCOPE STATEMENT START DATE
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00/00/0000
END DATE
00/00/0000
OVERALL PROGRESS
0%
AT RISK
TASK NAME
ASSIGNED TO
START DATE
END DATE
DURATION STATUS in days
How to measure team performance? Measuring a team’s effectiveness is different than measuring an individual’s performance. Metrics need to be established for every team project (at the outset), and every project needs to provide value to the organisation. Here are our top five ways to measure team effectiveness:
Establish Metrics for Each Team Project Meet Often with the Team Talk to Other Managers at the Company Meet One on One with Team Members Ask Yourself If the Team’s Projects Provide Value to the Company
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1. Establish Metrics for Each Team Project A manager cannot determine if a project has been successful without predefined metrics. Metrics provide a way of measurement. If a team is tasked with a job, how will they know if they have accomplished it if metrics are not established beforehand? Let’s give an example. Sarah, Bill, and Marc work for Touchstone Research in Melbourne. They have been tasked by their supervisor, Andre, with generating more client leads for the sales division. The company sells research software. If Andre’s ask of them is “Generate more leads for sales”, then that is a problem. The word “lead” has not been defined. Nor has the exact number of leads they need to acquire, or when. In other words, metrics have not been established. Metrics need to be established for every project so that all team members understand the expectations. This will also help them to plan resources better. Let’s try this again. Sarah, Bill, and Marc have been tasked with “generating 100 qualified leads by the end of the quarter”. A “qualified” lead is someone who has already expressed interest in a company’s product. The management at Touchstone has already defined a “qualified lead”. It is anyone who visited the company’s website and downloaded a free eBook AND visited the pricing page. Those last two action items have to happen to classify the visitor as a qualified lead. To boost the number of qualified leads in the hopes of reaching the goal, the team will look at producing more relevant and unique content on the website. Keep in mind this metric was for a team assignment. The roles of the team members have to be established clearly so that later Andre does not hear “that part was not my responsibility”. For instance, in this scenario, perhaps Bill is team leader, responsible for determining the new type of content the site will offer, Marc will write it, and Sarah will market it through search engine optimisation techniques and a search engine marketing campaign. One-way managers can be assured that team members are in a good position to take on a project is through the setting of SMART goals. SMART goals include measures for success. 2. Meet Often with the Team As a manager, you cannot fully measure a team’s effectiveness unless you meet with your team regularly. There could be roadblocks the team members are facing that you do not know about, and never will unless you have regular meetings specifically about the team’s projects. For instance, maybe the team was able to realise 80 qualified leads but could have possibly reached 100 if there were not so many delays with the web team putting up the content. Had Andre known this earlier, he could have sat down with the appropriate managers and tried to work up a solution. But the team did not meet again until a month after the project began, so by that point, it was too late to fix the problem.
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Hold regular weekly or bi-weekly meetings with team members. Ask them about their challenges, and if they have enough resources to get their projects done. If something is stopping them from realising an objective, that’s the time to troubleshoot the issues together, or perhaps for you to escalate them. 3. Talk to Other Managers at the Company A team will almost certainly need help from other departments to execute its plan and reach its goals. But are they going about their tasks in the right way? Are they following existing protocols or procedures, or are they taking back door approaches that may be irritating to other staff members, and slowing down the process? Most managers already have regular meetings with other managers at a company or one-on-ones related to specific projects. This can be the time to probe gently about the relationship between your team and other teams, and if there is anything more, you can do to help. Let’s use an example. Andre’s team does not “own” the keys to the company’s website, meaning they cannot just build a new webpage themselves, nor are they qualified to do it. For instance, Marc can write content, but he does not have the skills to design a webpage. The team needs a designer, who will use what Marc has written, in his creation. They also need someone to update the site and apply the necessary links and tracking tools. At Touchstone, that is all done through the “Digital Design” team. Their policy is six weeks’ notice for any new design and pages build, and an additional week’s notice to “drop” the page into the site. Andre meets with the digital design manager, Marisa, every Tuesday. They meet so they can update each other on a special project they are working on. At the end of the next meeting, Andre mentions the team’s “qualified leads” project. One of three things could happen here: Marisa may say she knows nothing about the project. This could be good news, meaning her team hasn’t flagged any issues. Marisa is versed on the project. Perhaps she mentions that Andre’s team has gotten their requests in on time, and everything is proceeding smoothly. Maybe she lets Andre know her staff is also really satisfied with how well his team members have supplied all the information Marisa’s team needs. Marisa is versed on the project but notifies Andre that there has been little or no movement on his team’s end. The due date is fast approaching, but her team hasn’t been briefed, and the proper forms haven’t been submitted. #1 and #2 may mean Andre’s team is working effectively. # 3 means it is not. 4. Meet One on One with Team Members As a manager, you are most likely meeting with your employees individually, and regularly. If not, you should consider status updates. During your meetings, take the time to ask specifically about any team projects on the go. This shouldn’t be just about whether it’s looking like the team will meet its goals, but how the individual team member is feeling about his or her role. 70 | P a g e
At Touchstone, Andre meets with his team members every two weeks, individually. At their most recent status updates, Bill and Sarah were satisfied with the direction the “qualified leads” project was taking, and their roles in it. However, Marc has been experiencing some problems with Bill’s leadership, that he didn’t want to bring up in the group meeting. Bill hasn’t been providing promised information or following up when he says he’s going to follow up. Andre now has to determine whether Marc’s complaints are valid, because if they are, then the team is no longer effective. 5. Ask Yourself If the Team’s Projects Provide Value to the Company Think about the projects your team are tasked with. Do they provide value to the organisation? And if so, how? Senior management will want to know. Larger companies often suffer from too many make-work projects. This is because sometimes there are too many people and not enough things to do. To fill this time, projects of little or no importance are assigned. This means resources are being used up for something that most likely won’t matter, and will not result in additional revenue for the company (whether directly or indirectly). This can reflect poorly on a manager and the perception of his leadership capabilities. Good leaders should ensure every project provides value, and are aligned with the company’s overall strategies.
Constructive feedback
Constructive feedback is supportive feedback given to individuals to help identify solutions to areas of weakness they may have. Therefore, it comes with positive intentions and is used as a supportive communication tool to address specific issues or concerns. Purpose of Constructive Feedback The purpose of constructive feedback is to give feedback to an individual in a way that will lead to improvements or corrections. This is important, as it enhances personal and professional growth in individuals. For example, constructive feedback can:
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Improve employee morale
Reduce confusion regarding expectations and current performance Provide a new perspective and give valuable insight to the person receiving feedback
Positively impact an individual’s behaviour
Making Feedback Constructive It is important to be able to differentiate between constructive feedback and destructive feedback. Destructive feedback points at faults and is a direct attack on the individual. In destructive feedback, no practical advice or supportive feedback is given. Examples of destructive feedback include:
“You’re wrong.” “That is not how you do things around here.” “You have no idea what you are doing.”
Here are some tips for making feedback. Constructive: 1. Focus on observation and not inference Constructive feedback should relate to what you can see or hear about that person’s behaviour rather than making assumptions and interpretations. 2. Focus on behaviour and not the individual Constructive feedback should be about what the individual did rather than who the individual is. 3. Focus on things that can be changed Constructive feedback should be about things that a person can change and improve on rather than on something that is out of his/her control. 72 | P a g e
4. Provide recommendations and solutions Constructive feedback should include a specific solution or recommendation. Examples of Constructive Feedback Consider the following examples of giving constructive feedback: 1. John has been an employee at your company for six months. Lately, he seems disengaged and not motivated to work. A response can be: “I have noticed that you don’t seem as motivated to do work as you usually do, and it makes me feel like I am doing something wrong. If there are reasons as to why you are feeling this way, I would love to talk with you about it. I think if we meet up once a week to check up on everything, you could be much happier.” 2. Michelle has constantly been showing up late for work. A response can be: “When you show up late to work every day, it irritates me because it feels like you are letting our team down. The hours are 9 to 3, and when you show up late to work, it hurts our team. What do you think? From now on, I need you to arrive to work on time and change your behaviour.” How to Give Constructive Feedback Here are five steps for giving constructive feedback: 1. State the purpose of your feedback State what you will be talking about and why it is important. 2. Describe what you have observed and your reaction Identify the action or event and how it makes you or other members feel. 3. allow the individual to respond After you have stated the purpose, importance, observation, and your reaction, ask the person what they think about it. 4. Offer specific suggestions or solutions After you hear the individual out, give input as to how the situation can be improved. 5. Summarise everything discussed Summarise everything that was discussed to avoid any misunderstandings. Also, summarising helps ensure that constructive feedback was communicated efficiently. 73 | P a g e
4.3 Identify specific learning and development opportunities to improve team and individual performance and behaviours 4.4 Implement action plans to address individual and team training needs Identify training needs Regular training and development for all members of staff should be an integral part of your business culture. Training is good for everyone. It helps you stay ahead of your competitors by keeping up with the latest developments in your sector. It is good for staff retention, as it means that nobody will ever feel like they are in a dead-end job. It will help you attract top talent, as people want to work for businesses that care about their ongoing development. And as it can improve job satisfaction, it’s a major contributor to employee wellbeing. But you should never offer training and development for the sake of it. You need to offer the sort of training that is going to make a difference. So how can you identify your employees’ training and development needs? In this post, we’ll look at a few ways you can find and fill skill gaps in your business. The hardest part of developing your team can be knowing where to begin. Start by understanding your team members' developmental needs. Review and update their job descriptions, talk to them, and watch them working. Often, just asking the right questions can reveal knowledge and skill gaps in your team. For example, what is the key part of a person's role? And what is your team's most urgent performance issue? This is particularly helpful if your workplace does not have a culture of performance management, that is a system of regularly appraising and improving people's performance. If your team members are not used to having their performance appraised and developed in this way, they may view it as a negative judgment of their competency. Gathering specific information about what they need to be successful in their roles will help them to feel positive about developing themselves. You can use a Training Needs Assessment to help you to identify who needs to develop their skills, and what kind of training is right for them. This will allow you to select training in a targeted way for the people who need it. After all, Excel training for one team member who is having trouble with spreadsheets may be a waste of time for other team members with different needs. 1. Understanding Your Employee Training and Development
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First, understand that any training you offer your employees will fall into one of three categories: Industry Training. This could involve helping employees get up to speed on new products, processes, or equipment. Job Training – The sort of training that helps employees do their job better. This could be sales training for call centre staff, or health and safety training for warehouse staff. Personal Development – Train the person behind the role. This could involve emotional intelligence training, mental health first aid training, leadership skills, and anything else that could make an employee more resilient overall. Not all employees will need all types of training. But how do you find out just what your business and your employees need? 2. Talk to Your Employees
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It is always good to talk to We’ve previously explored how talking to your employees can help you optimise many aspects of your business, from mental health issues to long-term sickness absence, to your employee rewards scheme. Similarly, if you want to know what sort of training your employees need, all you have to do is ask. Schedule a friendly chat with every member of your team. Make it clear that it’s not a performance review but ask them if there’s an area of their role that they feel is lacking. Ask them if they have any comments about your current training program, and whether they feel that it supports their career goals. At the same time, you need to gather feedback from any managers and supervisors about the employees they oversee. Do they feel there are any skill gaps? You can also ask employees to rate their managers for performance. You will gather a lot of feedback, and you will very likely spot patterns. The recurring themes in the feedback will effectively signpost the sort of training you need. 3. Set Clear Expectations and Goals
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For every member of your team, you need to go beyond the job description. You need to set clear responsibilities, expectations, and goals for everyone in your business. This will make it easier for you to measure everyone’s performance. And when it comes to measuring performance, you may need an attitude shift. You do not measure performance to catch out and reprimand employees. You are doing it as a means of supporting them. Are they in a position to do their job to the best of their abilities? If performance is lacking, is there any training or development that might help improve performance? 4. Create Personal Development Plans
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This is an integral part of job satisfaction, staff retention and employee engagement. Developing a personal development plan for every member of their team will make them feel like you are actively invested in their success, which will make them feel more invested in your business. But personal development plans can also help you to identify any training requirements. You need to discuss personal development with your employees routinely. You need to set goals and review them. Ask employees how they feel things are going. If they struggled to meet a goal, or if they did not quite hit their targets, perhaps some training will help? 5. Conduct Organisational, Task, and Work Analysis
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An organisational analysis should answer the question – what are your business goals, and what are your strategies for achieving them? This should be followed by task analysis. Which tasks need to be completed to meet these business goals? Finally, there should be a work analysis. What does everyone do all day? Is any time being spent on tasks that perhaps aren’t so pressing? Could you divert any resources to ensure that you’re working towards achieving your organisational goals? A series of analyses will help you to identify universal training needs. For example, you may find that some members of the team are spread too thin. Training an additional employee to take on some of their responsibilities will help relieve the pressure. 6. Leverage Systems and Software
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There are many online learning and development tools out there. Some are more effective than others. So, before you invest in any training tools for your team, make sure they will offer the sort of training that aligns with your goals. Read reviews, gather feedback, and ask for a trial before you fully invest.
Identify professional learning needs The first step in any professional learning and development planning process is self-reflection. This provides the opportunity to think through your personal and professional priorities, and to examine your achievements and future learning needs. If you regularly, or even irregularly, record personal reflections about your work practice, for example, a log, a diary, e-portfolio, network discussions or private practice notes, these can help you to identify the areas of professional development you might like to focus on in the coming year. Notes on how you currently perform using the professional standards relevant to your current role will be particularly valuable for identifying areas of possible development. Example One of the areas that stand out in your writing over the past three to six months is a repeated reflection on the frustration you experience in dealing with staffing performance issues. You might like to explore whether there are any courses, workshops, or coaching options available that might give you the ideas, tools or skills to handle these instances more effectively. Self-evaluation data
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Supporting your judgements with empirical evidence is essential to developing a robust professional learning and development plan that will gain the support of your board. If you have any evidential data on your current professional skills and knowledge and personal attributes and how these contribute to your professional role, these can be used to identify your professional learning needs. Useful tools might include, but are not restricted to, personality assessments such as Myers Briggs; The Big Five Personality Traits; Keirsey Temperament Sorter; or team psychometrics or 360-degree surveys. You might also like to review your cultural competency using Tātaiako. Performance evidence from others You can get useful information on your performance from the reflections of people who see you carrying out the role regularly or are affected by your performance in the role. This could be staff members, students, colleague, manager, parents, members of the school community, or school supporters and suppliers. Seek out and document evidence of your performance from your stakeholder groups. Use the feedback they give you to help you to drill down to specific areas for further learning and development. Example You want to learn more about financial management. There is nothing wrong with the state of the school’s finances, but you are not comfortable that the balance sheet always makes complete sense to you. At the end of each month, it is a stressful process for you and your senior staff members to gather all of the relevant data and ensure that everything is accounted for. It feels uncertain, but you are not sure what specifically might help. Your board suggests that you would find it useful to change some of the financial reporting practices at the school so that the monthly balance sheet reconciliation is less of a mission for everyone. Focusing your learning on financial reporting and recording might help you to understand and work with the board fully and your senior management team to put changes in place that will help all of you. Many tertiary institutions in Australia offer short courses in Finance for Non-financial Managers that may be helpful. Agreeing your priorities with the board Before you use the priorities you have identified as the basis for your professional learning and development plan, it is a good idea to check them out with your board, or board representative. This opens the conversation and ensures there are no surprises on either side as the planning process continues. If the board has additional or alternative priorities they would like you to focus on, the template can be used as the basis of a conversation to finalise and agree with your priorities.
How to assess your learning needs
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If you are a reflective practitioner, then it is likely that you assess your learning needs already—albeit unconsciously. So how should you do it formally? At this stage, the average practitioner who wants to find out more may be puzzled. The Good CPD Guide lists over 40 different methods of assessment. They range from keeping a diary of knowledge gaps to assessing your practice risks to formal patient satisfaction surveys. You can use them to assess your own needs or those of your practice. But most busy clinicians will want to choose from a more limited list of tools to assess their learning needs. Here is a sample of tools that you may want to try out. 360° appraisal If you work in a team, you can do a formal 360 appraisal: this involves asking your colleagues to give feedback on your strengths and weaknesses. The colleagues can be doctors or can be interdisciplinary members of your team. They can give feedback on your knowledge, skills or attitudes, or even your abilities as a team player. Those giving feedback should remember that it should be balanced, descriptive, objective and constructive. It is not helpful to say ‘you are useless and you always will be, and you said horrible things about me’. It is helpful to say ‘you are good with patients, but you don't always keep good notes, and you should work on this’. Critical incident reviews The primary purpose of these reviews is to find out what went wrong, how and why it went wrong and how to prevent errors from being repeated. But they can also be used as an educational tool. A real incident that occurred to your team is likely to concentrate minds much more effectively than a dry research paper. The review could look at things that went wrong (for example, a patient is given a drug to which they were allergic). Still, it could equally look at events that had a positive outcome (for example, how the team worked effectively to cure a patient with meningitis). Such reviews should be structured. First, you should identify what incident you should look at and then give everyone time to prepare his or her thoughts before the meeting. Then you should conduct the review in as far away as possible. The purpose of the review is not to blame individuals but to find out what the team can learn from what went wrong. Self-assessment This involves keeping a diary of learning needs that crop up during your working day. You might jot down something in a consultation or write a note about an issue from a practice meeting. By looking back at your diary, you can identify your knowledge gaps. They may be just individual gaps, but if you look more closely, you may start to identify systematic gaps (for example, you may discover that 40% of your learning needs discovered in this way are about diabetes). Doctors who keep a diary generate more specific learning objectives than those who do not. Practice Review This could involve using data that already exist or doing a formal patient satisfaction questionnaire. The latter requires you to have confidence in yourself and your colleagues and to be robust enough to accept criticism. Observation 82 | P a g e
Alternatively, you could ask your colleagues to observe your performance and to give feedback on what you could do better. Observing how you practise by recording your consultations on video is a powerful tool that can help you identify your learning needs. It is particularly good at looking at how you communicate and how patient-centred you are in your consultations. Video analysis is already used extensively to assess competence in exams and summative assessment of GP registrars. There are a variety of methods to help you uncover the gaps in your knowledge—different methods will suit different people. It is best to use more than one method, and a combination of subjective and objective methods often gives a better overall picture of your knowledge gaps.
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Self – Assessment Question 1: What steps you will follow to develop a work plan? Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Question 2: Why constructive feedback is important in the workplace? Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Question 3: Explain 306 appraisal. Answer: __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________
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References 1. Addesso, P 1996, Management Would Be Easy... If It Weren't for The People, AMACOM Division of the American Management Association, New York. 2. Belbin, M 1981, Management teams: why they succeed and fail, Heinemann Professional, Oxford. 3. https://creately.com/blog/business/business-contingency-plan-templates/ 4. https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/contingency-plan 5. https://www.educba.com/different-methods-of-communication/ 6. https://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/2014/09/5-keys-to-successfully-allocating-work-acrossyour-team/ 7. https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-collaboration-in-the-workplace-definition-benefitsexamples.html#:~:text=Collaboration%20in%20the%20workplace%20is%20when%20two%20or %20more%20people,taken%20to%20a%20higher%20level.&text=The%20phrase%20'putting%2 0our%20heads,this%20important%20element%20of%20collaboration. 8. https://www.atlassian.com/blog/teamwork/virtual-collaboration-not-just-for-remote-teamsanymore#:~:text=Virtual%20collaboration%20refers%20to%20working,%2C%20extranets%2C% 20and%20digital%20whiteboards. 9. https://internationalcoachingcommunity.com/what-is-coaching/ 10. https://www.quantumworkplace.com/future-of-work/12-rules-for-effective-employee-coaching 11. https://www.thoughtfulleader.com/ways-to-support-your-team/ 12. https://www.atlassian.com/blog/inside-atlassian/how-to-facilitate-meetings-guide 13. https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/what-are-problemsolving-skills-and-why-are-theyimportant 14. https://www.e-days.com/news/identify-employee-training-development-needs
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